Mango Sunrise Smoothie Recipe

My family loves smoothies. I make them all the time and stick random ingredients in them that my children wouldn't otherwise eat. Like mango. Thing 1 is super picky, and Thing 2 is quickly following in his footsteps, so I have to trick them into eating nutritious things. Thank the lord the baby still eats everything put in front of her or I might snap. Hell, I still probably will snap.

It was a hit. Thing 1 especially liked it because it was a very smooth consistency.

Your ingredients. Use frozen fruit to avoid the need to add ice. I buy frozen fruit whenever it's on sale
and just cram it in my freezer.

Ingredients
2 C orange juice
2 C frozen mangoes
1 C frozen peaches
1 C yogurt. I prefer Dannon Light & Fit because it's low in calories and tastes like vanilla ice cream.
*optional: sometimes I add a heaping T of soy protein powder in. We are out, so I did not add any.

Blend that shit together until you get this swirling vortex of goodness:

That's the swirling vortex. You  may need to stop and push things around a little bit, but this
is how you know everything is well blended.

Enjoy.

Oh, and if you share this between four glasses (about 12 ounces per glass) each serving is just 162.5 calories. Not bad.

***********Diet Coke Update*******************
OK, giving up Diet Coke isn't ridiculously bad (so far). I'm pretty tired, but I blame it more on an amazing stomach bug that's powering through my lower GI track than the lack of DC. I also blame it on my husband, but that's just par for the course around here.

I am not suffering any withdrawal symptoms, other than salivating like a Pavlovian dog anytime I think about the sweet aroma of a freshly opened Diet Coke.

Also, the baby has somehow learned to say, "Coke." I know she did it to mock me.

Vegetarian "Crab" Rangoons

Nom, nom, nom

I heart crab Rangoons. The friedness. The cream cheese. The duck sauce. Only one problem. The crab :(
Are you a sad vegetarian who can't eat delicious crab Rangoons? Turn that frown upside down my little plant consumer. Because I have brought to you a very special recipe for vegetarian crab Rangoons. Well, there's not any crab of course, but Rangoon just sounds silly. If you say it enough, it loses all meaning. Rangoon, Rangoon, Rangoon, Rangoon. Poof. Gone.

Anyway. I totally digress. Here's what you need:

I didn't have any "regular" carrots, so I used 3 baby carrots.

• 1 package refrigerated won tons. I found mine by the tofu.
• 1 8 ounce package of cream cheese, room temp. (You could substitute a lower fat version if you'd like, but it doesn't cook up as nice)
• 1 carrot, shredded
• 1 T minced garlic (alternately two cloves garlic finely minced)
• 1 small onion, grated
• 1 T soy sauce or tamari
• 1/2 T oil
• a little bit of water in a bowl or cup or some sort of water holding vessel

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Mix all your ingredients together to create the filling.

Mix, mix, mix.

Lay out one won ton wrapper and add one teaspoon of filling in the center of wrapper. Moisten the outer edges of the won ton square with water (I just dipped my finger in the water). This helps the wrapper form a nice seal. Fold the won ton wrapper closed, creating a triangle. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Arrange those bad boys on a cookie sheet and brush with oil. I used safflower oil, but you can use whatever you have on hand.

I hate my pink counter tops.

Cook for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned. Serve with whatever you like to dip in. I like the tiny packets of duck sauce that comes when you order Chinese food. And if that shit has actual ducks in it, I don't want to know. M'kay?

And, because I love you, and I needed to be able to record my calories on my daily intake log, I figured that out for you (me). Assuming you followed the directions above and created 26 Rangoons as I did (two were not pictured above) then each "crab" Rangoon has approximately 38.5 calories. Eat a bunch.

Easy Vegetarian Lasagne

This is my go-to meal that I take to friends and relatives when they have a new baby. It's delicious, it's easy for me to make and mom to heat, and it's vaguely good for you. Pair it with some garlic bread and you're good to go. I brought it to my cousin-in-law (is that really a term?) when she had her baby awhile back and her mom has been gushing over it and asking for the recipe ever since. Since I'm super on top of things I'm going to get that right to her. It's only been 20 months or so. No big.

