Easiest fruit and oatmeal breakfast smoothie

This super-easy, four ingredient fruit and oatmeal smoothie is a fast, delicious and healthy breakfast ready in just minutes -- perfect for crazy hectic mornings.

Still moving. (Note to self: Stop accumulating so much stuff!)

Which means that quick-and-easy is still my number one mantra.

While that's proven to be pretty easy for weeknight dinners, thanks in large part to the slow cooker, it's proving harder for breakfast, without falling into a rut of eating the same thing every day.

Smoothies have increasingly become my go-to breakfast -- if I've cooked up a batch of quinoa for the week, I opt for a quinoa protein smoothie with whatever berries are in the freezer. Otherwise, I rely on oatmeal to make my smoothies a nutritious and filling way to start the day.

This fruit and oatmeal smoothie is by far the easiest one I make. And it can pretty much be different every day if you mix up the type of fruit.

For the best consistency, you definitely want to use a mix of frozen and fresh fruit. If I've got bananas on the counter, I'll use those with frozen berries. With warmer weather and strawberry season on the horizon, I'll mix fresh strawberries with frozen bananas.

(Tip: You can get less-than-beautiful looking bananas -- still perfect on the inside, where it counts -- for a song in many grocery stores when they put them on the "reduced produce" rack. I buy a ton and then freeze the slices so that I always have a huge supply of smoothie bananas on hand in the freezer!)

Just be sure to keep the ratios of fresh to frozen the same. For the smoothie in this photo, I used frozen raspberries and fresh banana.

Chocolate berry black bean Mason jar smoothie

Attach a Mason jar to your blender to whip up this healthy chocolate-strawberry-black-bean smoothie -- dairy-free and naturally sweetened, it's the perfect good-for-you afternoon snack.

OMG, y'all: The Mason jar blender smoothie is not an urban myth! I still cannot quite believe that something crafty I saw on Pinterest actually worked.

This is a smoothie game-changer for me.

I love smoothies as much as the next person. I really do. Heck, I've got a bunch of smoothie recipes on this site. But I hate hate HATE to clean the blender. Did I say hate? I mean REALLY hate. Hand-washing is not my thing, so I don't make smoothies nearly as much as I'd like.

I know, it's sadly, pathetically lazy but hey, we've all got our issues, right?

Enter the Mason jar blender smoothie. (Again, I'm still reeling that this is not a lie.)

If you separate the blade attachment thingy from the pitcher portion of your blender, you can screw the blade attachment thingy right onto a Mason jar! And then, after you whirl it up, you can drink it directly from the jar! Not even an extra glass to wash! ERMERGAHD: Lazy person's dream!

I kid you not: I have photos.

Detox January 2014: dairy-free green smoothie

Dairy-free green fruit smoothie recipe that gives 3 to 4 servings of fruits and veggies in one glass -- and tastes great!

It's here! It's here!

Welcome to Detox January.

For new readers, let me explain so you stop freaking out. This is The Ninj's version of "detox", so you know it's not some scary-ass juice cleanse or eat-only-two-crackers-per-day diet plan.

(Please: I like to eat way too much for that crap.)

Mr. Ninj and I do Detox January every year as a way of starting the new year off right, after all the excesses of the ho-ho-holidays. And, frankly, because I'd rather eat a muffin top than have one around my waist.

Detox January is not some overly ambitious resolution that you know you won't be able to keep (new gym membership, anyone?) Instead, it's more of a short-term, mini resolution that you know you can achieve.

The rules are simple. For the entire month of January,

• Abstain from all alcohol (but if a recipe calls for a little bit, that's OK) -- we'll be drinking things like virgin marys and Cuban Buls rather than gimlets for cocktail hour
• Eat a bit healthier every day (I don't expect you to get crazy here -- we just try to eat more veggies than cookies and keep our recipes more Cooking Light than Julia Child) 
• Exercise more than you did in December 

And that's it. Simple, right?

