Green smoothies and Milk Kefir

I have been into green smoothies lately.  I started having them probably a year or so ago, but they were mostly fruits and yummy stuff with a little bit of spinach.   I recently went to a class from The Green Smoothie girl and learned a lot.  I read her book "The Green Smoothie Diet" and I loved it.  There is so much good information in there not just about smoothies but about gardening and composting.   I highly recommend this book.

They also talked about how eating healthy can help cure cancer and prevent it from reoccurring.  This hit home because I was recently diagnosed with the more aggressive type of basal skin carcinoma.  (A whole different blog post)  So I decided it was time to take action and do the challenge of a green smoothie a day.   It has been 4 months since I started and I do feel much better and healthier.  I feel more alert and not so tired all the time.  

I use and eat a lot more veggies than I used to because I feel like I can throw anything in my smoothies.  My staples in the smoothie are spinach, milk kefir, chia seeds, banana, carrots, and then some sort of fruit either peaches or mango.  If I have anything going bad I throw it in like pears, celery, radishes, apples, literally anything.  Here is my smoothie today.

                                               

My sister in law introduced me to Milk Kefir.   I had heard about it before but never really researched it much.  She gave me some grains to start my own and I LOVE it. 

                                                 

 Its a natural probiotic that you can make yourself and it continues to grow. I love that as long as you "feed" the grains you will always have plenty of it around.  I put my grains in a quart jar and then fill it up with milk.  I cover it with a coffee filter because it has to be able to breathe and then 24-48 hours later I have kefir ready to use.  I put that in my smoothies everyday and I feel like I fight off colds better.  I really try to get the kids to drink it as well.  I will do anything to fight off the colds all winter long.   

I used the kefir to make some corn bread last week. I replaced the sour cream with kefir and it tasted the same.  So I am excited to experiment more and substitute it for sour cream. I love this use of it because I rarely have sour cream or cottage cheese around unless I buy it specifically to make something.  I want to make lasagna with it because we are big lasagna fans at our house.  

I love finding new things to try that are healthy and taste good as well.  So if you have any good recipes to make with kefir or just your favorite healthy recipe leave a comment.