Summer Obsession

I'm a food addict. How do I know this? I am obsessed with food, either obsessing over foods that I don't want to eat, like gluten and high fructose corn syrup, or foods that I crave. Generally, every summer and winter I obsess over a certain food group. A few summers ago it was ice cream. Seriously, I couldn't consider eating anything but ice cream. It's not as bad as you think, I chose sugar free low fat ice cream. But still? Yeah, I know, not the best food choice. This summer the sticky food of choice? Drum roll please....

Yes, you have it. Smoothies. It started with a billboard that I was passing for Burger King. Apparently the fast food industry has decided to offer healthier food options and menu contains salads featuring chicken and fruit and real fruit smoothies. Nice try guys, but your smoothies while they can legally say they are real fruit because you use fruit to make them are full of other things like high fructose corn syrup, artificial colors, fillers and preservatives. Oh, and those fillers are made of gluten...no on my diet choice of ingredients. Still they look so compelling. I mean, frosty, creamy cups of pure nutrition that are oh so yummy sweet and icy cold...except that they are not pure. But wait a minute. A few years ago a local close out store offered a smoothie machine for $10 that my daughter begged for. Knowing this thing was going to be a major pain to clean I acquiesced. She was over weight at the time and I though that it might help with her diet...it did. But I was so very right. Well, instead of heading out to a local fast food restaurant to consume thousands of calories of food that are permanently off my diet I dug the machine out of storage, cleaned it with bleach and resurrected it's purpose in life. The smoothie in the picture above is made with a half container of ice, a cup of Greek yogurt, a cup of whey protein powder, a banana, three large strawberries, a wedge of pineapple, a slice of cantaloupe and a fourth cup of orange juice. But even with all that sweet fruit, smoothies need a source of sweetness. They can be tart without it. I didn't want to corrupt my healthy smoothie with sugar or artificial sweeteners. This leads to the best buy of the summer:

a stevia plant...yes, I'm a crazy herb lady after all...I can't believe it! We grow fresh basil, rosemary, chives, thyme and now stevia. I use it in a lot of my cooking. I probably should look into growing garlic as that is another herb that I use frequently. For the smoothies, I gather a handful of leaves and throw them into the mix. That is what makes the green dots in the picture above. I spent $2.33 on that plant at a local nursery and it is worth it's weight in gold. I throw a handful of leaves into water that I boil and then use that water to seep teabags for iced tea. I dry the leaves and use them to sweeten almond flour muffins. My no calorie sweetener comes from my garden. How cool is that,wait a minute. Does that mean that I really am an aging hippie? Because when the apples, pears and figs get ripe I have been excited about seeing what I can do with them and my smoothie machine. Maybe I should see a counselor after all.