Start your day with a green smoothie

Posted by random olio

Since it is Monday, I thought I would start the week out with how I start each day out. I live for my daily green smoothie. Even if we are going out to breakfast or brunch, I do not leave the house without first having my green smoothie. It is filling, nutritious, and starts the day out right. The way I have found to make it easy to have one each day is to stock up at Costco first. You can stock up on bags of mixed fruit and bags of mixed berries (and then you do not have to go to the store as often). I usually use spinach as my green of choice, only because it is easier and you can purchase it in a large bin, rather then taking the time to clean kale. If I stock up on the mixed fruit then I only have to purchase the bananas and spinach/kale each week. I also found that other leafy greens such as green leaf, romaine, etc left the smoothie with a bitter taste. Sometimes I have to add a second banana for consistency depending on the size of the first banana.

Green smoothie recipe:

8 oz water (or to desired consistency)

1 tablespoon flax seed oil (optional)

1-2 large scoops of an organic protein powder (optional)

Large handful of spinach, kale (or other leafy green)

1 banana

1-1 ½ cups fresh or frozen fruit

before

after

I have been having this smoothie every day for the past 5 years. Try it out, and do not worry about the color. If it sits for a while it might start to turn green, however, it will still taste the same.

Enjoy and let me know if you try it!

Portlandia

Posted by random olio

I remember friends in college that would say that they would only live in Seattle or New York or Los Angeles or (insert town of choice) after graduation. They would then list all the reasons the city they loved was so amazing. I, however, never grew up with an affinity for a specific city. Nothing led me to one over the other. Until Portland. My husband and I basically closed our eyes and put a pin on a map and landed on Portland. We wanted a change of pace from Boston, and wanted to start new and fresh somewhere as newlyweds. Portland won the map/pin contest, and as far as I am concerned it has won my heart. We often joke that I should work for the Portland Chamber of Commerce because of how much I talk about Portland, and try to encourage folks to move here.

So, if you are not from Portland, or do not know much about it, then be sure to check out: Portlandia on IFC (airs on Friday nights). The second season has just started and it just gets better and better. Carrie Brownstein and Fred Armisen are hilarious. Maybe it is because I have become a die-hard Portlander, maybe it is because I think this is one of the best cities in the US, or maybe because it is just well written and clever comedy. Yes, just like Saturday Night Live not every sketch is funny, not every sketch resonates with me, but so many of them are just SO Portland.

When you live in a city where there is street where you can find a man riding a unicyle, playing an accordian (yes true story), you get used to just about anything. We have a Mustache and Beard Club, Voodoo doughnut where the line will go for blocks for quite an interesting doughnut (be sure to check our their menu here), Zombie walks, Pub Crawls on a Portland BrewCycle, the list goes on. Be sure to check out the “Put a bird on it” sketch from Season 1. I have even heard that someone is marketing a ‘Put a bird on it’ bumper sticker.

Keep Portland Weird sign

Enjoy Portlandia, I am off to Keep Portland Weird.

Discouragement

Posted by random olio

So I am a bit crazy. I run and read at the same time. I am a boring treadmill runner and started working out a few years ago by walking and reading and now I run and read. Today while running I was reading: “The Sound of Paper” by Julia Cameron. These past few days have been good and creative for me. I have been taking photos, painting (artistic not walls), writing, and researching and applying for jobs. All in all a good week. However, underneath it all there is a push of sorts inside me. One that has pushed me to tiny tears at moments (which is unusual to me). It is that voice that says what is all this going to look like? What will happen in 2012? Why is it that sometimes you work so hard for something, and then it does not come to fruition? Will we get what we have worked so hard for these past few years?

For some reason ideas come to me while I am running and reading and I sometimes have to pause the treadmill and write them down. At the moment I am in the middle of my run, and I came to make a note about this very post that I wanted to write, and instead my fingers would not stop typing. So I will just keep writing for now, the treadmill can wait, I will jump back on later.

Here is the quote from “The Sound of Paper” that inspired me while running. I wanted to share it with you in case maybe it would inspire you today:

“Wanting to know where we are going is often how we fail to go anywhere at all. Rather than surrender to the mystery of the creative journey, we want to know each sight we will see, each obstacle we will confront. Each ‘something’ that we will encounter if we dare begin.

The trust is that we cannot know where our creative trail is taking us. We cannot predict precisely who and what it is we will become. The only certainty is that we will change from who and what we are. We will become something larger and something more, but exactly the form that something more and larger will take is a creation that we have not yet created and cannot demand to know.” page 94

So as I go back to finish my run, I will try to let go of my discouragement, and work on trusting that all my creativity this week is leading me, inspiring me, and opening me up to be present and more aware of that “something larger and something more.” Just as our car mirrors tell us, sometimes what we are seeing is closer to us than we realize.

driving past Mount Shasta

My favorite books of 2011

Posted by random olio

A good friend, who knows that I read 125 books in 2011, asked if I would list some of my favorite books from 2011. My list below is in no particular order and could be listed for many reasons. It might be because I loved the writing, it could be because the story moved me, or it made me think of a bigger life and a more expansive world view. It might have also just been because I could not put the book down for all of the above reasons. Here is my list:

Little Bee by Chris Cleave
You Know When the Men are Gone by Siobhan Fallon
Breaking Night by Liz Murray
The Seven Levels of Intimacy by Matthew Kelly
Incendiary by Chris Cleave
365 Thank Yous by John Kralik
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Stories I Only Tell my Friends by Rob Lowe
The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh
One Summer by David Baldacci
The Winter of our Disconnect by Susan Maushart
Start Something that Matters by Blake Mycuskie
The Help by Kathryn Stockett

What were your favorite books of 2011? Post a comment as I would love to hear from you and add any new ones to my 2012 list.

Enjoy!

I am Addicted to Feta.

Posted by random olio

Thanks to my mother-in-law I have a feta addiction. I am addicted in a big way. Last summer, she made a salad for me with feta on top, and well I got hooked and have not been able to stop making it since last July. I know I am boring that I make the same salad everyday. But when the craving is there, feed it right? I wish I could say that I have a fabulous recipe to share with you, but the fact is I do not. I like feta in its purest form. Basically I put a massive amount of lettuce on a plate, add carrots and sweet peppers (in my current iteration) and then add crumbled feta on top. Then for the dressing part, I add olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. I learned the hard way that the brand/flavor of the olive oil matters, as does the feta. At least to my taste it does. After going through so many bottles of olive oil so quickly, I decided to purchase a large bottle of olive oil at Costco. NOTE: it does not taste the same! I also once ran out of feta in the middle of my work day and by the time I was able to get to Costco, it was closed. Safeway was the closest solution, so I got what they had, and the results did not make me a happy camper. So you can guess I made a visit to Costco the next day. Here are the brands that I found work best together:

Olive oil: Filippo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Balsamic Vinegar: Colavita Balsamic Vinegar of Modena

Feta: President – Crumbled Feta