My Vita-Mix Love...

(This post was started roughly a month ago and has since been sitting in my drafts... *sigh*)

So guess what my in-laws had hidden away in their house? That would be a Vita-Mix 5000 (The Cadillac of blenders)! So Karen... why is this so exciting? Why do we care that your in-laws have a blender? Well... since you asked, lemme esplain... They have NEVER used it. EVER. And... (after some begging on Husbands part) They gave it to us!!!! Apparently Husband's grandfather gave it to them as a Christmas gift years ago and they never even tried it out. That is a $450+ shame! Ever since I got my juicer I have been really wanting a blender to supplement this healthier lifestyle that I'm trying to get a handle on. (Read a raw food website and you'll be seething with envy over my new baby, trust me.)

When we busted out the how-to-VHS (That's right VHS, copyright 1994!) we nearly died. Luckily we found the manuals (above) to fill in the gaps since the first few minutes of the VHS were toast (well that and the lady doing the how-to video was absolutely hysterical so we were cracking up through most of it).
Now I can not only make fruit smoothies... I can make soups, breads, batters, milk & spreads from scratch. Grocery shopping yesterday had me giggling about making flour from whole grains and making my own rice milk. (Obviously buying rice, almond, & cashews in bulk and using my blender is much cheaper then buying pre-packaged milk alternatives) The possibilities are endless and we're both really excited. (I was actually really shocked at how excited Husband is to be honest!)

The first attempt at smoothie making went pretty well. We had pineapple, tangerine, banana, apple, strawberry & honey, with just a small amount of ice. Although truth be told we might have overloaded it just a bit...

The end result was beautiful and very creamy. We're not very rigorous about following the suggested portions so this first round was a bit too pineapple-licious for my taste. However, just like everything else there's a bit of learning curve...Take my attempt at making bread.
There we were standing at the bulk bins at Whole Foods contemplating our selections. I saw spelt seeds, thought to myself... hey that sounds familiar let's get that. So we used the Vita-Mix to grind up the seeds into flour then threw the concoction into our bread maker.
Keep in mind we weren't exactly following a recipe, just making it up as we went along...
While it was baking I thought to myself, that looks funny and proceeded to do some research on spelt. Turns out spelt bread is prone to being very temperamental. Imagine that.
It didn't necessarily taste bad... it just looked really, really bizarre.

Today at Barnes & Noble I picked up 2 books that I'm hoping will spur me back to the path of health & wellness.

• Green Smoothie Revolution : The Radical Leap Towards Natural Health - Victoria Boutenko
• Juicing for Life - Cherie Calbom

The problem is that there's so much info out there but it takes time & patience to wade through it all to find the real gems. Recipes seem few & far between or seem to rely on you understanding how best to combine all the fruits & veggies in your fridge to find something that taste delicious. I need to have my hand held instead of just being shoved out into the deep end. So it's slow going but I'm sure, eventually, I'll get there. In the meantime I'll just doggie-paddle my way around...