liquid lunch

It's exam time. Finals. Two down and two to go. Really not looking forward to three hours of calculus on Saturday night.

I need energy here. Lots of it, in a fast, easy to make, and quick to consume form.

And for that, we break out the blender.

No, it's not margarita time yet. Though, wow, I could totally do with a tall frosty glass of slushy booze.

Gah! Exams! Must. Study. Must. Eat.

Berry Berry Smoothie

What you need:

• 1/4 cantaloupe
• 1 mango
• 1 c frozen blueberries
• 1 1/2 c frozen raspberries
• 1 c vanilla yogurt
• 1/2 c pear juice

What you gotta do:

If you've got one of those little single serving blenders, I totally suggest it. You won't have to wash an extra cup.

My berries were picked over the summer by a coworker and frozen on a cookie sheet before bagging. I really think frozen fruit is the way to go with smoothies. It removes all temptation to use ice cubes in them. The smoothie will be perfectly chilled, and not watered down at all. It also won't separate if it sits for a few minutes.

Chopping a mango is something most people need to learn how to do. It's not an intuitive process, and it does take a bit of practice to maximize the mango recovery, but it's fairly simple once you know what to do. 

The pit is wide and flat and runs lengthwise down the middle of the fruit. Stand the mango up and align it so that it's long side is pointing away from you.

Don't slice down the middle of a mango. Ever. Offset the knife by about 3/4 of an inch.

Slice straight down. Do the same to the other side.

You can trim the last little bits off the middle, but what you have here is the bulk of the flesh.

Score it just to the skin, lengthwise and then crosswise.

Then, with your thumbs on the edges and your fingers on the bottom, flip it inside out.

Perfect bite-sized chunks just waiting to be bitten.

Or sliced off and put in a smoothie.

You can do something similar with the canteloupe. My dad always did this when I was a kid; they're called canteloupe caterpillars.

Both the mangos and the canteloupe go into the blender on top of the berries.

You can use any flavour of yogurt that you want in your smoothie, but I had a good quality, high fat (8.5%, which is insanely high for yogurt, but really not bad compared to most dairy products) vanilla. 

Pour in your pear juice. Again, the kind of juice is flexible. More what you need here is some lubricant to keep the mixture moving in the blender. Yes, vodka would work just fine.

This starts looking smooth so fast I barely had time for a picture. I did have to poke at it once to get everyone moving around (I'm not going to warn you to turn the blender off before you stick a spoon in it. If you can't figure out not to stick metal objects into fast moving and sharp blades, I expect to see you on the Darwin Awards).

It will look totally done after only a few seconds on high, but this is deceiving. There are still chunks.

Once you've got it whizzing around on high speed, give the smoothie a full minute in there. You'll need it, but you'll still likely end up with the odd blueberry that manages to escape unscathed.

Pour your delicious dinner into a tall glass and add a bendy straw!

That's your average 10-12 ounce glass. I was able to fill it up twice. 

And while I was slurping down the first one, the stuff in the blender didn't separate at all.

Smoothies store in the fridge just fine for a couple days and are totally portable. They make great grab-and-go breakfasts if you make them the night before and keep them in the fridge, or awesome afternoon snacks if you need a boost at work.

And if you get yourself some bags of prechopped frozen fruit, they take less than 3 minutes to make.

What's your favourite blender drink?

Taco Time

ETA:: Did you know that October 4 is "National Taco Day"? Neither did I. How nice of them to make a holiday to celebrate my blog post!

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Taco night was always fun food night. You get to eat with your hands, you get to build your own with as much or as little of each topping as you want, and making them is so fast and easy they're a perfect weeknight dinner.

I know most of us grew up with, and are probably still using, those packets of seasoning mix that come in the yellow box. No more! There's no reason to add thickeners, colours, or msg to your dinner when you can make it yourself with no more work or time than the packet.

Okay, yeah, the taco shells came in a yellow box, but I don't like deep frying, and baking the tortillas in the oven just doesn't work. You could of course have soft tacos instead and do away with the yellow box entirely, but there's just something about the crunch. And the satisfaction of making it to the other end without losing your fillings onto your plate.

Beef Tacos

What you need:

• 1/2 lb ground beef
• 1/2 onion
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• 1/4 tsp cumin
• 1/4 tsp corriander
• 1/4 tsp chili powder
• cayenne, if you want it spicier
• 1 c tomato sauce, or crushed tomatoes

 

Oh yeah, and taco shells, cheese, lettuce, and whatever salsa you like best.

What you gotta do:

Put the olive oil in a large frying pan over medium heat. (preheating the oven to 350 right now is probably a good idea too)

Dice up your pepper, onion and garlic.

Measure out your spices.

Dump in the ground beef and the stuff that's on your cutting board into the hot pan. Yes, all of it, all at the same time. Go!

I told you this was fast. I'll bet you were even able to do all the chopping and measuring in the time it took to warm the pan.

Sautee everything together, breaking up the meat as you do. Add the tomato.

This step won't add too much of a tomato flavour, but it will add the reddish hue most people are used to thanks to the yellow packets. Veggies for colour, who knew!

Mix in the tomato and let this cook while you grate the cheese and shred the lettuce. If it starts looking a little dry while you're preppign your toppings, add a couple tablespoons of water. This stops it from drying out completely, and can end up being nicely saucy.

If you've got a few extra minutes, you could even do a bit of fresh guacamole, or a pico de gallo (recipe to follow eventually).

Crisp up your taco shells in the oven for a few minutes at 350. (*goes back to top of post to remind you to preheat the oven*)

If your cookie sheet is bigger than the oven, they are not going to stand up nicely.

Now the fun part! Divvy out the shells onto plates, and then put everything into bowls (yes, dishes-intensive, I'm afraid) and start building!

Me, I'm a fan of sour cream with my Tex-Mex, but this is a DIY dinner so have fun! Try something new! I even got The Boy to try a bit of hot sauce!

What's your favourite weeknight fast dinner?

***

And this is where Taneasha lets out a sigh of relief that I made it through the whole post without some kind of innuendo about tacos.

Next time I'm in LA, I'm totally going to the Pink Taco. (had to link to the wiki page because the restaurant page auto-plays music and that should be illegal)