Bread and Smoothies

Is anyone else on the smoothie train?  It's healthier than the gravy train, for sure.

It's not that I don't like vegetables, but for some reason I have to consciously remind myself to put more in our diets.  We don't eat a lot of salad but we eat steamed broccoli nearly every meal.  I get plenty of veggies at lunch at school, but I still have been looking for easy ways to get some veggies in the diet.

Enter smoothies.  Seriously, I pack so much spinach or kale, zucchini, banana, apple, etc into a smoothie and I think I'm having dessert.  Seriously, you can put zucchini in a smoothie and you won't notice.  Sounds weird, but give it a shot!

Costco was carrying plain, non-fat, Greek yogurt this week too.  So now I've added that to the experience and boy is it tasty!  We use a handful of frozen mixed berries, some OJ, whatever other fruits/veggies are lying around, load it up with spinach, and blend.  Add to that some yogurt and yum!

My new experiment is going to be to use frozen spinach instead of fresh.  It's about 2.5 times cheaper and it will last longer.  We'll see how that works.  If it does, it'll cut down on the cost of the smoothies for sure.

The other thing is bread.  I was always intimidated by making bread.  I figured I need a stand mixer and fancy equipment.  Nah!

Maggie and I have both been trying the crusty breads you make in a dutch oven lately.  Boy does that make a tasty crust!  You've gotta try it.

I made one yesterday/today that is really, really simple but it's gooood.  The only catch is that you need to start the dough a day ahead.  If you're like me, it's rare that you think ahead far enough to do that.  Well I'm going to try to start making it a point to think ahead.

All I did yesterday was mix the following in a bowl...

3 c. all purpose flour
1/2 t. yeast
1 3/4 t. salt

Then add 1.5c water and mix it around until it's shaggy (it'll be sort of wet).  Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit out on your counter for 12-18 hours.  The next day, preheat oven and dutch oven to 450 for half an hour.  While the oven is preheating, form dough into a ball/mound on a heavily floured surface.  Let it sit for 30 minutes.  I put it on parchment paper here so that it'd be easy to transfer.

When everything is preheated, carefully place the mound/ball into the dutch oven, put the lid on and bake for 30 minutes.  Then take the lid off and bake for another 15.

Seriously, it's the best crust!  Maggie has been experimenting with sourdough versions of this that I'm gonna try next.

Woo!

Molly