Milkshakes & Smoothies

Last night we were away on a one day trip. I made a happy mistake a few weeks ago and booked a night at the Hyatt in Arlington, VA through Priceline (love that Name Your Own Price). At first my hubby couldn’t get the night off so I wasn’t sure whether I was going to just take the kids myself or maybe give the stay to someone else. Happily he was able to take off work after all so we were all in our cozy hotel room.

We have four kids, ages 22, 20, 16, and 13. It is the oldest's 22nd birthday today!! It is so nice to see the kids laughing and talking and getting along so nicely. I pray that they continue to get along when they are grown. While on our overnight trip, we walked to a McDonald’s and ate and acted silly. All of us. And I have the pictures with which to blackmail them!

So today I was jonesing for the lovely cappuccino I have been making, but I wasn’t home for much of the day before we left on our trip. So now I’ve made sure I know where the nearest coffee-bars are near the hotel! Its not the caffeine I’m looking for, because I order decaf most of the time, but I love the comfort from the sweet sugar and coffee smell. I know, sounds crazy.

Anyway, I was thinking about what else I have made with the Magic Bullet. Yesterday we made smoothies, milkshakes, and I used it to blend the cream cheese for the frosting for my carrot cake.

For the smoothies we used some fruit I had in the fridge: cherries and blueberries. I also had bananas. Into the bullet cup I threw one banana and a handful of the frozen blueberries. Then I added 2 handfuls of ice (which looked to be about one cup). Then I added about 4 tablespoons of orange mango juice (all I had in the house). I blended them and voila! My first smoothy.

Next I used the cherries instead of blueberries and then instead of the orange mango I used cranberry juice (I was out of the orange mango) and while it sounds crazy – it was awesome! The texture was perfect, you could drink it or even use a spoon. Delicious.

For the milkshakes we still used ice, but used milk and sherbet. Basically I guess you can add anything you want to the blender and enjoy it. Hopefully. There are some things I can imagine my kids might throw together that I wouldn’t want to touch.