Green Breakfast Smoothie + Menu Plan

Back in July I got into juicing and making my own smoothies. I think I have tried just about every combination of fruit and veggies imaginable! Some I really like, some the kids will tolerate and others were a "well obviously these fruits don't mix well with these vegetables." It's truly been a trial and error all summer! 

However for the past 9 weeks now, I get up every morning, grab some coffee and get to work making this smoothie. It's a good start to the morning and depending on how ripe your fruit is, it can be rather sour (which may help to wake you up!) or it can be really sweet. In the case that it's too sweet, I either cut back on the over-ripe fruit or I'll add grapefruit juice to mine. I've also recently become a big fan of flavored green tea, so I'll add a glass of it to each smoothie or juice that I make. I love Lipton's Green Tea Superfruit brands, the Dragon Fruit Melon and Blackberry Pomegranate are my two favorites! 

Pineapple Orange Spinach smoothie 

makes 2 large servings

- 2 handfuls of spinach or about 2 1/2 cups 

- 1 handful of kale or about 1 1/4 cups

- 2 oranges, juiced (set juice aside) 

- 1 cup pineapple chunks

- 1 small mango peeled or 1/2 of a large mango (peeled) 

- 2 sprigs of mint leaves

- 1/4 of a carton of wheat grass or about a 1/4 cup

- 12 oz. of cold green tea or water

- grapefruit juice (optional) *** make sure that grapefruit won't interact with any medications you are taking beforehand ***

Directions

Add all ingredients into the blender, leaving out the orange juice. I have a smoothie setting on my blender, but you'll just want to blend everything until it is smooth. Once your smoothie is... smooth (no chunks left behind!) pour in the orange juice (and grapefruit juice if using) and stir to blend. I pour mine over ice in a very large glass add a straw and enjoy! 

I've made a few variations of this smoothie like using a 1/2 head of romaine lettuce to replace the kale and spinach, or replacing the pineapple with peeled guavas. You could also add ground flax seeds or ground chia seeds to this smoothie too! This is now Peter's favorite drink in the morning, it grows on you after awhile. :) 

Here's what I have planned so far for dinner this week! I love making these menus,  I've always found that it's helpful to plan out everything I want to make for the week, and I'm nosy and like to check out what other people are eating too! :) 

Monday
Minestrone Soup, wheat rolls

Tuesday
Pulled Pork tacos with shredded cabbage and mango-avocado salsa, Honeydew

Wednesday
Honey Sesame Chicken Thighs (slow-cooked) coconut brown rice, sauteed green peas and green beans (grilled tofu for me) 

Thursday 
Grilled garlic butter Salmon, Pinenut Couscous, Roasted Strawberry Spinach salad 

Friday
Broccoli Cheddar Carrot Soup, Grilled Ham and Swiss cheese on Wheat Rolls

Saturday
Southwest bbq salad with grilled shrimp (tomato, avocado, black beans, corn, cilantro, green onion, red onion, with a Bbq ranch yogurt dressing) watermelon 

Sunday 
Grandma's Sopes (and lots of leftovers!) 

Breakfast ideas
pumpkin butter (for lattes and oatmeal) 
pumpkin pie oatmeal 
zucchini-carrot-wheat coffee cake muffins
Turkey mushroom breakfast burritos 
Pineapple Orange Spinach smoothie 


Hope your week gets off to a wonderful start! 
xo ~ Tara

the Embellished Box

 Wouldn't that be a spectacular name for a series of posts! The Embellished Box ~ simple and elegant at the same time. I was sitting in my craft room this past weekend finishing up a birthday album for Alaina using the kit from Gossamer Blue when I realized how much extra stuff I had left over. Just little bits and pieces, snips of paper and random left-over stickers, extra diecut shapes. Now, I'm not one to throw out even the smallest scrap, so the idea of embellishing tiny gift boxes sounds like the perfect end-of-the-month project! 

Hope you enjoy the photos! 

I went with the perfect combination of pretty birthday colors! Lots of pinks and corals with a bit of shimmery gold, orchid and teal. 

I have more projects to share, it was a busy month for me over at Gossamer Blue! Stay tuned! 

xo ~ Tara

Garden Vegetable Soup Recipe

It's that time during the weekend where I sit down and organize a menu plan for the coming week. (Remember when I use to post them?) I've been spending my Mondays cooking all day to give myself a head start to busy school nights. Really, I'm just preparing a few things for breakfasts, lunches and prepping dinners. It makes for less stress in the kitchen during the week! 

