Green Monster

I stumbled across Oh She Glows somewhere, sometime. I like the concept of "finding your glow again". I just haven't been feeling...GOOD...lately. You know? I saw her mention her green monster smoothies a few times and decided to give it a whirl. I wish I could have a smoothie every morning, but my neighbors would probably be at my door with a pitchfork if I ran my blender on high at 5:30am every day. 


I started with a spiffed up version of her basic smoothie:

• 2 cups organic spinach
• 1-1.25 cups milk (your choice of cow’s milk, soy, hemp, almond, rice, etc) (I use almond milk)
• 1 tablespoon flax (optional) (yep, used it. Make sure it's ground up, unless you have a killer blender that will break the seeds)
• 1 banana
• ice

Directions:
Hi there, Are you a Green Monster first-timer? Have no fear! This recipe is fool proof. Even the biggest skeptic will love this one. Place the ingredients into the blender in the following order: 1) Flax (I also added a scoop of "green" powder), 2) spinach, 3) banana, 4) milk. The reason for this order is so the heavier ingredients weigh down the flax and spinach and keep it from flying up around the blender and sticking to the side. Blend everything on the highest setting for 1 minute or so. Finally, add ice (I added a few frozen strawberries and a dollop of almond butter) and blend on the ice setting. Pour into a large, fancy glass. Sit back, gulp it down, and be prepared to have endless energy!

It was actually really good. And really dark green. And really BIG. I was stuffed when I was done. I'm going to try these out for a while and see how it goes....or glows....I'll post pics later today and also what green stuff I used. You know, when I'm actually home and not blogging at work.... :x

Buttermilk Baked Chicken

Apparently this is from Down Home With the Neely's. I've never seen the show and I have no idea how I stumbled across this recipe. But stumble I did, and THANK GOD.

Ingredients

• 2 cups buttermilk (I used the low fat buttermilk from Trader Joe's)
• Juice of 1/2 lemon
• 1 tablespoon hot sauce
• 1/2 yellow onion, sliced
• 5 sprigs fresh thyme
• 3 cloves garlic, smashed
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1 (3 pound) chicken cut into 8 pieces, rinsed and patted dry (I used a package of boneless/skinless thighs)
• 2 cups crushed corn flakes
• 3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese (forgot to buy, so didn't use)
• 2 teaspoons chopped fresh thyme

Directions

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Fit a sheet tray with a wire rack and spray with nonstick cooking spray. (Ok, I just saw this. I did NOT spray with non-stick cooking spray and REALLY wish I had. Not that the result was disastrous or anything, but a whole bunch of the coating stuck to the wire)

Mix together buttermilk, lemon juice, hot sauce, onion, thyme, garlic, salt, and pepper to a large bowl. Add chicken and coat with mixture. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator for 3 hours or up 12 hours. (I put this crap together at 5am and it sat in the fridge alllllll day until dinner time)


Mix corn flakes, Parmesan cheese, and thyme together. Season with salt and pepper.

Remove chicken from the marinade, letting the excess drip off, and dredge through the corn flake-Parmesan mixture, pressing to help it adhere. 


Place on the wire rack-fitted sheet tray and bake for 45 minutes until golden and crisp. 


Cook's Note: Remove the skin to save calories. Soaking chicken in buttermilk leaves the chicken incredibly moist with a delicious flavor. 

I wasn't feeling great on Friday, when I made this, so I didn't actually have any. LeGreg took one bite and said "WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO THIS CHICKEN???". It was GOOD. Super good. So moist that he was cutting it with his fork. Other than taking the time to let it sit, it was actually pretty simple and easy to make! Saturday morning he said "I can't wait til lunch, so I can have the rest of that chicken". This, the day after my zucchini bread success!! Look at me go!!

I served the chicken with fried red potatoes with rosemary and a tomato/avocado/italian dressing salad thing. This shall be filed under WIN.