The magic of home made smoothies

I might be a bit sneaky here.  I reckon Rachel has been quietly impressed at how I have quickly slotted into our frugal living.  It seems she was a bit worried I would get a bit carried away in spending too much money now I have all this extra time to play with through buying some of these fancy-pants smoothies at truly fancy prices.  So instead I’d like to mention the magic of home made smoothies.

Instead I’ll have you know I’ve taken this frugal living to heart and, for the record, have never complained about any of the weird concoctions coming from the kitchen.  Mind you, Rachel has actually succeeded in passing off some of her creations as the real thing, other times I haven’t had a clue in quite what she’s produced with all kinds of mysterious ingredients.

Take, for example, the humble smoothie.  I do like a good smoothie at breakfast time.  They’re so utterly delicious.  They really are an efficient way of getting loads of fruit inside you in a short burst (particularly good in a rushed breakfast).  I’ve been enjoying smoothies for years and years, must have consumed hundreds of gallons at our breakfast table.  The main advantage of a smoothie, as I see it, is to get the benefits of 4 or 5 fruits inside you in one go.  Each fruit has a different mixture of micro nutrients and these all have their benefits in keeping me healthy, besides having things in common such as a good dose of vitamin C, fibre and fluids.

Trouble is….

The trouble is I just don’t know what I’m drinking these days.  We have an old plastic bottle in the fridge which seems to be a perpetual smoothie machine.  It is never empty.  What is even more remarkable is how it seems to be magically refilled with a different colour smoothie every few days.

Sometimes I ask “remember I bought a punnet of apricots, any idea where they are?” Only to be told I’ve been drinking them over the last two days.

“But it was a purple smoothie” I protested.

“It might have looked purple to you, that was all of those blueberries and blackcurrants giving you the colour.  But there were plenty of apricots in there.  And pineapple.  And some apple juice.  And some…. oh I’d rather not say, you might not like it anymore”.

Knowing how some of the fancy-pants smoothies have a few slightly weird things such as ground flax seeds, I just don’t know what I’m drinking and that kinda makes it fun.  AS for the green smoothies, who knows what’s in there.

I sometimes wonder how much our own smoothies are costing compared to the commercial fancy-pants smoothies. Perhaps one day I’ll work it out but for now it feels like brilliant frugal living.  The added benefit is we are spending more time together – perhaps I’ll blog more about that some other time but for now please let me tell you a little about yesterday….

Yesterday, Bank Holiday Monday

I sometimes used to loathe the August Bank Holiday.  When I was single (back in the last century) it seemed a sad day and sometimes feelings of loneliness would surface for that day.  More recently it has been a precious day off work but it has marked the end of the summer holidays in many ways.  The girls were being prepared for their return to school, daylight was shortening at such a tremendous rate each day and it was the last “free” day off work until Christmas.

Now I’m retired, I don’t have to think like that at all – yipeeeee!  We decided we would do something different to any other Monday, to have an outing somewhere.

Knowing Rachel always likes canals (her parents once had a couple of narrow boats and we’ve hired a couple of boats for holidays) I suggested we had a towpath walk.  That suggestion went down well and we decided to combine it with picking some hedgerow fruits.  We drove through the very beautiful Ashridge Estate to Northchurch (near Berkhamsted), parked the car there and headed north along the towpath.  We eyed up all kinds of wonderful fruit for us to pick on our return.  It really was astonishing how we collected:

• 10 pounds of elderberry (we used a fork for ‘combing’ the berries off their stalks)
• 12 pounds of crab apples in brilliant condition (Used for pectin)
• Handful of blackberries (a bit messy)
• Pocketful of rosehip (who remembers rosehip syrup from their childhood?)

In the evening the kitchen sprung into life with all kinds of pots and pans, rolling boils, strains, sieving and sniffing spices going on – it was fantastic! Perhaps I’ll get Rachel to share some recipes in another post.

Doing this foraging and spending more time with each other, together with this frugal living giggle, is such a BRILLIANT antidote to the world of work.  Once again, I am so thankful.

Here’s a few photos of recent home cooking exploits: