friday breakfast: cup o' green & a pot o' gold

Happy (early) St. Patrick's Day!  Even though technically my dad's family is of Scottish descent, everyone is Irish this weekend, right?  Plus - as a Scot, I've heard you're supposed to wear orange on St. Patrick's Day, but I am avoiding orange, remember?  (In all actuality, you probably don't remember, as yesterday's post got a whopping 31 hits, total.  As opposed to my peanut-butter banana ice cream post, which got 78 hits in the first two hours.  I wonder which one y'all liked more.)

In celebration of the fine day, I bring you.....not corned beef or Irish soda bread.  Not Guinness or Bailey's cupcakes....though you could have this breakfast with an Irish coffee, if you'd like.  No, I bring you a delicious, healthy green breakfast smoothie to start your day, before you go and wreck your liver and clog your arteries in honor of St. Pat!  And, there's a pot of gold along with it!  Light, fluffy scrambled eggs. 

Before you have a seizure because I am suggesting you start your day off with green slime, hear me out.  This is a "normal" fruit smoothie with just a couple of handfuls of spinach added in for good measure.  I promise you can't even taste it - even my coworker has gotten her one-year-old hooked on these smoothies.  They taste great while providing a bevy of benefits from the added vegetable boost.  Excuse me for a second or ten as I extoll the virtues of my favorite leafy green.  Spinach boasts ridiculous levels of Vitamin K (one cup provides 1110% of your daily needs!), Vitamin A (300%), manganese, iron, folate, calcium, and even Vitamin C (goodbye, orange things!)

I add whatever frozen fruit I have on hand.  I prefer using yellow fruits because the smoothie retains that nice, bright green color.  Using red and blue fruits, like berries, is fine, but it looks a little gross if it starts to separate.  This may be okay if it doesn't bother you, or if you're drinking it out of an opague travel mug, but otherwise, expect to get weird looks.  I add Greek yogurt to the smoothie to make it a substantial, protein-filled breakfast-on-the-run, or I leave it out if it is accompanying another breakfast item (like these scrambled eggs).

I won't insult your intelligence with a recipe for scrambled eggs.  I have a lot more faith in you than that.  But if you don't know how to scramble an egg, email me and we can chat.

May the luck of the Irish be with you today and every day!  And may the luck of the Irish be with my Hoos today in the tournament!

Green breakfast smoothie
Serves one or two

1/2 frozen banana
1/2 - 3/4 cup frozen yellow fruit (e.g. pineapple, mango, peaches)
2 handfuls baby spinach
6 ounces Greek yogurt (optional)
1 cup almond milk or water (bump up to 1 1/2 cups if using yogurt)
6 ice cubes

1.  Combine all ingredients in a blender. If you're OCD and you need a specific order, load spinach first, then fruit, liquid/yogurt, and ice - the heavier ingredients will weigh down the spinach and keep it from sticking to the sides.  Blend, changing proportions until reaching your desired consistency, until smooth. Pin It Now!

friday breakfast: round 3

Photo from Cooking Light, via myrecipes.com (Google image search)

Good morning and Happy Friday!  As you're reading this, I'm on an isolated cay in the Bahamas, sipping this delicious breakfast smoothie on a porch swing of a rustic bungalow and enjoying the breathtaking view:

April Fool's!

(I took that picture three years ago in Formentera, Spain.)

I'm in DC, where it has been 48 degrees and rainy since Tuesday.  To make matters worse, I have to join the legions of American cubicle-dwellers today and go into my office.  Woe is me.  I've got a deadline this afternoon, and unfortunately the work that needs to get done is not able to be completed from my kitchen table.  So, sorry to disappoint, but there's no eggy deliciousness this morning.

But it's April 1st!  Crazy!  Where's Spring?

Oh wait, that's right.  It's April.  In the mid-Atlantic.  That doesn't mean it's "Spring."  Let me explain something to you.  I am a realist and I always have been.  To me, the glass is neither half empty nor half full - it's an eight-ounce glass with four ounces of water in it.  Therefore, I fully understand that "Spring" in this area is practically non-existent - it's just a few weeks at the end of April with temperatures too warm for sweaters but too cold for shorts, and also chock full of rain clouds.  Spring is neither good nor bad - it just is what it is.  (Obviously.  What does that phrase even mean anyway?)

Because I take things at face value, and also because I've lived in this climate for twenty-something years, I generally accept this so-called "Spring" for what it is, and get on with my day.  But sometimes, I long for the springtime of classic novels and contemporary romcoms - a beautiful season in which people's bitterness melts away with the winter frost and men and women alike are smiley again. Hey, I may be a realist, but occasionally I let myself dream.

So what do you eat when your body screams "SPRING" but the weather is decidedly undecided?  Make this smoothie!  It is sure to transport you to a tropical paradise.  I've had this breakfast smoothie three times this week; I drink it on the way to work and I swear I'm actually happier when I walk in my office than when I walk out my door.

And that's sayin' a lot.

Mango-Banana Smoothie - A 40-day Vegetarian original
Serves 2-3 

1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) fat free or reduced-fat Greek yogurt
1 cup skim or reduced-fat milk
2 bananas
1 large ripe mango
3/4 cup frozen blueberries

Combine yogurt, milk, bananas, and mango in a blender.  If too thick, thin with 3/4 cup of water or more milk. 

Everyone have a delicious weekend! (and Happy Birthday, Rickey!)
  

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