Smoothies

With winter approaching, I find myself in the freezer section at the grocery store a lot.  When fresh raspberries and peaches are hard to find, frozen bags of this fruit is the next best thing.

And what is the best thing to do with frozen fruit?  Smoothies!

Today, we made smoothies using frozen blueberries, frozen peaches, frozen raspberries, strawberry kefir, orange juice, and raspberry jam. 

Simply add all the ingredients into a blender and mix.  Use your judgement on how much of each thing you want to add.  Also, note that it is very possible that you will need to add water to help get the mix moving around in the blender.

This is a great activity for the kids, I should add.  They have fun helping add the items into the blender, and they also can get a sense of how adding new ingredients can help change the taste of the smoothie.

This is a great way for you to get all the health benefits of fruits and berries in the winter months!

Smacznego!

Ratatouille

The inspiration for this recipe is actually the Pixar movie Ratatouille, which happens to be my favorite Pixar movie.  Ben suggested I made this, and so I did. I had to say, he was rather disappointed when the dish wasn't presented the way it was in the movie...but, I am no 5 star restaurant.

Now, this takes a bit of time to prepare since there is a lot of chopping. So instead of taking just minutes, it takes about 10 minutes to prepare.  In the scheme of things, 10 minutes is still a short amount of time.  It then takes 45 minutes, or so, to bake.

Ingredients:
- 1 onion, diced
- 3 squash, diced
(the packages I get at Aldi look like this)

-1 eggplant, peeled and diced
- 2 cans of diced tomatoes (if you want this dish more dry you can use just one can)
- of course, add any spices or herbs you want

Directions:
1. in a large pan, saute the onion with olive oil and a bit of salt, until translucent

2. add the diced squash and the diced eggplant into the onions

3. add the cans of diced tomatoes, and stir together

4. place into the oven, uncovered , at 350 degrees, for about 45 minutes or so.  Basically, you will be looking for when the juices start to bubble.

When you plate this add some cheese on top, serve with salad and bread. 

I think this dish has a rather earthy flavor.  It is very simple and nothing fancy, but it fills your belly, warms you up, gives you lots of veggies!