Miss Healthypants Mixes It Up

With a name like Miss Healthypants, you’d think that I’d spend some time writing about healthy foods that I eat…but nooo…

As I look back on my blog over the past couple of years, I see references to Chinese buffets, an Indian buffet, a huge-ass piece of pizza, chicken wings, BBQ pork chow mein, string cheese, cheese curds, frying cheese, cream cheese (you see a pattern here?) and White Castle hamburgers. ..but barely any mention of fruits and vegetables (unless you count the few references to a salad drowned in ranch dressing—yummy!).

But now I feel that I must write about my new favorite food obsession…

FRUIT SMOOTHIES!

I have recently discovered how absolutely freaking simple it is to make your own fruit smoothies. Actually, my friend Diane convinced me to try making my own by telling me I could just buy all frozen fruit, stick it in the blender with a bit of orange juice, then a couple of minutes later…your very own yummy smoothie.

I was skeptical—as I don’t tend to cook or prepare anything that you don’t have to peel the plastic from and stick in the microwave—but I thought, what the hell. It sounded easy.

So I bought frozen mangoes, strawberries, and blueberries—and also some bananas, just for kicks. I mixed it all together in the blender with a bit of O.J, said a prayer to the smoothie gods….and…

YUM!

I loved it—and even more surprisingly, Iwanski loved it. Oh my gosh, Iwanski likes something that’s healthy! I need to capitalize on this!

So now, every morning when I get up, I make a couple of smoothies and then yell to Iwanski, “Come and get your smoothie!” I say it in a really high-pitched voice, too—I try to sound like that goofy Kate Gosselin when she yelled “Come and get your pop-corn!” (No, I don’t watch that silly show—they just kept playing that hilarious clip over and over again on "The Soup.")

Anyhoo, the absolute best part about making smoothies is that YOU CAN’T SCREW IT UP. I really don’t think you can—and if anyone could, I could (you can read all about my cooking foibles here). I’ve tried a bunch of different fruits and juices in several different combinations, and it’s always good.

I’ve even started sneaking some veggies into the smoothies now—so far I’ve tried throwing a bunch of spinach into the mix, and you can’t even taste it. Tomorrow, I’m going to try adding some chopped up carrots.

For the first time, I feel that “cooking” (if you can call it that) is like a creative venture for me. I love to experiment with different fruits and vegetables and different juices (FYI, Trader Joe’s Dixie Peach Juice is fabulous for smoothies—and it also tastes really delicious on its own).

And the best part is that both Iwanski and I get a healthy start to our day…although I do think that Iwanski is concerned about how far I might go with the smoothie creativity.

Tonight, as I was chopping up some carrots to use in tomorrow’s smoothies, he said, “Don’t get too crazy now—don’t start adding peppers or anything.”

Peppers in a smoothie? Yucky! Or would it be…? I just googled “peppers smoothie” and right away came upon a website that has a recipe for a “Sweet Red Pepper Smoothie.” I am SO going to check that out.

Iwanski has no idea what he’s in for!