green smoothie

So, one of my friends started a healthy foods group.  I'm loving it.  Our first meeting was on green smoothies.  Hmm, this was going to be a quinoa post, but I guess I'll post about green smoothies first since I just mentioned it.  I've made a ton of these in the past few weeks.  I actually got a membership to costco again to buy their produce - particularly their spinach for green smoothies.  I'll find a picture eventually and post it.
I've seen these at various places on the web and even in books.  I saw them once on the sisters cafe, once in my $5 dinner mom breakfast and lunch cookbook, and I even checked out greensmoothiegirl.com  - although the first time I looked at her site I was lost - I have since found lots of info there and even watched some you tube videos of green smoothies and other healthy stuff.
Anyway, at our class we made them with water - I have tried them with water, milk and water, milk and juice, almond milk and juice, agave, no sweetener, and about a million combinations of fruits.  This is my basic recipe.  I use a bosch blender which measures to 6 cups on the side, but really holds more like 7.

Ingredients

• 1.5 cups almond milk (or milk, or water, but almond milk is my favorite)
• 1.5 cups juice (I've used apple and white grape so far - I like juice - it sweetens it without added sweetener.)
• lots of spinach - maybe 4 -5 cups or so - I pack it into the blender - pushing it down into the liquid.
• other greens if desired - I use 4 kale leaves regularly -it has a stronger flavor, but isn't too bad.
• 1 banana (this is really key - it makes the smoothie smooth, and really helps hide the flavor of the greens - I have made them without banana, but they are better with - this from a person who doesn't care for banana.
• 1 bowl of other fruit - I really like frozen berries

Directions

1. I make these by putting the liquid in the blender with the greens and banana.  I turn my blender up full speed and head to the freezer to grab my berries.  By the time I get back, I have a nice green liquid.  I add the berries and blend for another couple of minutes until it is nice and smooth.

Things we've tried

• tropical -tried with all pineapple, and a bit of coconut extract.  Good, but needed a banana - much better with the banana.  Pineapple is grainy and will make the smoothie a bit thicker.  It will also stay green, but it is tasty, and I only used canned - fresh would be tons better, but DS asked for tropical and canned was what I had.
• chopped apple - Just core and toss in - it is good, great addition, but will make the smoothie thicker.
• cantaloupe - Another friend loves cantaloupe.   I didn't care for it.  It made the smoothie very thick and grainy.  Plus I wasn't a fan of the flavor.
• Any combination of berries - right now in the freezer we have strawberries, blueberries, cherries, raspberries, and loganberries.  Any combination of these have been tasty.  We've done blueberry/strawberry, strawberry/banana, mixed, strawberry/loganberry, strawberry/cherry.  strawberry/cherry/blueberry.......
• Orange - I tossed one in thinking it would be great - not so great.  Very thick -the middle of the orange didn't grind up well.  I may try this again with a better quality of orange though.  It really should be tasty.

That is what I've tried so far, but we're still trying different things.  

Creamy hot chocolate

I wanted something good and toasty to warm me up the other day, and I thought I remembered a recipe for some hot chocolate in my healthy cooking magazine, but I can't find that magazine right now.  So I went searching online.  I actually found the same recipe on allrecipes and on taste of home.  It had more reviews to read on it, so I followed the directions from there, and even some of the suggestions from there to make some hot chocolate.  Brandon really liked it.  He told me I should be impressed that he drank and liked it because he was a chocolate snob.  Sorry, but this isn't the greatest picture.  I forgot to take it until it had been sitting on the stover forever.

Ingredients

• 1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk (I used fat free)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 2 cups skim milk
• 3 1/2 cups water
• dash salt
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

1. In a large saucepan over medium heat combine sweetened condensed milk, cocoa, salt and vanilla.  Slowly stir in milk and water.  Heat through until desired temperature.

Strawberry spritzer

I rarely do drinks, I often see them on other blogs, but they usually seem to be so sugary that I don't ever try them.  I saw this recipe in my simple and delicious magazine, and decided to try it because it looked really good. Originally it called for regular soda (I used diet) and it called for pink lemonade concentrate, but we couldn't find any so we used limeade.  It was really good.
I didn't thaw/chill things as called for, but it worked out fine.  The frozen stuff cooled the unchilled soda.

Ingredients

• 1 10 oz package frozen, sweetened sliced strawberries (thawed -I only partially thawed them)
• 2 liters lemon-lime soda, chilled (mine wasn't chilled)
• 1 can (12 oz.) limeade concentrate, thawed (I didn't thaw mine)

Directions

1. Place the strawberries in a blender; cover and process until pureed.  Pour strawberries, soda and limeade concentrate in a pitcher;  Stir until combined.  Serve.

chocolate covered cherries freeze

This recipe is from my Hungry girl book.  It was sooo tasty.  I actually made 2 versions of it - a diet one which I followed the recipe in her book quite closely so I'm not posting that other than my notes (used 1 50 cal. and 1 20 cal hot cocoa mix and 2 T splenda because I don't have packets.  I also added a couple extra cherries then went with the smaller number of ice cubes.)  It is on page 205 of the book if you want that version.  However, I also made a non diet version for the kids.  That is what I am posting here.  Although the picture I took is of the low cal version (not that they look any different or anything.)  I actually made a triple batch to split between the 4 boys.  I put the ingredients listed as I made them with a single batch ingredients in parenthesis

Ingredients

• 9 Tablespoons (3 T) hot cocoa  (If you have hot cocoa packets, 3 packets.  I just have some canned cocoa from the cannery and 1 serving is 3 T so that is what I used.)
• 3 Tablespoons (1 T) mini semi-sweet chocolate chips 
• 40 frozen pitted dark sweet cherries (12 - I just added more)
• 24 ice cubes (8-10)
• Redi whip

Directions

1. Place cocoa and chocolate chips in a cup.  Add 3/4 cup (1/4 cup) hot water and stir until chips dissolve.  (I only used tap water and it was hot enough to melt the chips.) Add 3/4 cup (1/4 cup) cold water and stir. (I got mine from the fridge door to be a little cooler)
2. Pour into a blender and add cherries and ice.  Blend until smooth.
3. Pour into a glass and top with a squirt of redi whip.