A Week-ish of Vitamix meals

I go through kicks of hating meal planning and dinner making and kicks where I plan a whole week of meals and I love it. I am currently in a hate-kick. It is in those kicks where I spend hours looking through meals on Pinterest and wishing that I could find something that I could make in 5 minutes with all the ingredients in my kitchen. I just spent an hour doing just that and now there is a frozen pizza in the oven.. hmmm.. It's a work in progress.

But a week or two ago I decided that I was going to make all our breakfasts and dinners in the Vitamix for a whole week. It was so hard to find dinner ideas to make in the Vitamix so I spent a long time planning what i was going to make. I went to Sprouts on Thursday because I get 15% off with my student ID and I bought a bunch of stuff. It was exhausting because I also had to go to Smiths to get a few things that I didn't want to pay an arm and a leg for. The produce at Sprouts is better/cheaper so it's good for green smoothies.

Dinner Thursday: Tortilla Soup (click the links for the recipes)

This is what is awesome about the Vitamix. You throw everything in there without cutting it up - a stalk of celery, a hunk of cheese, a carrot, half a pepper (seeds and stem still attached), etc. - then you turn it on and blend it for maybe 7 minutes and not only does everything get ground up nice and small, it heats it up too! In no time at all you have a piping hot, healthy soup!

My attempt at a food bloggish picture.. haha

The soup was pretty good. The flavor was a little bit off. But it suggested putting some solids in there like beans, rice, chicken, etc. which I didn't do. With some extra cheese and sour cream it would have been pretty delicious. 

Breakfast Friday: Emerald Ecstasy Smoothie and Energy Bars

Oh man. It was delicious. I made this for breakfast probably 3 times throughout the week. It has pineapple, green grapes, banana, apple, and spinach. SO good. And check out that beautiful green color. You just know that is healthy. 

The energy bars were really tasty too. The website I got them from had them listed under desserts. I don't know about you but I definitely don't eat energy bars for dessert. My blender really struggled with these. It kept overheating and turning off so I finally took them out and they were a little chunky but still so good. They tasted like raisinettes, which I don't remember liking but oh well. 

Dinner Friday: Macaroni with Cheese Sauce

I didn't get a picture of this because we were in a super hurry and we ate it out of tupperware in the car haha. It was really good though. Mike said he liked it better than Kraft. I love Kraft too much to say that haha. But it is definitely healthier than Kraft. And almost just as easy! You make the cheese sauce in the blender and blend it up nice and hot and then pour it over the noodles and bake it. 

Breakfast Saturday: Whole Wheat Blender Waffles

Now these are GOOD. Be careful not to blend at too high for too long or the batter will start heating up. I read that this is not good for the wheat which I don't really understand since you cook it anyways but it makes sense that you don't really want it getting cooked in the Vitamix. 

I also made some apple cinnamon syrup but it wasn't very good. It tasted like applesauce. I mean, it was good and all but I just really like butter and sugary syrup on my waffles is that such a crime? 

I also made the Spinach Lemon Zinger smoothie and it was really, really good. I made this more than once during the week too. I think...

For dinner on Saturday and Sunday we were invited to other people's houses so I didn't make anything in the vitamix.

Breakfast Sunday: Apple Raisin Cracked Wheat Cereal

I didn't get a picture of this either but let's just say that this was also a bust. All I did in the Vitamix was grind up the wheat. Instead of being all creamy like it should be it was lumpy and flavorless. My very kind husband ate his whole bowl and I didn't touch mine. After he left for his church meetings I made a Banana Blueberry Orange smoothie. MUCH better :)

Breakfast Monday: I think I made one of the smoothies that I already made earlier on.

Dinner Monday: Pasta with Chipotle Pepper Cream Sauce 

Whoops, I guess I did a bad job at taking pictures of the meals I made. This meal was pretty good. It called for half a pepper and I got lazy and threw in a whole one because they were pretty small and I didn't want to bother myself with cutting one in half (it's supposed to be easy!). That made the pasta preeeeettty spicy. But it was still good. Not sure I'll make it again though. It wasn't out-of-this-world delicious. 

I had a few more dinners planned but I didn't get to make any of them. But we did make green smoothies for breakfast the rest of the week. And I also snacked on the energy bars every morning that week. Mike even made some, although his experimental ones need some work still. 

So that was our week! I would definitely do this again without the dinners. I would totally love having green smoothies for breakfast every morning and I would even like to start drinking them at night too before dinner! They are pretty fast if you cut everything up all at once so you just have to throw it all in and blend it. Or you can even make them the night before and just grab one on your way out (am I the only one that eats breakfast on the go every morning?). It was just too hard to be creative in making different dinners in the Vitamix. There are only so many things you can do. If any of you have any favorite green smoothie recipes out there let me know!

Just one more thought on the versatility of the Vitamix, it can make soup but it can also make ice cream! This ice cream below doesn't have any dairy products in it which is why it is melting fast but it can make really thick ice cream. 

Pictured below is Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

All it is is spinach, avocado, ice, agave, and chocolate chips! It tasted pretty good although I think I just didn't do a great job at making it.

If you are ever in Costco and they are doing a Vitamix show I highly recommend watching it and tasting the yummy things they make. They are expensive but SO worth it. Especially if you are into eating healthy!