P.S. I totally cheat and use a jar of spaghetti sauce. Ragu actually because it's crazy cheap and delicious. And no one will know unless you tell them. Or write a blog about it.

16 lasagne noodles
4 ounces of fresh spinach, chopped
1 can artichoke hearts, rinsed and drained
1 small onion
16 ounces of ricotta
4 C mozzarella cheese, shredded
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 T olive oil
1 jar of spaghetti sauce of your choice

1. Cook noodles according to package directions, drain, and rinse with cold water.
2. Saute onion, garlic, and artichoke hearts in olive oil until onion is see through. About 5 minutes.
3. Spray bottom of 9x13 pan so your lasagne comes out smoothly later.

4. Layer noodles, sauce, cooked veggies, chopped spinach, ricotta, and mozzarella. I use my hands to spread out the ricotta because it's sticky.

I left out the artichokes because there's no way Thing 1 would eat that.

5. Repeat. Each layer uses four noodles. When you run out of noodles, you're mostly done.
6. Top the lasagne off with a little bit of sauce and mozzarella. I find it hard to ration appropriately for the topmost layer and sometimes we don't get any goodness up there. Sad face.

7. Cover with tinfoil and cook at 350 for 45 minutes. Remove tinfoil and cook for 5 minutes.

Super yum. AND miracle of miracles, everyone ate it. Even Thing 1 who is super picky.

Bananas

Sometimes (albeit very rarely because of Thing 2's penchant for bananas) we have enough overripe bananas to make banana bread. That makes Thing 1 incredibly excited because while he does not like bananas, he very much enjoys banana bread. And guess what? It's cheap.

It's been crazy hot out, which has helped the speed at which the bananas ripen, so this week we had three overripe bananas plus four frozen overripe bananas. (Sometimes when bananas are at that almost black stage I throw them in the freezer to use later in smoothies or bread) Banana bread is easy to make and a great way to use up something you might otherwise throw away. This is a recipe that my mom gave m,e with some slight modifications.

Banana Luncheon Bread
1 C All purpose flour
1 C Whole wheat flour (you can use two cups of all purpose flour, but then omit one T milk later)
1 t baking power
1 t salt
1/2 t baking soda
1/2 c shortening or butter
3 medium overripe bananas (the blacker the better, but don't let them turn to liquid!)
2 eggs
3 T milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream together shortening (or butter) and sugar. You can use a hand mixer or stand mixer for this step, but you should mix the rest of the ingredients by hand. Over mixing will make the bread dry.

I don't have a photo of what the sugar mixture looks like creamed because Captain Hook was attacking his younger brother
with the dough hook. It should gain in volume (the sugar mixture not C. Hook) and look, well, creamy. Add the eggs
one at a time and mix well.



Mash the bananas. We use this little egg fellow that my mother-in-law bought me for making egg salad.
Isn't he cute?

Mix the rest of your dry ingredients together. Add your mashed bananas to your dry ingredients and mix.
Combine the rest of the banana mixture, sugar mixture and milk, but do not over mix.

Grease your pans. Do you remember that Simpsons episode where the janitor goes in the venting system and he says,
"Grease me up, woman!" I think about that EVERY time I grease a pan.

Fill your pans. The recipe makes one loaf, but we had lots of bananas. If you're making more than one loaf,
just be careful not to over mix. I feel like I've said that a thousand times.

 Bake for 60-65 minutes. After about 20 minutes, put a sheet of tinfoil over the top of your loaf pan so the top doesn't get too dark. Unless you dig that.

Allow bread to cool for 5 minutes and then turn out. Yum, yum.

You could add nuts or chocolate chips, too, if that floats your boat. My kids are purists (read: picky) so we leave those out.