In the Clouds

On Wednesday (Brandon's birthday!!!) I somehow managed to lose my debit card and lock my keys in the car, within about 2 hours of each other! What is going on with me?! No worries though, I called real quick and cancelled the card, and Brandon had his key to my car with him so we got in the car. 

I need to get some Ginko Biloba I guess...

P.S. Isn't that a pretty brain?

P.P.S I will post about Bran's b-day soon!

Hungry?

Brandon: Are you hungry?

Me: Yeah...

Brandon: You have this look on your face like if I spilled barbecue sauce on my hand, you'd eat it.

:)

Blendtec Love

Oh man I love this thing:

We finally caved and bought one last Thursday (4/12) at Costco. ( I got red because I Have this thing with wanting a red kitchen...) Walking out the cashier and the door checker both stopped us to tell us how much we'll love it and a few recipes to try. We've had it for what, 5 days now and we already have used it 28 times! It has a counter on the screen to let you know how many times you've used it! It takes getting used to, we are learning what works and what doesn't. Example, you can't put apples or carrots in a juice because it will become super frothy and foamy. The best thing to do is make apple juice or carrot juice (in the blender) and then add that to your smoothie or juice, it's just the nature of apples and carrots I guess. We also got agave nectar to try out. Apparently it's sweeter than sugar and less caloric, so you use less. It's great so far! We're experimenting with making ice creams in this beauty so I will let you know how that goes (so far it's not going great, but it's just a matter of figuring out the ratios!). 

Lately I've been making green smoothies to take to work and here is what I throw in there more or less:

Seeded Grapes

Cucumber

Kale

A hefty handful of Spinach

Bananas (frozen or otherwise)

Pineapples (core and all)

Strawberries

Celery

Orange

A teensy bit of Ginger

Lemon juice

Water or Carrot Juice (also made in the Blendtec)

Ice

(If I want to make more of a thin juice I'll leave out the frozen stuff & ice and just do the Whole Juice setting, but for semi-smoothies I add ice and frozen fruits and sometimes yoghurt)

I'll try to be more specific, for example today I did:

2 chunks of pineapple with core
2/3 of a frozen banana
1/2 a small carrot
1/4 cup water
big handful spinach
2 leaves of kale
1/4 cucumber
1 orange
1 teensy bit of ginger, seriously 2 slivers of it (it's strong)
About 7 seeded grapes
a little bit of ice

And I can't taste the green stuff really, it just tastes good to me! It's more of a thick juice than a smoothie, if you're going for a smoothie you could add yoghurt and about 1 to 1 1/2 cups ice and it would be thick and smoothie like.

 One time we threw in sprouts and I won't be doing that again, I swear I could taste them! Gross. 

Anyways it looks green but it's DELICIOUS! And I feel so healthy these days. :) It's great because you can use seeded grapes (the seeds are real good for you), and frozen fruit, and pineapples with the core, and you have NO chunks! A regular blender can't do that. We did make Chicken Tortilla Soup too, which was yummy. Then Brandon turned the leftovers into dip! THAT was even more delicious. 

So the moral of the story is, we LOVE this thing!

Update: April 2012

A few things going on in our lives:

MOST importantly, the stray kitty we sometimes take care of (known as Kittykins) had her kittens!

I've never seen anything be born before, so this was QUITE the experience for me. Luckily Brandon has seen kitten and puppy births before, because I was freaking out a little bit. We were sitting at home watching YouTube videos and Kittykins was laying on my lap when she started having contractions. I looked down and said "What is wrong with her!?" because basically her hips were contracting. Brandon was so calm, saying she was going into labor. Luckily we were ready, we researched online a little bit about what to do. We knew she wanted to do it in the closet so Brandon quickly threw his shoe hanger and t-shirt hanger things he has in his closet out of there and we put kitty in there with some blankets and a towel. This was about 2am on Thursday morning. She was such a champ, there were a few minutes of contractions and she moved around a lot to get em down, and she cried a little bit with the first one (she's a little cat, and these were her first kittens so it hurt I'm sure!) and out came a little kitten! Here's the sad part. The first kitten had this big lump on its abdomen, it seemed like her intestines were in it. It was so sad, Brandon researched it a little bit and we pretty much knew she wasn't going to make it. The other 3 came out eventually, she was such a good mama! Every time one came out she launched into action cleaning it and getting it out of the membrane sac thing. The kittens meowing/squeaking for the first time was PRECIOUS! Oh man and they were sooooo teeny tiny. We even saw her eat the placenta! Gross. I had no idea that it's MEANT to be eaten! So that the mama can have energy to keep going and stay with the babies for awhile! This was such a learning experience for me. 

One kitten is cow print, with a striped head and tail. The other two are mainly striped like the mama. The first kitten born with the stomach thing died in the night, we found her in the morning and buried her by the river near our apartment. That's life I guess! :(

As of today all the kitties are doing great. We LOVE falling asleep listening to them squeak and meow. Kittykins is such a good mama. She is such a cuddler, she purred through the WHOLE labor, actually she hasn't stopped since. I think she loves having these little kitties to cuddle with all the time.

 Brandon says "They're little asian babies!" because of their eyes haha.

Another exciting thing, we finally got a Blendtec! We've been wanting one for a really LONG time, but it was always way too much to spend on a blender. Well with our handy dandy tax refund, and a well timed Costco road show, we decided it was time! I am BEYOND excited. They had a special at Costco, it was only $350, normally they are about $450 if you get them through their website. AND it comes with an 8 year warranty. AND it's red. So that's all I needed for convincing. 

You can make:

Smoothies

Soup

Juices

Sauces

Batters

Nut Butters (PB, Almond, etc)

Ground Grains (wheat, rice, flaxseed, etc)

Shredded Ice

Marinades

Salsa

Bread Dough

And probably more, but that's all I can think of right now.  It's no ordinary blender, just YouTube it or look at their website, these things are magic. The demonstration guy made a smoothie, tortilla soup, and ice cream in like 5 minutes. 

(The ice cream even had a bunch of spinach in it but you'd never know!)

So we're SO excited.