Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Good for the Heart

Occasionally I get bold and experimental and venture into other avenues.

This time while grazing for bargains (which helps the experimental side of me) , I picked up a quart of "organic oat ' a non dairy beverage as a delicious alternative to soy.

No I am not a health nut, at least I don't view my self that way. I have been know to devour a 10 ounce bag of chips without any problems - on rare occasions. But I do like oatmeal, and porridge a lot. So I figured this wasn't too bad a loss. The bargain only set me back about $1.50. So no major loss on the experiment.

So here goes another delicious and nutritious smoothie. Definitely for the heart.

1 cup 'organic oat' drink - from Pacific Natural Foods (there is their free pitch)
1/2 cup raspberry yogurt
1 cup 100% Pomegranate Juice

Blend on high and enjoy. Serves about 2 1/2 servings.

Definitely a repeater. The tart tasted of the raspberries is mellowed out a little with the Pom. Slight oat taste, but for the most part one wouldn't know.

Personal rating 7+


Fast food tip: Pita pizzas, simple and quick to prepare only limited by your imagination.

1 Pita pocket - spread tomato sauce (preferably spaghetti sauce) -cover with some mild cheddar cheese. Bake in oven for about 5 minutes or till cheese bubbles - (uses a cookie sheet or stone underneath to catch the melted cheese).

That is the simplest version, add meats or whatever else you want plus different cheeses. Immediate success with hungry children.

Hey I did that, after taking three boys on a field trip. Stopped at my house and feed them. As a bachelor it was a immediate success, each kid had two pita pizzas each. I couldn't keep up hardly.

Friday, February 15, 2008

The Berry Heart

Well another good one for a stressed out heart, and perky to the taste buds is using Pomegranate and Raspberry premix. The sharp yet sweet tastes against the pom is good.

Here we go.

1 cup whole milk - yes I like large portions, kinda like a kid getting a large milkshake
1 cup 100% Pomegranate & Raspberry Juice (Pom being the main ingredient)
1/2 cup strawberry yogurt - some more berry flavor add with the goodness of yogurt.

blend on medium and then kick to high for a frothier mix. Pour and enjoy the berry flavors with the goodness of Pomegranate.
Yields about 2 1/2 servings.

For extra thickness you can add one banana, but it tones down the berry flavors a bit, and gives a filling serving. Without the banana my personal rating is 8+ with 7+.

Definitely one of my better mixes.


While growing up as kid and a teenager, I never considered eating a pomegranate. Thou two of my sisters would frequently get one, and enjoy them. Always thought it such a seedy fruit. Well the years have worn, and yes I finally broke down in recent history and tried the fruit straight. It is good, but seedy. Prefer the juice, I can get right to the business quick.

The pomegranate is bursting with antioxidant rich flavonoids.

A couple of links for the pomegranates (hint there are two links on this word - at the front and back)

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The Antioxidant

Well it's been a little while, since my last post. Dogged by a severe OS crash on my main computer. A serious illiness, requiring a fresh install, and recovering my critical data. But all is well. The system had been bogging down for a while, and my antivirus checkers couldn't find anything wrong (use one manually). No mysterious files either. More in lilely something I did, or maybe a bad cable for my harddrive (replaced that too).

So my stress level was up a bit. Shouldn't have been. But once we crashed, and started rebuilding the OS, we approached it calmly (after some prayer time).

So it was appropriate that last weeks smoothis was full of Antioxidants, they do help your cells rebuild (too), from stress.

So here it is

1 cup Whole milk (gives a creamier flavor)
1 cup 100% Blueberry juice with Green tea (Huh I say, did they steep the tea in the blueberry juice? If not than they are wrong on the 100% have to check this one out)
1/2 cup Cherry yogourt (cherries are another good source of antioxdiants but not near as high as blueberries)

Blend medium, than to high to froth more (of course don't forget to cover the top of the blender prevents some nasty results).

It was a good mix, did try a banana too on occassion, but better without the banana.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Cherry-Banana-Apple smoothie

Today's smoothie was a smash hit for the taste buds. Still a good one but not high ranking. Personal rating 6+

1 Cup apple juice
1 cup whole milk
1 banana
1 glop of cherry yogurt (about 1/2 cup)

Blend on high, yields about 3 cups

It was still a very filling blend.


Software tip:
Want to try a linux system but too afraid too.

How about LiveCD of Ubuntu. Download http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download or request a CD.

Burn the download image, and set your computer to boot to CDROM, and you can try it out before installing it.