Smoothie Love

I love smoothies and I love my new tablecloth. I managed to confiscate such tablecloth from the deepest hiding place in a long lost cabinet shelf at the farm. I'm pretty sure that my grandmother made this tablecloth from sherry-like towel material. It's fabulous and it needed to see the light of day so it's on my table now. Thanks Grandma!

The past couple of weeks have been smoothie heaven for me. These two weeks in my kids classes we have been making two different smoothies. I normally would prepare the same food sampling in all of the classes of a particular curriculum but I decided that 11 classrooms with the same food prep would get boring for me so I decided to try two different smoothie recipes. So the smoothies I've been enjoying with the 2nd graders include:

Power-Up Smoothie 

1 banana

1 1/4 cup Orange Juice

1 1/4 cup frozen mixed berries

1/2 cup silken tofu

Soy-Good Chocolate Banana Smoothie

1 banana- sliced and frozen

1/2 cup silken tofu

1/2 cup soymilk

2 Tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

1 Tablespoon honey

These have gone over really well with the kids, although initially they freak out about eating tofu. I'll be honest, tofu is not that appetizing to look at plain, but blend it up in a smoothie and you have a great source of added protein that you don't taste at all! 

Now for the smoothies I've been making for myself for breakfast and/or lunch include a random mixture of the following:

• Whole raw milk Yogurt and/or Kefir
• Hemp protein powder
• Flax seed
• Frozen berries
• Splash of OJ
• Kale!

Smoothies are so great because as you can see you can put whatever you want into them. Just be sure to keep the added sugar (including juice) to a minimum.

Field Trip

I went on a FABULOUS field trip recently. It was a gorgeous day to get in my car and take a two hour trip to soak in the sun along the way and experience a whole new category of destination getaway. For some time now I have been wanting to visit a farm that I found online that specializes in what I would call real food. There were beef cattle grazing the pasture right beside the sheep. Additionally, there were chickens in the same pasture that are allowed to range near their chicken tractor that is moved daily. In a more distant pasture there were the dairy cattle, though not being milked at this time of year. This farm was a beautiful system of healthy animals working together with the land to produce clean, healthy, real food. You see what makes this real food in my mind is the fact that these animals are never fed what they weren't created to eat. They were created to eat grasses and their bodies remain healthy when they consume this natural diet.

I came home with several products from my field trip to JaKo, Inc. Some of the most exciting products included yogurt and kefir. While I was in the farm store selecting my products another customer asked me what kefir was. Although I've had it before it's a little difficult to explain, but I told him it was like a more liquid yogurt. Tangy like yogurt but not quite the same consistency. When I got home I decided to do my own official taste test to see what the differences really are. I assumed they tasted the same, and boy are they different! It's still quite difficult to explain but I would almost say that yogurt is sweeter than kefir. Kefir has a definite sourlike tang. They are made with similar cultures but definitely different. I will just have to recommend that you try them both to determine the difference. However, they were both outstanding. I love to have smoothies as meals made with these products.

I was also equally excited for these eggs that I truly knew to be free range eggs. I saw the chickens in the field ranging like they should be. Chickens also were created to forage eating grass, bugs, and whatever else they find. I eat eggs almost everyday in some way, shape, or form. Today it was on top of spaghetti squash sauteed with onion, garlic, venison, carrot mixture. Pretty great with a bit of pesto on top.

If you're ever near Hutchinson, Kansas you must stop and visit JaKo,Inc. This farm family is doing it right and taking an active part in creating quality real food for you and me to eat!

Yummy Yogurt!

I finally dragged the yogurt maker out of the basement, dusted it off, and put it to use! It was super easy to use and produced great results! I may be hooked.

The necessary tools: 

• Handy dandy yogurt maker
• Fresh local milk (Hildebrand is the best brand!)
• Starter culture; I used the end of my store-bought yogurt, just make sure it has active cultures
• I also added non-fat dry milk to thicken the non-fat milk that I used

I heated one quart of milk for this batch just until boiling with 1/3 cup of NFDM. It was then cooled down until the handy thermometer that came with the yogurt maker registered add starter. I'm sure there are more precise temperatures to follow, but this thing did all that work.

Put 2 large tablespoons of yogurt starter in one of the glass jars. Add warm milk and stir until smooth.

Combine all the milk and starter culture and pour into lovely glass jars.

Place in convenient yogurt maker, cover, and leave overnight or for 10 hours.

Tada! Finished yogurt after 10 hours in the machine and a day in the fridge. Yummy and delightful!