You can do this -- and you'll be impressed at how quickly you will drop the holiday poundage and how much more inspired you'll be to eat better in 2014.

This year, I'm starting you off in Detox January with a nice healthy smoothie -- mainly because I personally am starting Detox January with oral surgery that will require me to drink my meals for a couple of days. (Yeah, lucky me.)

But I don't mind because I've got this awesome green smoothie -- even though it's dairy-free and made up entirely of fruits and veggies, you won't believe how YUMMY it is. (Remember: ninjas do not lie.) Not to mention that you can get three to four servings of fruits and veggies just by drinking one of these bad boys for breakfast! And I can guarantee that it will appeal to even a fussy eater: Mr. Ninj hates pretty much all green vegetables yet he loves this smoothie.

Why? Because you barely taste the spinach! Seriously. All you taste is the fruit.

Blueberry vinegar

More excitement around Casa de Ninj this summer: the high-bush blueberries are producing!

Regular readers will recall that last year was pretty much a crapfest in the wee orchard: no peaches, no pears, no cherries, a handful of blueberries and a few measly apples. Pffft. Hardly worth the countless hours I spent hand-picking beetles off all the trees.

Of course, all this misery was courtesy of Mother Nature, who is a fickle broad indeed, giving us a killing late spring frost in 2012 -- as if we hadn't gone through enough cold all winter. Similarly, this summer she has given us unseasonably cold temperatures alternating with blistering heat and seemingly endless rain. For cripes' sake, it's mid-August and I'm still waiting on the tomato harvest; if we don't scoot this along, my unripe tomatoes will be touched with frost before I can eat them.

But it turns out there's a silver lining to all this craptacular weather: the blueberries are thriving.

I'm done complaining. We only have four blueberry bushes and I have already harvested at least six quarts, with many more out there just waiting for me. We have oodles, even with my sharing them with the birds this year (we're all peacefully co-existing now that I've started feeding them and gave them some bitchin' bird baths).

So I was delighted when the week's "assignment" from Sherri Brooks Vinton's Put 'Em Up Fruit for the From Scratch Club's virtual book club turned out to include blueberries.

Booyah.

I already put up some of what I'm calling Black and Blue Jam this year, using the aforementioned blueberries and a boatload of wild black raspberries foraged from the edges of our woods, so I wanted to try something other than jam. Behold: Sherri's book offered up blueberry vinegar!

CSA Share Ninja Rescue 2013: scallions, garlic scapes & strawberries (10 ways)

Welcome to another installment of the 2013 edition of CSA Share Ninja Rescue, a weekly feature in which you tell me on Fridays what veg you got in your CSA share box (or found at the farmers' market) that you don't know what to do with and I'll give you a whole slew of recipe ideas on the following Monday.

(Or Tuesday, just this one week, because I was on vacation.)

We've wound up with an interesting combination this week, based on reader requests: scallions (green onions), garlic scapes (the long, curling tops of garlic) and strawberries -- because you might, just might, get sick of eating them straight out of the basket (I certainly won't but you might).

Strawberries

• Strawberries with Brown Sugar and Balsamic Vinegar: an easy, elegant dessert
• Roasted Strawberries: once roasted, use them to make strawberry, brie and chocolate bruschetta, too!
• Strawberry Gazpacho: a cool summer dinner starter

Garlic Scapes

• Pickled Garlic Scapes: a twist on traditional pickles
• Arugula and Garlic Scape Pesto: Spicier than your average basil pesto -- and great on pizza
• Garlic Scape Hummus: A delicious dip for crunchy veggies

Scallions

• Skillet Hash Browns with Scallions: A crispy, more interesting potato and onion side dish
• Scallion Pancakes: Another side, a little like a vegetable fritter
• Pasta with Scallion Sauce: An onion-y take on pesto

Now, with what veg can I give you a little help next week? Leave a comment -- The Ninj wants to know.

Fruit leather

Boy oh boy oh boy, have I got an addictive snack for you.

Fruit leather. Which is simply the grown-up name for the Fruit Roll-Ups we had as kids.

