Another thing I was able to do last week, while I had a few days to myself, was explore the “cook” book that came with my Vita Mix blender.  The sad thing is, I’ve had the blender for about a year now and can never find time to sit down and learn how to make better use of it through the book’s wonderful recipes.  Unfortunately, the same goes for my camera.  I’ve had it two years now and just can’t seem to take the time to load the instruction manual in CD-Rom form and learn how to really use it.  Both of these pieces of equipment will do many amazing things, but my becoming educated is required to make those things happen! Maybe one day…

I did, at least, learn a few things that my blender can do, like make soup.  That’s right, just add the ingredients, blend for 5 or more minutes, and the heat generated by the high-powered blending will actually cook the soup.  It also has some delicious looking recipes for dips and sauces, and ice cream as well.

But it’s just so easy to resort to the smoothie, especially when you love smoothies, and want a quick, easy, and highly nutritious breakfast ~ or lunch, which is usually the case for me.  The cookbook has lots of great smoothie recipes from super-fruity and dessert-like, to full-of-veggies ones that are sweetened with some fruit. Here’s one I’ve had twice since last week.  So good, and I think it would work just fine in any old blender.

Nutty Fruity Smoothie

And yes, I could sit outside on the back porch and enjoy my smoothies in the sunshine ~ in February, which is just icing on the cake ~ or fruit on the smoothie, in this case.