Easter

I want to post a (late) Easter post because Easter is so great. I keep trying to think of how I might add my testimonies to those already shared about Easter and the resurrection and the atonement and I remembered this poem that someone in my ward shared a few weeks ago. It is beautiful and simply portrays the miracle of the atonement. Enjoy :)

Washed Clean
-Boyd K. Packer


In ancient times the cry “Unclean!”
Would warn of lepers near.
“Unclean! Unclean!” the words rang out;
Then all drew back in fear,

Lest by the touch of lepers’ hands
They, too, would lepers be.
There was no cure in ancient times,
Just hopeless agony.

No soap, no balm, no medicine
Could stay disease or pain.
There was no salve, no cleansing bath,
To make them well again.

But there was One, the record shows,
Whose touch could make them pure;
Could ease their awful suffering,
Their rotting flesh restore.

His coming long had been foretold.
Signs would precede His birth.
A Son of God to woman born,
With power to cleanse the earth.

The day He made ten lepers whole,
The day He made them clean,
Well symbolized His ministry
And what His life would mean.

However great that miracle,
This was not why He came.
He came to rescue every soul
From death, from sin, from shame.

For greater miracles, He said,
His servants yet would do,
To rescue every living soul,
Not just heal up the few.

Though we’re redeemed from mortal death,
We still can’t enter in
Unless we’re clean, cleansed every whit,
From every mortal sin.

What must be done to make us clean
We cannot do alone.
The law, to be a law, requires
A pure one must atone.

He taught that justice will be stayed
Till mercy’s claim be heard
If we repent and are baptized
And live by every word. …

If we could only understand
All we have heard and seen,
We’d know there is no greater gift
Than those two words—“Washed clean!”

--read whole talk here

Builder or Breaker?

I went to a really awesome presentation today. There were so many great things that were said but one just really stuck out to me. I sometimes feel that I hear a lot of complaining throughout my day. And I very rarely take part in it but I have really been trying to stay positive and not complain about things that are in place to help me grow and become better (getting up early and going out in the cold, cold, cold doesn't count in my opinion:)).

John Hilton III was the presenter and he shared this poem that I think we should all hear. It is a great reminder to stay positive and to take joy in the things we do EVEN if they are hard and even if they seem meaningless. Life is not meant to be easy and no one becomes great because they have always done easy things. Challenges help to make us better and hard things help to refine us. We could all do better and we could all do well to really think about this poem. :)

I watched them tearing a building down,

A gang of men in a busy town.

With a ho, heave, ho and a lusty yell,

They swung the beam and a side wall fell.

I asked the foreman, "Are these men skilled?,

The kind you'd hire if you were to build?"

He gave a laugh and said, "No, indeed, common labor is all I need.

I can easily wreck in a day or two,

What builders have taken years to do."

And so I asked as I went my way,

Which of these roles have I tried to play?

Am I a builder with a well-made plan, lifting others the best I can?

Or am I a wrecker who walks the town,

Content with the labor of tearing down?

Let's all strive to be builders and be a little bit better today than we were yesterday.

i LOVE learning

I just love it. Ever since I switched to elementary education I've felt like I can't learn enough. There is just so much to KNOW as a teacher! Almost too much. A lot of times I feel like I am drinking from a fire hydrant and I am just trying to catch as much as I can that will help me to be a good teacher. There are just so many great ideas out there but it is also SO hard to keep them all straight. I am trying to put together a place to organize my ideas but there are literally so many that I don't know where to start. I have lists on my iPhone that I add to anytime I hear an idea that I love but I want to organize those thoughts into groups and such. ANYWAYS, that is not what this post is about.

I have 1 week left until my practicum (this is like a mini student teaching--I am doing mine this semester in 6th grade! Ah!) which will be until the end of March and then I have 2 weeks of class left. 2 weeks!! TWO. And then I will be done going to classes at BYU. Except for my one class spring semester. This thought is really sad to me. I literally love all my classes and all the people I go to class with every day. I am grateful for the good ideas I get and for the practice I get and for the help that my knowledgeable professors give me. And since I am in Elementary Education I get to learn about all subjects. It's just that much more learning! 

Good thing being a teacher means CONSTANTLY learning. I know that teaching is going to be so difficult and so different than anything I've ever done before and it is going to require me to work hard but I think back on the past 18 years and think, I may not know how to teach but I am a dang good student. I've been a student for 18 years! And a lot of teaching, especially my first year, will be being the best student and learning everything I can from my team and all the people assigned to help me become better. I am blessed because I want to be the best I can be and I love conquering difficult things and I know this quality will help me next year. 

I am really going to miss BYU so much when I am done in a few weeks. I've been here the last 5 years and I feel that it is a huge part of my life and who I am. In a way it is my home. And now that my other home in WA is being sold I consider it home even more. I am extremely grateful that I came here. Only good things have come out of this experience. But for now I need to soak it all up because it really will go fast from here.

I felt like this post needed a picture of some kind...

Some of my besties from the ELED program.

I am a teacher

I decided today that I'm 100% thinking like a teacher now. I got an email and the subject said "Integration Bee" and I thought to myself "Well that's weird... do they just give you several different objectives from different subjects and see who can integrate them the fastest? The best?" I was confused so I opened the email and realized it was from the math department at BYU (because of my minor) and it was talking about who could integrate the fastest. As in calculus. Haha

The world is ending in Provo, UT

This is a little bit of what we have been experiencing in my city the last few weeks.

Negative and single digit temperatures.

Unhealthy air quality. Yesterday it was the worst in the nation

And today, extreme ice.

This is why they sent those emails this morning.

Morgan wanted to Help me Blog

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She did good, don't you think? :)