(Do they even make those anymore?)

I longed to have Fruit Roll-Ups in my lunchbox but they were a rarity around our house. This, of course, made them even more desirable, nearly as desirable as candy, which is what they tasted like to me.

This homemade version is no different -- well, other than the fact that it is made with real fruit and no sugar. But it still tastes like candy.

And it's GOOD FOR YOU. I think that makes it freakin' fruit candy!

And addictive? That barely sums it up. I cannot stop eating these bad boys. I made the batch you see here with only apricots -- and it was fantastic. But I'm already dreaming about the different combinations I can concoct when my favorite fruits are in season. I'm dreaming a lot about blueberry-peach.

ZOMG.

Roasted strawberry-rhubarb jam

There's a ton of rhubarb in my garden.

Last year, I was fortunate enough to inherit part of divided rhubarb patch that one of my neighbors was giving away. Given that I had only gotten turned on to rhubarb the year before, I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do with the harvest.

After today, I will never again worry about that because I have discovered roasted rhubarb jam.

And now I wish I had more, more, MORE rhubarb in my garden, perhaps an entire garden of just rhubarb, simply so I could make jar after jar of this jam. It is that good.

Oh, and did I mention absurdly easy? Set-it-and-forget-it easy? No pectin or lemon juice easy?

Yep, that easy.

Pancake breakfast muffins

I've been working on this recipe for weeks now and am so excited that it is finally ready to share.

Regular readers know of my obsession with breakfast foods -- that is, trying to find breakfast recipes that meet my stringent criteria:

1. Reasonably healthy
2. Easy to make in advance
3. Portable
4. Freezable

You wouldn't think this would be such a tall order, but it is. At least, finding more than one or two recipes that meet the criteria is hard. If you eat the same thing every day and don't care about variety, I guess you'd be go to go -- but that's not how I roll.

Recently, it occurred to me that while I love pancakes, I never seem to bother to make them, especially during the week. It seems like too much of a hassle to drag out the griddle and just stand there, making three pancakes at a time. Not speeedy. I have a friend that whips up a huge batch and then freezes them, so her kids can pull a few out of the freezer and heat them up for a quick breakfast or snack. Perfect workaround, if I ever remembered to make a big batch on the weekends.

Then I realized that I could mess around with the format a little. Because pancakes are not really unique: they are cakes, with the normal roster of cakey ingredients -- flour, egg, baking soda, etc. And cakes are basically muffins, right?

So I took my pancake recipe and made it into a muffin recipe.

Blueberry-peach cobbler with sugar cookie crust

Blueberry-peach cobbler with sugar cookie crust

So this is kinda fun: this post represents my first time participating in the Secret Recipe Club.

Here's how it works: each month I am assigned another member's blog (a different one each month). I then pick any recipe from that blogger's site, make it and write about it here. There's also a link hop at the end of the post so that I (and you) can check out all the other participating blogs.

Neat idea, right? I'm excited to see who got the Ninj and what s/he decided to make!

This month I got to check out the offerings from Jenn at A Cook's Quest. She has lots of great recipes, especially if you are cooking on a budget. But of course I knew which recipe I'd choose when I came across her sugar cookie crust for fruit cobbler.

Or cobblah, if you're a New Englandah.

Blueberry-peach muffins: a recipe

Blueberry-peach muffins

There truly is nothing like fresh summer fruit in season, is there?

The berries, the stone fruits, the melons -- they are all so sweet, so delicious and so plentiful.

I try to freeze and preserve as much of that summery goodness as I can to enjoy throughout the winter, but it's just not quite the same as eating the real deal in real time, is it?

And this year, we're eating plump blueberries from our very own bushes!

Last year (our first on the farmette), the blueberry bushes did not seem to be big producers and what they did produce was quickly eaten by the birds.

But we got a little craftier this year.

