Wednesday, March 10, 2010

New Project Debut!

Hi Friends! I'm really excited to announce a new project I've been developing: (anne)vironment.

This is an environmentally-focused website containing travel information, recipes, product and event reviews and more! Please take a peek, and check back frequently to see what's been added.

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A Better Breakfast

I've mentioned in previous posts how I've been eating the Amazing Grass Berry Green SuperFood mixed with yogurt. I stepped it up a notch and have been making fruit smoothies with my awesome new food processor (I love this appliance so much!).

I accidentally deleted the pictures of the first smoothie, but it was made with a few spoonfuls of organic vanilla yogurt, 1 banana, a handful of frozen blueberries, a splash of orange juice and a scoop of BGSF. Yum.

After seeing pineapples for only $2.50 (!) at the produce market a couple blocks over, I bought one and stared at it every day, impatiently waiting for it to ripen. When the time had come, I sliced it up and started adding it to my morning blends.

So the next creation had the same as the first but I cut back to 1/2 a banana, added frozen strawberries and fresh pineapple.


I've been wanting to cut back on the amount of dairy I consume, so this morning's smoothie was made sans yogurt after my avocados had a couple of days to ripen. To make prep a little easier in the morning (I need to save every minute possible since I am notorious for rolling out of bed 40 minutes after my alarm goes off...oops!) I went ahead and put the 1/2 banana, fresh pineapple and frozen strawberries in the food processor bowl and put them in the fridge. That allowed the strawberries to thaw overnight. In the morning I added the frozen blueberries, the orange juice, the scoop of BGSF and half an avocado. The creamy texture and mild flavor of the avocado makes it perfect for a filler in lots of recipes (I have a great one up my sleeve to try sometime when I need a dessert!). In this mix, the avocado replaced the yogurt.


As an environmental awareness plug, I strongly advocate using locally in-season produce. Fruit gets a little difficult because so many of the fruits we love come from tropical climates. I try to do the best I can by carefully choosing the lesser of all evils. I purchase organic, fair trade bananas at my co-op which ensures that the growing process is as easy on the land as possible (shipping is still an issue, since they're from Central America). While berries are starting to show up in stores, they're not local berries. Our crops won't be ready until late summer, and I will happily wait to be able to enjoy those delicious berries. Instead I'm buying frozen berries which were picked in-season. They're not losing any significant amount of nutritional value by being frozen. Most of these early season berries don't have a lot of flavor and can have gross textures...think of all the miles these delicate fruits travel in trucks! As for the pineapple and avocados, I do buy the conventional versions of both fruits. Organic options for those are often very sparse, and the prices are a little out of my range. While I sometimes wish I could buy more organic or local products, I'm happy for now that I do what I can in at least supporting some of those options.