Hello, hello and happy September! It’s the time of year where a crisp, cool breeze bites through your sleeves and reminds you that autumn is on the way. Oh wait. I forgot. Apparently, it’s just freaking hot. All the time. When did September become such a ridiculous heat wave? Goodness. (Edited to say that I started this entry a few weeks ago, but I’m sticking with it, even though it’s cooled down and semi-irrelevant now! Deal with it!)
Football has started again which is pretty exciting. We’re heading into my 11th season as an NFL watcher (coincidentally when I started dating Jon). Although for that first season, I think 90% of my football “watching” was really just me sleeping. Aaaaand not much has changed, really. I get a LOT of sleep and a LOT of snuggles during football season….which helps explain why I’m so excited that it’s here! Plus it is fun to watch occasionally as I slip in and out of consciousness, just like the football players! Of course, the Eagles haven’t been any good the last few years, which means Jon is not always as committed to watching it every Sunday. We’ll see how this year plays out. So far it’s been a roller coaster of emotions that usually leaves everyone confused and angry.
But what have I been doing to keep cool? Well, my air conditioning in my car went out. After many years of nothing being majorly wrong with my dependable Corolla, on the first day of the heat a few weeks ago, BOOM, there was no cold air rushing through my vents. So I’ve been embracing the window. The fun part is that since I was 21 when I bought this car, I had zero money and opted to not get power windows and doors. For the extra $2,500 I was saving, I figured my friends could roll up their own windows (lazy bums!). What I did not think about was that in ten years, if I wanted my passenger side window to go down because it was approaching 100 degrees in my non-AC vehicle, that I would have to awkwardly lean over and try to reach the little turny knob thingy across the whole car. Super classy. It has since been fixed, but that was an interesting couple weeks.
What I’ve been doing to keep cool through food is a lot of smoothies. We left for a wedding in Philly two weeks ago and I had a ton of fresh, delicious vegetables and fruits in my fridge (shocker). But what to do? They would all go bad in our absence!?! Typically I would freak out, try to juice or blend them ALL and end up with a big brown disgusting mess that smelled weird. Of course I would drink half of it out of spite, but by the time we got to the airport, that thing would be trash.
So I’m standing there at my sink, wondering what I should do and I started to put things in the freezer. At first, it was stuff that made sense and that I froze all the time: bananas, strawberries, raspberries…..but then I started thinking, hey vegetables can be frozen too! What a concept! I am obviously a genius for thinking of this very new concept of frozen vegetables. But they were weird ones for me to freeze, I think. I chopped up my zucchini, cucumbers and broccoli into smoothies sized pieces and stuck those in the freezer. But why stop there? I started freezing the celery, the kale, the spinach, even my romaine lettuce! I got carried away and ended up freezing tomatoes and oranges…I haven’t tried those yet but I was on a roll!
After the trip, I went to make a green smoothie with all of my delicious frozen weirdness. It. Was. Awesome. I couldn’t believe how well everything held up, right down to the last lettuce piece. I have been a freezing monster ever since. My smoothies have never been more delicious and I don’t have to feel bad when things start to go bad in the fridge….I just transfer them up to the freezer!
Now for all the hardcore yogis out there, ayurvedically, frozen beverages are not balancing my whacked out vata dosha. :) They are kind of feeding it. But I am justifying it because it’s crazy hot outside. I am still drinking my warm ayurvedic tea throughout the day, so I’m good right? Whatever helps me sleep at night, haha. I’ll switch to warmer, soup-type options as we ease into colder weather, I promise.
I figured I’d include a smoothie recipe to end this off in case you’d like to try it at home. The problem is that I don’t follow recipes in general. But if you take these ingredients and play around with amounts, you will find a combination that you like in a few tries, I promise. Happy blending!
Alisa’s typical green smoothie:
- green apple….1
- celery…1.5 stalks
- kale…..1-2 big pieces
- juice of one lime
- spinach…..a big handful
- green grapes…..a small handful
- cucumber….a quarter of a whole cucumber
- zucchini…..a quarter of a whole zucchini (at first I was cutting off the top and bottom, and then I was like, wait a minute, I have a Vitamix! I can just throw the whole thing in there!)
- green bell pepper…..only if I have it around, and I use probably an eighth of a pepper or so
- apple juice…..enough that it can blend pretty easily. I also add water if it gets too thick.
Pretty much anything that is green in the fridge goes in. Enjoy!!!
ALISA’S MUSIC CORNER
John Legend’s new album came out recently and I love it. I especially have been obsessed with his Common cover of “The Light” which he has renamed “Open Your Eyes” and put in new lyrics, etc. I love the original and I may even like the cover better!
My Colitis, My Assignment 