Strawberry-lemon marmalade and marmalade muffins

Strawberry-lemon marmalade, used to make marmalade muffins

I can't believe we're already halfway through the Cook It! 2012 challenge! We've made and shared so many awesome staples and recipes so far: pasta, bread, butter, cheese, lactofermented veg (pickles) and now jam.

Well, in my case, marmalade.

According to the Ball Blue Book Guide to Preserving, a marmalade is nothing more than a jam or jelly with fruit peel suspended in it.

I'd call that jam with zing!

I'm not new to making jams and jellies, so this challenge didn't fill me with any real trepidation. But I did want to do something a little bit different. However, I picked a time when the only fresh fruit to be had was strawberries.

(Believe me, I'm not complaining. Who the heck would complain about fresh strawberries?)

But everyone does strawberry jam and that wouldn't be very Challenge-ish, now would it?

Hence the strawberry-lemon marmalade.

Roasted strawberries: a recipe

Roasted strawberries

I'm not usually one for jumping on the bandwagon, but there has been so much buzz around the food blogosphere lately about roasted strawberries that I just had to give this technique a try.

(Mainly because I had a bunch of strawberries and the roasting looked pretty easy.)

It's definitely easy.

Slice up the strawberries, spread them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, sprinkle generously with brown sugar and roast at 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes or until they get soft and syrupy.

Results? Well ... remember those containers of frozen strawberries in syrup that your mom would buy in the 70s from the grocery store? They came in those rectangular metal containers?

Strawberry-rhubarb chutney: a recipe

Strawberry-rhubarb chutney, not compote

I've been calling this recipe a compote all week but then had a second thought.

It could be a chutney.

(I honestly didn't know what makes them different.)

Hello, Google.

Here it is: chutney is made of cooked fruit and vegetables (not just fruit) and contains vinegar. A compote, on the other hand, is simply fruit cooked in sugar syrup.

So this strawberry-rhubarb bad boy is in fact a chutney.

I stand corrected. And so does the title of my post now.

This strawberry-rhubarb CHUTNEY is very easy to prepare and so perfectly seasonal right now. I served it with some roasted chicken breasts (it cooks while they do): absolutely the perfect accompaniment. I'm sure it would also be fabulous with pork tenderloin.

Strawberry-rhubarb drop scones: a recipe

Strawberry-rhubarb drop scones

Strawberries and rhubarb: what's the history behind this winning combination?

Well, apparently, like a bajillion other things Americana, we have good old Ben Franklin to thank for rhubarb; he is credited with bringing the first seeds to America in the late 1700s.

As for the strawberry part, I couldn't really find any definitive answer, other than the first strawberries emerge just as the last of the rhubarb wanes, so, based on plenty and seasonality, both became popular pie fillings.

Regardless, it is in fact a great combination.

Regular readers will remember (probably with horror) that I don't really like pie (it's a crust thing), so I had to get my strawberry-rhubarb fix another way.

Scones, baby.

I love scones; they are so much richer and substantial than cake or muffins. And they sound so classy, don't they? Very British-high-tea and all, but they are quite easy to make. Normally, once the ingredients are combined, you pat out the dough into a thick round and cut the scones into wedges with a knife or use a biscuit cutter to make round shapes.

CSA Share Ninja Rescue: rhubarb and broccoli rabe

Rhubarb, in my garden right now

This year, I'm really enjoying the differences in requests for CSA Share Ninja Rescue help that are coming in based on a reader's geographic location. For example, this week we'll be tackling not only rhubarb, which is in season (albeit a short one) in the northeast, but also  broccoli rabe, which is plentiful for a reader in Colorado but generally more of a fall offering here in Vermont.

So keep those requests coming, no matter where you live.

As always, if you need help with a veggie, leave a comment below or send me an email before this coming Friday. Recipes suggestions are posted on Mondays.

On to this week's recipes...

Rhubarb

My sister calls it "that stuff that looks like red celery" in the store. Yep, that's it. If you buy it from a store, farm stand or farmers market, you will get stalks only; if you pick your own, be sure to remove the leaves as they are extremely toxic.

