Mother's Day Present

This is my mother's day gift from Coach. It is a Blendtec Total Blender. I have wanted one of these (or a Vitamix) for about 4 years. They can blend anything. I make a lot of purees for my cooking and I HATE my old blender it always got jammed up or the bottom would twist off while blending causing all of the contents to explode everywhere (that happened with my carrot puree last month). I will be making all my own baby food for Princess starting in August so we were planning on investing in a better blender soon anyway. Blendtec was at Costco's in Utah this month doing demonstrations so we went and watched. I had seen the Vitamix demo a few years ago. I decided on the Blendtec because it is more compact, and you don't have to stand next to it and push the food down into the blade to have it work. It has a 13 amp motor which creates a vortex to suck everything down to the blade, even the ice without a problem. We got an extended warranty (7 years) and a cheaper price by purchasing it at Costco. Since our car and our land both got paid off this month (YEAH), we were able to pay cash for this amazing blender. It makes soups (even makes it hot), batters, smoothies, ice cream (soft serve), juice, nut butters, salsas, dips, milk (soy, almond, rice) and even kneads bread dough. It can also grind wheat into flour.

This morning Starboy and I are going to have a smoothie for breakfast. This has grapes (seed and some stems), watermelon (with seeds), cantaloupe(with seeds), spinach, plain yogurt, apples, and ice. YUMMY.

I am not sure why the video is on it's side. It's still cool to watch it blend all that stuff so easily though.

Now this boy is excited to eat his fruits, veggies, and calcium liquefied!

Mom in the morning. Starboy took this picture. Not exactly beautiful, but real Mom nonetheless. The smoothie tasted great! No chunks of ice or bits of seeds just smooth refreshing yumminess.

Last night I made cheddar broccoli soup and cheddar cauliflower soup in the Blendtec for dinner. They were both supper creamy and delicious. It poured straight from the Blendtec steaming hot. (The blade spins so fast it creates enough friction to heat the liquid inside.) I am so happy. What a great very usable gift.

The Cooking Class

My current calling in my ward is on the enrichment committee. This month was my turn to teach the cooking class, which I have never done before. I enjoy cooking and I love finding new recipes and ideas, but I have never taught someone else or cooked in front of a group of people, so I was a bit nervous.

I taught a class last night how to use vegetable purees to naturally fortify family meals. All the recipes were great and no one could guess the "secret" ingredients. I had brownies (with spinach, carrot), Pancakes (beets,apple,cottage cheese), Deviled Eggs (cauliflower) already made. It took me all day!! The ladies did a taste test and tried to guess the secret ingredients. Then I showed them how to steam and puree yellow squash, and made Chicken Cheesy Tortilla Rolls (Carrot and Yellow Squash) Which were also delicious. I was glad that it went well. 6 people were there besides me, and I think they enjoyed it and even learned some things.

My sister came to support me. Today is her birthday. She has 7 children and is an amazing Mom. I love to spend time with her and both of us want to do more cooking from scratch to reduce the cost of groceries and increase the nutrition of our families diets. We are going to start going to a weekly cooking class at the Bosch store. They teach things like canning, pressure cooking, pizza making, pasta making, gluten free, specialty breads etc.. A lady in my ward actually works there and has told me about them for months. Now that princess is a little bigger, I think I will take her and go learn some good tips.

I think it will be so fun to do this with my sister, and it will make me actually go. I find it hard to get to things like that without someone expecting me and going with me. Maybe it's the accountability thing, or the social thing, or a mixture of both. Anyway we start next Tuesday 12:30 with a canning, pressure cooking class.
We'll see how it goes!