Hot Peas N Butter!

I bet you think I'm talking about food. Nope! Hot Peas N Butter is a children's musical group. They have been featured on Nickelodeon and Noggin. They are awesome! They were in town and we took Maleah to go see them. We had a great time. Their music is very appealing to adults as well. It's a little bit of jazz, funk, latino and some other really cool sounding music. We bought their cd and had each of the members sign their name on it. Malaeah even got to take a picture with them (sorry, it's a little blurry). She was pretty proud of that. Check them out at www.hotpeasnbutter.com

A new green smoothie concoction...

Let me first start off by saying that I'm sorry it's been so long since I've blogged. We haven't done the "Around the World" meal in a couple of weeks because Jarod has been gone. He was staying with his football coach while they had two practices a day; one at 6am and one at 6pm. It's a long drive to his practice, so to alleviate some of the pressure for me to get him there he just stayed with his coach for these past two weeks and came home on the weekends.

Now, to the subject at hand, green smoothies. As most of you know, I LOVE green smoothies. I have one pretty much every morning. Some people use coffee to get them going in the morning. I use green smoothies. I wanted to share with you a concoction that I came up with the other day that I'm really diggin' right now. It's pretty calorie loaded, but I don't eat anything else until lunch time.

1-2 frozen bananas
1 avocado (yes, avocado...it tastes good)
2 mandarin oranges
handful of spinach
1 cup or so of water

Throw in your spinach and water and then blend together. Throw in your bananas, your peeled avocado and your peeled and seeded mandarin oranges and blend. It's really creamy and yummy. If you can't find mandarin oranges (they look like oranges only smaller and darker orange) then you could use oranges. I really like the mandarin oranges because they are super juicy and they are sweeter than oranges; but they are also hard to find.
If you come up with your own yummy concoction let me know! I love trying new things!

Thailand...

Well, it was off to Thailand tonight. The dinner was actually pretty easy to make. After browsing the internet trying to find Thai recipes, I quickly found out that coconut milk and fish sauce were two main staples in Thai cooking. On the menu tonight was: 1) Corn soup. This was just onion, corn, coconut milk, fish sauce, rice vinegar and water. It was pretty good, but a little heavy on the onions. To my surprise, Mike really liked it. This was his favorite. 2) Chicken Satay with Satay sauce. This was very good. It was cut up chicken breast marinated in oil, onion, garlic, sugar, water and fish sauce. The Satay sauce consisted of coconut milk, peanut butter and a little fish sauce. It was delicious. I love peanut butter.3) Vegetarian Fried Rice. This was fried rice with peas, carrots, pineapple and onion mixed with a curry-based sauce. It was very yummy! Al in all, everything was tasty, except I wasn't a huge fan of the fish sauce. We were all very full and satisfied after eating our Thai dinner.
In trying to decide where we want to venture to next week, we spun the globe and Maleah's finger landed on Poland. Our preliminary search for Polish recipes revealed that they are big on sausage and other meat laden dishes. This should be interesting considering I don't eat pork!?

My Big Fat Greek Dinner...

We started a new tradition in our household tonight. One night a week (right now it is Tuesdays) we choose a country we want to learn about and we cook a meal together that mirrors what that particular country would eat. Tonight was Greek. It was so much fun. Mike printed out a couple of sentences in Greek that we had to say out loud. In English, it said, "Today our foods emanate from Greece. We thank the Lord for our food." I don't know if we pronounced any of the words right, but it was fun trying. Mike even stopped by the library and picked up a Greek music cd that we listened to while we cooked and ate our meal. On the menu was: 1) Greek salad. This was mainly cucumbers, tomatoes, olives and feta in a olive oil and lemon juice base. 2) Tilapia fish. We put a piece of tilapia on a piece of tinfoil topped with tomotoes, oregano, garlic and olives. We folded it up and threw it on the grill. 3) Fassolakia ladera. I have no idea what this means, let alone how to pronounce it, but it was good. It was green beans, onions, potatoes, tomatoes and garlic. 4) Baklava. (not pictured) This is a very sweet Greek dessert. Everything tasted amazingly good, especially the dessert. I was very proud of Mike for trying (and liking) EVERYTHING. Things he thought he wouldn't like he ended up really enjoying. This was a fun experience and actually very educational. Next week we head to Thailand. As they say in Greece, "Opa!"

Blueberry Patch...

Maleah and I got up early this morning (6:30am to be exact) and headed out to the Blueberry Patch. It's one of my favorite things to do in the summer. The patch sits on a couple of acres of land and it's absolutely beautiful. I love going early in the morning when the sun is just coming up and it's still fairly cool outside. Sometimes there is even a little dew on the ground. I love being surrounded by nature with all of its lush green foliage and the sound of birds singing their morning songs. It just makes me feel so serene, so peaceful. As if I'm closer to God; as if that's the way it's supposed to be. Maleah enjoys it too, but she usually ends up eating 95% of what she picks. I'm totally okay with that, though, because blueberries are extremely good for you and these are organic. No pesticides used whatsoever. I usually get around 3-4 lbs. We use the fresh blueberries on cereal, in muffins or just eat them plain, and we freeze a bunch for smoothies. It's one of my favorite fruits. Maybe one day I'll have blueberry plants of my own.

Garden Blues

I am quite frustrated with my garden. I don't know what's going on with it, but it's not looking so good. The leaves on a lot of the plants are a yellowish color, not lush and green. My two tomato plants are not producing tomatoes (it had one tomato on there that has been on there for weeks and is not turning red) and the leaves are withering and turning a yellowish color. The cherry tomato plant's leaves look the same but it's producing tomatoes. I have two pepper plants. One has done absolutely nothing and looks like bugs have been chompin' on it. My other pepper plant has one pepper, but it's small, not growing and has been on there FOREVER. Basil is doing pretty good but growing very slowly. Beans look terrible. The leaves on it are very yellow. Cucumbers are growing somewhat. I have a couple of cucumbers but there are flowers on there that look brown and dead and the leaves are also a yellowish color. SO, this is what I did. I pulled up some of the plants, including the two tomato plants. I added some store bought, composted cow manure and also some old homemade compost I had that, actually, is not completely broken down. I added these two things to the whole garden. I planted a few more basil plants today and tomorrow I will plant more beans and tomatoes. We will see what happens. I am praying that the added nutrients will turn things around. I will keep you posted and add more pics in a week or two so you can see the progress. Say a prayer for me that this will work!

All Natural Skincare

As most of you know, I am passionate about using all natural and organic products and food. The other day I was trying to find local companies in Kansas City that sell organic skincare. I normally order mine online, but I wanted to find a local company that sells it. I think it's so important to support our local small businesses whenever you can; especially the ones that are making a difference in our health and our environment. I also like supporting the small local businesses that are trying to grow and make it instead of always giving my money to the big dogs. You know, the BIG NAME health food stores. I won't name any names. Anyway, while doing an internet search I found an awesome company called Caren. I looked at the products and all of the ingredients. I was extremely pleased. The products they carry are truly natural and organic. The owners are very picky about what they will sell. I have tried a few of their products and love them. I ended up calling the owners to talk to them about their company. It's two stay-at-home-moms, Carol and Ellen (thus, the name Caren), and they are wonderful. We met up for coffee the other day. They are truly passionate about what they do. I enjoyed talking to them so much and liked the products so much that I am actually going to start doing some work with them for the business. Their website is www.carenonline.com. They have a referral program where you can get $5 off just for referring a friend. Check them out and let me know what you think!