White chocolate cherry crispy rice treats: a recipe

White chocolate and cherry crispy rice treats

Ah, rice crispy treats -- who doesn't love them?

Seriously, I mean who? Can you even imagine anyone saying, "You know, I really can't stand those rice crispy treats. They're just so nasty."

See? You can't. No one would say that.

Rice crispy treats are wonderful in their simplicity, particularly the no-bake aspect. Melting, yes, but, baking? No.

In fact, I'm not even going to insult your intelligence by including my usual how-to photos as part of this recipe. Really, do you need me to show you how to melt butter? I didn't think so.

What's great about this recipe from Cook's Country is that it is all about grown-up rice crispy treats, with a more sophisticated flavor than your childhood favorite. The addition of white chocolate and dried cherries give them that not-to-be-wasted-on-fussy-children, enjoy-with-a-cup-of-coffee-not-milk lagniappe.

Fruity baked oatmeal: a recipe

Fruity baked oatmeal

Breakfast!

It's hard enough pulling something together every morning just for me and Mr. Ninj (thank goodness the Ninjette and Ninjino are pleased as punch to have oatmeal and dog food every single morning), but then you throw in some houseguests and it's enough to send even The Ninj into a tizzy.

Which is why I love breakfast casseroles. My favorites are the ones that you can assemble the night before and then pop into the oven when you wake up. But straightforward recipes with simple ingredients, like this fruity one, are also fine by me, as they take very little time to prepare.

I stumbled across this recipe on Pinterest; it comes from Inspired Taste but they adapted it from 101 Cookbooks. I've adapted it a bit further (chocolate chips? gross), so it's definitely flexible and customizable.

Detox January, Week 1: Fruity Israeli couscous

Fruity Israeli couscous with chicken

Detox January does not, I repeat, does not involve eating miniscule portions of carboard and kale.

Well, we eat kale but usually with some kind of snappy salad dressing, rather than cardboard.

Really, I'm just trying to point out that you don't have to go on a hardcore diet or cleanse to eat a little better and be a little healthier to feel a little better, which is the goal of Detox January.

(Sidebar: What the hell is up with the cleanse craze right now? It's like the hair shirt of eating. I mean, doing penance for a few weeks is not going to help you get healthier in the long run. As Jason Gay wrote in his recent humorous article in the Wall Street Journal, "There is no secret. Exercise and lay off the fries. The end.")

Enter this lovely pasta dish, which started out life as a side dish (perfect with roast chicken or pork tenderloin) but makes a wicked awesome main with the addition of some cooked chicken or turkey.

Blueberry oatmeal muffins: a recipe

Blueberry oatmeal muffins

After focusing my time on making lots of soups and desserts lately, I  realized that I need to think a bit about breakfast again.

I'm back in a breakfast rut.

There are only so many ham-and-cheese mini paninis* that a person can eat in one week without crying uncle.

Uncle!

I found this recipe via Cooking Light (yes, I know, what a shock). I like it because it has quite a bit of oatmeal in it so I don't even have to use the cake-masquerading-as-breakfast ruse: this is actually designed for breakfast.

Sweet.

Blueberry oatmeal cookies: a recipe

Blueberry oatmeal cookies

Blueberry oatmeal cookies were not what I had planned.

Earlier in the week, I made a really yummy and easy apple and pear crumble -- so perfect for a Friday fall blog post. I even remembered to take some good prep shots, which I often forget to do.

I made it just after dinner, so there was insufficient natural light in my kitchen to photograph the final product. If I try to photograph food after sundown, it turns out looking like something you wouldn't want to see in the garbage, let alone eat, so I usually shoot post-sundown creations the next morning.

So we enjoyed half of it for dessert.

And then the other half for breakfast.

And only then did I realize I forgot the photo. Crap.

Very helpfully (and hungrily), Mr. Ninj suggested I simply make more, but by then the deer had finished off all the pears in the wee orchard (damned vermin -- be warned, hunting season begins in a mere two weeks and I've got big plans for venison jerky).