Mix up breakfast

Breakfast can be the most difficut meal of the day, in my opinion.  Often, it is hard to create a delcious and balanced meal early in the morning.  Maybe it's just a struggle for those of us who work at night...

You may or may not have seen the new plan for Americans, replacing the old "food guide pyramid," and "my pyramid," the "my plate."

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/

Basically, "My Plate" suggests that half of your plate should be occupied by fruits and vegetables.  More often than not, breakfast becomes solely a carbohydrate fest: waffles, toast, cereal, fruit, and so on. 

Blending can be a great way to incorporate some things you wouldn't usually have in the morning and it provides a quick portable solution. Last year, we received an awesome blender for a wedding gift. 

Now I should preface this by noting that this isn't your ordinary blender.  This is a commercial style blender that could essentially puree a beseball bat if you so choose.  These run somewhere in the neighborhood of $400 but they sure do the job right! 

Yesterday, I awoke to the buzzing of the Vita-mix, and was greeted with a creamy green treat from my husband.  He blended non-fat strawberry yogurt, kiwi, and celery.  That's the trick, you see.  Throw in some veggies! Celery, kale, and lettuce, are all good choices.  You don't even taste it when it's mixed up with all that other stuff. 

There are no rules when blending.  If you can dream it, you can blend it.  Just be careful with your fruit portions.  You don't want to blend up way more fruit than you would ever eat in one sitting.  Use mangoes, oranges, berries, bananas, pineapple, peaches, carrots, celery, kale, lettuce, yogurt, milk, ice, and more.  Also, the difference between blending and juicing is that with blending, you are still eating all of the fiber.  This leads directly into my next point; drinking blended fruit and vegetable smoothies will keep you regular or jumpstart you if you're not. 

Kevin also made some hard boiled eggs to go along with my green goddess smoothie. 

For absolutely perfect hard boiled eggs, place the eggs in a sauce pan with water.  Place them on the stove and turn on heat until boiling.  As soon as the water boils, turn off the heat completely and cover the pan.   Let sit for 12 minutes.  After 12 minutes, scoop out the eggs and shock in ice water.  

Some fresh herbs would have been excellent with either the smoothie or the eggs.  We have some baby sprouts just popping up and we are quite excited for the results!

What's your favorite smoothie combo? How do you like your hard boiled eggs?