Smoothie Afternoon

Saturday:

My foodie friend came over for a "smoothie afternoon". We made delicious non-alcoholic smoothies and snacks and soaked up some rays. It was really really hot and humid but we still had a good time. She lives pretty close so we may make this a Saturday afternoon tradition.

We started off with choppin' up fruit and blending them in the Magic Bullet. I have a decent blender but she said that the Magic Bullet is great for smoothies (but not much else despite the commercials). So we chopped up pineapple, strawberries and added V8 Peach Mango juice, soy milk and coconut milk. Yum! So good!

The smoothies turned out so delicious! Oh and we added banana too. I gave a chunk of pineapple to Patches but he did not like it. I've read that most fruit is a good treat for dogs but PatchDog does not like fruit. Anyway, for our snacks we didn't have anything too fancy- that fruity pasta salad I mentioned a couple days ago, fruit and pretzels. Just enough. We weren't trying to have a meal, just snacks.

The pasta salad is the best summer pasta salad you can make.

Strawberries
Grapes (I prefer green, but you could probably use either red or green)
Chicken (optional, still good without)
Pasta (I like bow tie but any shape will do)
Poppy Seed dressing

My mother says the grapes are hard to get on your fork, which I completely agree. But unless you want to chop every grape in half you'll just have to deal with it. The grapes I had were really small (must be the time of year???). If they were bigger I would probably chop them in half and then add them to the salad. I made this for my mother the last time we went up to the cabin and she ate just about the whole thing! Its that good!

Yum! Smoothies! I"m still thinking about them. Oh- I wanted to say - no matter what the occasion, what you're eating- make sure to have some fun in the presentation. It makes the food (beverages) that much tastier and its fun! I love the top of the pineapple- I could have kept it on my counter all day- oh wait, I did.

 Nothing too interesting Sunday. Kind of took it easy. I'm thinking of things to do with the rest of the pineapple and strawberries. Also, I have a really busy week at work so I probably won't be baking/cooking much until Thursday night.

Well, hope you all had a good weekend. Happy cooking!