Drink Your Kale (Recipe) + Externship Update

Writing my galette baking posting got me in trouble... I started craving sweets immediately after and went for my chocolate stash. The next morning the craving was still there and, since I didn't have any galettes in the house, I resorted to ice cream (malted peanut toffee fudge). What says you're living life to its fullest better than pulling a pint out at 7am? Since my brain doesn't work before about 10am, I had the added bonus of not thinking enough to feel guilty until later.

That was yesterday. Today, fired by a deep sense of regret I pulled out the blender and made a smoothie. But not any old smoothie. This was the mother of all healthy "I'm going to wash all the scum out of your system and replace it with easily absorbable liquid nutrients" frosty breakfast beverages. I've heard more and more talk lately of blending kale into smoothies -- which set off my "weird ingredient" alarms (I still have some healthy eating hang ups. Drinking vegetables is one of them). But my friend Courtney said she does it, and I stumbled on a recipe (which I can no longer find...oops!) with it while looking at my classmate's blog recently. What better way to balance out having ice cream for breakfast one morning than with a kale-spiked smoothie the next? And it was pretty good! I'll drink my kale again, except without berries next time because those little tooth coating seed buggers made it an embarrassing commute to work today. By the way, this alarmingly green smoothie in the photo is not mine (mine was not green, it only had little green flecks). Just as I don't think before 10am I certainly can't function well enough to garnish or remember to snap a shot.

Now for the externship update... I had a meeting with the catering company, Back to Earth, where I'm "externing" yesterday. They were one of the first catering companies in the Bay Area to pioneer seasonal organic catering and have a stellar reputation, so I'm thrilled to learn from them and excited to put in my first hours next Saturday (at a wedding in San Francisco).

Breakfast Smoothie

Ingredients

1 cup almond or "real" milk

1 tbsp nut butter (For extra protein. I used almond)

1 tsp ground flax seeds (for their omega-3s and fiber)

1/3 cup frozen fruit, optional (I used berries but would recommend mango instead)

1/2 frozen sliced banana (Or use non-frozen, but it won't be as thick)

1 tbsp agave syrup, honey or one pitted chopped date (Add more liquid sweetener or date to taste if you'd like it sweeter)

4 kale leaves, rinsed, stem removed and chopped

Cinnamon to taste (optional, the recipe that inspired me used it but I forgot it completely)

Procedure

Blend all at top speed, stopping to push ingredients down if needed to get everything combined.