A day off while Esme is at school...

I'm using my spare time to do more than just read and knit and look up recipes.  I've started looking at a few receipt rewards and coupon sites to cushion the expenses of items for school lunch and more hair care products -- and they have paid off some already.  If I can just get in the habit.  I figured I have this free time now here and there that otherwise I'll just spend cruising around pinterest or facebook or ... and this is something that has possibility to benefit us.  And I've started another program that will reward with gift certificates to a site we use... so that is going to be cool if we can decide what we want.  I'm finding the surveys and things it asks me to do interesting and hope they will help as our household isn't very typical (that is for sure). 

Esme reports third grade is awesome!  We haven't heard anything negative from the teachers, and it is already the end of another week.  She says she loves having gym and music and all the different teachers in different classes.

I haven't played much more with the blender but I bought some apples and harvested more tomatoes today.

We watched a strange version of the Snow Queen from Netflix.  It had a very different cinema format than most movies nowadays... but it told the story (as seen from the Blue Fairy and other color books) faithfully and well. 

Celery Orange Juice

I took about half a can of mandarin oranges, all the liquid that had come in the can and two chopped celery stalks and put them in the blender this morning. I had to wash the celery extra good - it comes from the store pretty dirty.  I didn't include the tops or the very bottom of the stalk and I peeled some of the fibrous outside off of each stalk.

 

 I didn't add any extra water or sweeteners.  The mandarin oranges were in 'light syrup' as it was.  I pulsed it until it was good and mixed.

 

  I used a stainless steel vegetable steamer as a strainer to get out the pulp. 
I put a cereal bowl underneath to catch the juice.

  The juice was pretty good!  I used about half of it for breakfast (with an egg and toast) and saved half to go with me to work as part of a midmorning snack.


bits:  I've been giving Esme some mandarin oranges and mlik for breakfast a few days this week - out of this can.  She really doesn't want to eat breakfast at all... even five oranges and a 1/4 cup of milk she looks at and says 'That seems like a lot.'  She just isn't ready to eat so early (before 6 am) in the morning.  But I know she doesn't get a snacktime until about 9 or 10... so I don't want her getting cranky.  I think it is working.  She packs her own lunch to go to school and eats most of it, and Mark makes sure she has a decent supper every night to make up for it.

Spinach pineapple banana greek yogurt smoothie

I'm trying to eat more of my vegetables, and I've bought a new personal blender.  So, there will be some recipes on KnitOwl lately as I get to trying things with it.  I saw a recipe for this when I was looking for what to do with my spinach.  And, I happened to have a can of pineapple open in the fridge.  BUT - I don't have any almond milk and I don't like the stuff enough to buy it just for this.

I wanted a smoothie recipe with no almond milk.  So, I looked around a bit and combined two recipes.

1 small to medium banana, cut up (some places say to freeze the chunks)
about 1/2 cup of spinach or mixed greens.
1/3 cup of greek yogurt
1/3 cup of pineapple chunks
1/3 cup of pineapple juice from the can.
1 tsp of chia seed

Directions:
Pour the pineapple juice into the blender.  Add the greek yogurt.  Blend this up together with half of the spinach or greens.  I would reccommend taking the stems off of the leaves, they tend to leave fibers in the smoothie.  Peel and de-string the banana.  Put half of this in the blender and blend.  Put the pineapple chunks in the blender and blend.  Add the second half of the mixed greens.  Add the last half of the banana.  The smoothie will be getting thick.   Add the chia seed and blend it until it is really well mixed.  Pour it up and use right away.

I saw some sites discussing the liquid or whey that forms on the top of the Greek Yogurt.  Some places say to mix it in and others say to drain it off.  I have been noticing that my yogurt does not 'keep' as well when I drain it off.  I haven't really been mixing it in, either.  I've just been grabbing the yogurt with the spoon around the well and it has stayed good for much longer than my previous large container.

The chia seed was 98 cents for a decent size package.  I thought it wouldn't hurt to buy some and try adding it.  It claims to have Omega 3 in it.  Mark said I should try a raw egg... but even though we have our own chickens I'm not sure I want to do a raw egg.

Eggs and spinach say spinach quiche to me ;)