Via dAlbergaria

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Here's something I learned not too long ago - you can freeze bananas. I mean, it's not that I thought you couldn't freeze a banana, it just never occurred to me to do it. At first I made the mistake of freezing them with the peel on - of course, I didn't realize it was a mistake until it came time to take the peels off. It wasn't so much that they were difficult to remove, the big problem was that I almost got frostbite on my fingers trying to do so.

Now, you may also remember from Jam Season 2008 that I bought a metric shit ton of blueberries, and after making a metric shit ton of jam, I still had about half a flat of berries left over. You can use frozen berries just as easily as fresh in something like lemon blueberry muffins, so I measured them into cups, tossed them in freezer bags, and froze those too.

So where am I going with this? Banana-Blueberry Smoothies, of course! I found the recipe in this month's, or maybe last month's, VT and have been making them a couple mornings a week for breakfast and they are just fantastic, so I thought I'd share. Super easy. I don't have a blender, so I just toss it all in the food processor and whiz...

For 2 smoothies:
2 frozen bananas cut into 1" chunks
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup granola
1 TBSP honey
1/2 cup to 1 cup water

Place all the ingredients except the water in a food processor or blender and process til smooth. The mixture is pretty thick so I then add 1/2 cup of water and process again. Use up to a cup for a thinner smoothie.

Enjoy!

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I was going to tell you about a new Alice Waters frozen food line, but it turned out to be an April Fool's joke. Then there was the manned misson to Mars, but that turned out to be a joke too. Can I just say I'm glad it's April 2nd?

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I realize I'm putting my geek cred in jeopardy by admitting I'm not a gamer, but I can do calc, and lewis dot diagrams, and have spilled acid on myself twice, so that should count for something, no?

Anyway, I finally found a game for the PS3 that I can play: Flower. Honestly, I have no idea what the point is, all I know is that nothing chases me and I can't get killed. I just kinda float around, pollinate things, and make pretty music - just perfect as far as I'm concerned!

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Um, yeah, that would be me.

Via The Kitchen

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My First Lady is the bomb:

Michelle Obama breaks ground for the new organic kitchen garden on the White House south lawn. 1100 square feet is a LOT of kichen garden!

From the WH Blog: Spring Gardening. And here's the garden layout.

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You are spared stories of garlic sprouts, and tomato seedlings, and onion starts. You are spared bad photos of little yellow cuke flowers, and more tomato seedlings, and leggy marigolds. You are spared endless talk of tomatoes. You are spared these things because this year, I will have no garden.

OH NOES!

No, really, it's all good. After almost 4 years, we left the City of Mill for the City of Portland. Traded in 1200 sq feet on 3/4 of an acre, for 1200 sq ft on the first floor with a pretty awesome porch and not one ounce of dirt. What I got in return was a 4 minute ride to the symphony and a brand fucking new kitchen. This was not a hard decision people!

Actually, I got one other thing in return, and that is access to some awesome grocery stores, produce markets, and farmers markets. I'll be honest - this will be the first time in about 8 years that I won't be growing some kind of food, so it's a little weird to not have seedling trays on my kitchen counter right now, and I do get a little bummed out every time I find a seed catalog in my mailbox. But last summer we started making weekly trips to the Corvallis farmers market, and I don't know, I guess I got variety envy. One week, I found these amazing yellow romas and thought about canning some until I remembered that I had some 300 tomatoes hanging off my own plants at home. I was already thinking about downsizing the garden when we made the decision to move, so the plan is to take the year off and spend more time thinking about what's in season than what's coming out of my garden and when. Which explains the turnips and asparagus we had this week...

And fear not, there will still be jam! Outside of the plums, which were on the property, all the fruit either came from farmers market or the grower, so nothing will change there. Except maybe the variety!

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You should run to your kitchen and make this apple galette right away. It's yummy, and quite easy - you know this must be true or I wouldn't have made it. I add about 1/2 tsp sugar to the pastry dough, and because I never have lemons handy, I used that fantastic lemon oil Kate sent me instead of zest. Oh, and I've made it with granny smiths as well as golden delicious apples.

In other news, Tio Carlo bought us, er, the cats, one of these for xmas. Chica hasn't yet decided if it's trying to feed her or kill her, and while Pablo accepts it, he is somewhat upset that his job as nom distribution supervisor has been outsourced to a machine.

In other, other news, I have fallen in love with making my own pasta. Which, of course, means I'll need more beta testers. Anyone?

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