Spring cleaning our diet

Aside from the fact that we are seeing more color and spending more time outdoors spring is bringing a fun aspect to our diet. My son and I love the local farmers markets. It's fun to go with bag in hand and taste and sample our way through the local goodies. I've tried to incorporate more fresh local produce in our diet. Farmer's markets are great for someone like me who has a hard time deciding what meals to make for the week ahead. I'm more of a "I'm in the mood for..." type of person. Cruising and sampling our way through the local produce gives me great inspiration and also brings up my recipe and 'preparation' curiosity. I've decided to make a bigger commitment to my juicer and blender. Two pieces of kitchen equipment that seem to get forgotten because I'm always "in a hurry". After this past week of juicing and blending smoothies I realized it's much easier and faster to juice or throw something in the blender than it is to actually 'prepare' a meal! *later I will tell you what I've been doing with the juicer pulp.* I also realized that what I had previously thought about them taking up counter space or being a pain in the rear to haul out of the cabinets was ridiculous and clean up is a snap! Wow. You know the 'V-8' commercial where people are slapping themselves on the forehead? It's a bit how I feel reflecting on my reason for keeping the best kitchen helpers I have hidden from daily use. I always try to get Jr. involved in the meal preparation and decisions. I guess it's much easier, as it is just the two of us for meals most days. This week we made raw-organic chocolates, amazing green smoothies, raw-organic blueberry pie (no sugar of course!), We decided that after struggling with our young Thai coconut that we need to rethink our course of action for opening them! Jr had the most fun running the blender and drinking the fresh coconut juice right out of the coconut with a straw! So cute! With the new commitment to my blender and juicer I felt actually liberated from label reading at the grocery store. My usual two hour grocery store excursion now became a produce stand and bulk nut bin hunt. I stocked up on raw organic almonds, pecans, cashews and macadamia's and I put as many beautiful fresh fruits and veggies as we could find in our cart. Instead of putting items directly into the refrigerator when we got home I washed all the berries and put them in easy access bowls so Jr. could easily reach in and have healthy snacks and I cut up a few things I new I would want to blend or juice. (which seemed to also become new, easy- access finger food snacks!) After a fun visit with my niece who showed a fun and extremely stylish kitchen apron that she had been sewing I have decided my next project is a new hipster apron for Jr. I'm not sure if he'd wear a chef's hat! ;) I challenge anyone to take a look around and see how much produce you can squeeze into your day. If you have a juicer getting dusty, get it out! If you have a blender see how much fun your kids will have putting bananas, strawberries, mango's and kale together. (most kids think it's funny to put something green in with colorful fruit and watch the colors mix together and the taste of the fruit will be strong enough that kids find they actually LIKE the taste!) I plan on letting our blender lead us into summer with a freedom from 'cooking' meals and reading labels. I'll keep you posted. If you have any ideas or recipes you wish to share please feel free!