Simple Smiling Smoothie

Well, I'm listening to a streaming soundtrack of "Call + Response," something you should check out: one of the guys in the project, Gary Haugen, of International Justice Mission, spoke at seminary - one of the most haunting presentations I've ever seen.

But this isn't about human trafficking and slavery around the world - though you should know that women and girls especially are bought and sold internationally - and in your state.

No, this is actually about what I had for lunch. I know, profound after those two paragraphs.

I realized recently I rarely use my blender, out of dread of cleaning it - or, as Mindy Kaling put it, "if I had to clean out a blender every morning, I'd kill myself." But then my brain said, "wake up, dummy, you don't have to use it every day; just put it in the dishwasher." I said, "sorry, brain, sometimes I don't do you justice." And then I made a smoothie.

A smooth, simple, smoothie, that sent smiles. Mmmmmm.

Okay, so this magazine suggested using milk, peanut butter, and frozen banana. AND LO AND BEHOLD, I had all of those. (If your bananas are ripening too fast for you, unpeel them, stick them in Zippy bags, and toss them in the freezer. I meant to make banana bread and never did.)

But then, after dumping 1% milk, peanut butter, and a frozen banana in the blender, I stood and thought. Then smiled more. Because I'd just added like a whole teaspoon of vanilla to one smoothie. Then I thought again, and smiled, because I'd just sprinkled in a little nutmeg. Then I woke up on the kitchen floor where I'd passed out in sheer bliss. Okay, fine, not that last part.

But it was wonderful. Now, you pesky ones ask, how much of everything did I use? But I say, how the heck am I supposed to know? I didn't measure. But it made a whole travel mug full. If I was going to be honest, it was probably at least a quarter cup of peanut butter. But I just look, add, blend, examine, add some milk if I need. You know how it goes.

Now, today, I nixed the nutmeg and added about a Tablespoon of Hershey's cocoa. That treated me well, too.

I heartily recommend it. I poured it in a travel mug, brought it to work, and put it in the mini-fridge until my growling stomach tore into it. And just LOOK at all those FOOD GROUPS: fruit, dairy, protein. Wow. Well done, me. I just beat up the food pyramid.