More Green Smoothie Attempts

I am really loving these green smoothies for breakfast.  My favorite is definitely Blueberries, strawberries, bananas, spinach, milk, greek yogurt, and honey.  I have made attempts at other flavors that didn't quite work out so well.  I thought I'd share them with you so you didn't make the same mistakes.

First, I really wanted to try peach and mango together.  So I put some frozen peaches and frozen mangos in the blender with the spinach and added the usual milk, yogurt, and honey.  It didn't taste so good, so I added a banana.  It was better and then I realized duh...should've used orange juice instead of milk.   I drank about half of it, but it was really too milky tasting for me.  I mean it wasn't horrible and if you like milk it would probably be okay, but it just wasn't for me.

I was going to try the peach and mango smoothie again this morning with O.J., but I am out of bananas.  I am also out of berries so I decided to try chocolate.  I first used one package of Carnation Instant Breakfast, a cup of milk, a half cup of yogurt, and lots of spinach.  I added the yogurt thinking oh it will be like ice cream and taste like a shake.  Yeah, not so much.  It tasted too much like plain yogurt.

Since I wasn't wasting a lot of expensive fruit, I dumped it all out and started over.  This time, I put in the Carnation Instant Breakfast, a cup of milk, a bunch of spinach, and a half cup of ice.  It was too watery so I added a second packet of Carnation Instant Breakfast.  Found a keeper!   Now this chocolate smoothie makes half as much as the berry smoothie did and had about the same amount of calories.  It also didn't fill me up quite as much as the berry smoothie normally does, but I think it would do if I was desperate.

Berry Green Monster Smoothie

I have a serious addiction to Pinterest.  These Green Monster Smoothies are all the rage over there right now.  So I decided to give it a try.

Basically, a green smoothie is any smoothie with a whole lot of spinach added to it.  Mine isn't green, but I have a feeling that is because of the color of the fruit I chose.  Actually, mine looks a lot like a glass of puke.  Doesn't that sound appetizing?  I swear it's really good.   I had my Mom and Dad both taste it and my Mom drank the whole glass.

There are probably a hundred different ways to make this and apparently some of them are actually green.  I got my inspiration from this photo found over at Sing For Your Supper. 

Now that looks good doesn't it?  I didn't exactly follow her recipe though.   

I used:

1 small banana sliced

about 5 strawberries cut into chunks

about 1/4 cup blueberries

about 1/2 cup raspberries

about 1/4 cup plain greek yogurt

about 2T honey

about 1 cup milk

and a large handful (easily a cup) of spinach

I threw it all in a blender until it was a smoothie.  It makes about two 16oz glasses (maybe less not sure of the size of my glasses).  You CAN NOT taste the spinach in any way shape or form.  So if you don't like veggies this is a good way for you to get them in.  I think this is something I need to make for my kids for breakfast since they aren't fans of traditional breakfasts or breakfast foods.

Praying Mantis

My mom was outside cleaning up the flower bed and weeds along the back deck.  She came into the house with a stick that had a weird looking cocoon on it.  I immediately started searching google to figure out what it was.  The cocoon reminded me of dried foam insulation.  However, just googling "foam cocoon" will lead you to a million links for this:

Clearly not what I was looking for.  It turns out that we have a Praying Mantis egg case.  Thanks to a forum over at Garden Web I figured out what it was. This excites me as I've always been a nature freak and Praying Mantis are cool. Once I knew what I had I did a search for praying mantis egg case, and found out I can keep it in the garage over the winter and hatch it in a paper bag in the spring.  Apparently people order these egg cases because praying mantis are so cool.  Nature's Control is one place where these can be ordered.  They also have great instructions for how to hatch your egg case.  

I took a couple of pictures so if you ever find one you'll know what it is too.

I really, really want to keep this egg case so I can hatch it and release all the praying mantis in my yard.  I live out in the country and part of our land is a swamp.  We have A LOT of bugs.  Oh, and did I mention praying mantis are REALLY cool?  But, my oldest son is in 7th grade and his science teacher has the coolest classroom I have ever seen and this egg case would fit in perfectly.  I'm contemplating emailing him and seeing if he'd like it for his classroom.  Maybe I can still get the babies after they hatch for my yard.

Please Don't Text and Drive

I frequently scold my friends for texting while driving; especially when I'm in the car.  People don't seem to understand that when they are texting while driving their lives aren't the only ones at danger.  The lives of everyone around them is in danger as well.  I would like to share a picture with you that shows what can happen when you are the one texting while driving and you aren't the one that gets hurt.

This accident just happened today. This vehicle was at a stop sign in a residential area.  It was rear-ended (at 60mph) by a 16 year old girl who was texting while she was driving.  Inside the vehicle is a 15 month old baby.  Fortunately the baby survived this crash, but not without injury.  The policeman is reaching in to comfort her until paramedics arrived.  The baby has two broken legs and cervical sprain (hopefully not severe).  She is currently in the hospital.

Please, please, please don't text, check facebook, or play with your phone while you are driving.