 I'm a big soup person and an even bigger fresh vegetable person, so summer time veggie season is what I wait for all year. Even though it's hot outside (like 100+) I'll still have soup almost everyday for lunch and this recipe makes a lot of soup ~ like 14 - 1 cup servings.(I have share with Peter :)) 

Garden Vegetable Soup  

1/2 yellow onion, chopped

1 carrot, diced 

1 zucchini, diced

2 stalks celery, thinly sliced 

1 cup fresh or frozen peas

1 cup fresh or frozen green beans, cut into bite size pieces

1/2 pkg. mushrooms, roughly chopped

1 cup roasted corn or about 1/2 a can of can

1 can Great Northern beans, rinsed

1 can Kidney beans, rinsed

1 can roasted diced rosemary & oregano tomatoes, juice reserved 

1 cup cooked barley

2 32oz containers Vegetable Broth 

1/4 tsp. poultry seasoning 

2 bay leaves

1/2 tsp. basil

1/4 tsp. rosemary

1/4 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. dried parsley 

salt & pepper (optional) 

Directions:

1. In a large stock pot, drizzle a little olive oil into pot and add onion, celery and mushrooms. On medium-low heat, stir vegetables until they soften, about 4 or 5 minutes. You don't want the veggies to brown, just soften a little. 

2. add the zucchini, carrots, corn, tomatoes and juice, beans, vegetable broth and all the spices (basically everything, except for the barley, peas and green beans) 

3. bring soup to a very gentle simmer, and stir every 5 to 10 minutes or so. Let cook for about 25 minutes

4. When the vegetables are cooked through, add the cooked barley, peas and green beans and continue to cook for another 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and serve with a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.  

~ 

You can always add more or less spices if you like or substitute chicken broth for veggie broth, or even add in some shredded cooked turkey/chicken. This is such an simple soup recipe and it's easy to adapt it to your own tastes! I haven't tried yet to freeze any portion of it, honestly we always end up eating it all throughout the week so there's never been a reason to freeze any. I assume it will freeze well, but I can't be positive. 

Now time to get back to that menu plan! xo~ Tara 

back to school: Gossamer Blue

 Hello there again! and pardon me while I dust the cobwebs from this place - it's been a while since I've visited. 

After taking a bit of a break from the scrapbooking world, I've joined the design team over at Gossamer Blue as a project designer. I've made a few new personal goals for this year and finishing an album for a certain little boy is high priority on that list! Aside from that, it feels really good to be creative and taking photos again. I've always enjoyed it, but sometimes I think taking a break from things that weigh you down can be a positive as it forces you to find new things that make you happy! 

My very first post on the Gossamer Blue blog went up yesterday (you can read a little about each project over there) think school supplies and makeovers. I was actually a little nervous when I first saw it in the am,... I guess it really has been some time since I've been designing.

I have a whole day of fun stuff planned, the gym, grocery shopping, cooking, and cleaning up that mess of a craft room I call home :) so, I will leave you all with just the photos of my latest projects. Enjoy your day! ~ T

afternoon set-up

Yesterday, instead of the day being filled with candy and flowers, I was surrounded with lots of vintage/home decor stuff as I set up an outdoor photo shoot. I have about a week of work left, and this coming week will be all about moving/sorting/and selling. I'm planning an outdoor estate sale for next weekend. (Easy to do when the temps are nearing 90 already!) 

I didn't realize this until just this week but you can advertise estate/yard sales on Craigslist and Facebook as well as Garage Sale Gal. We would need some photos though to advertise along with a description of what we were selling. (anything and everything!) So I came up with this idea to create a little country-road-side market photo shoot with some of the things that would be included in the actual yard sale next week. I spent my evenings sketching out the set-up idea as well as scribbling down notes as to what I wanted to include in my photos. 

I love staging photos. I really like creating photos where there is almost too much stuff in the photo and your eye has to wander to really take everything in. Photos that are 'visually interesting.' Two hours later I had the scene set and the lighting was just right for an afternoon photo shoot! 

Not only will there be an enormous amount of scrapbooking stuff at this yard sale I'm also working on creating a virtual scrapbook yard sale.... like a studio-spring cleaning sale. I just need to work out the details of where to put everything (etsy vs. blog)  and get all of the photos ready! 

and looked who came out to help me yesterday. My little buddy Chase, he found a fruit picker in the yard last week and now every time he tags along he'll pick all of his own fruit. I have 2 baskets of evidence right now on my kitchen counter. :) 

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines Day and a very Happy Saturday to you all! 

xo ~ tara