new years resolution: get organized

some friends of mine live in a little apartment in vancouver. little apartments come with little fridges. theirs is no exception. it makes for extra grocery shopping and the legitimate excuse to get take-out: "there's nothing to eat in here".

when jimmy decided to start eating healthier and drinking green smoothies, he and his wife began buying more veggies. alyssa, at my first tupperware party, bought a large fridgesmart for these veggies. when her husband discovered how well it worked, he thought they should have another one. alyssa showed him the "forget me not" set in the catalogue. jimmy exclaimed, "why don't we already have these?" (store your half onion or tomato in a container that hangs from the rack in your fridge so it doesn't get pushed to the back of the fridge and forgotten) you see, jimmy, being a man of reason, could see the value of the product. prolonging the life of his vegetables meant saved money...but sometimes even better - tastier, crunchier vegetables. and that lifetime guarantee - how can you go wrong?

with small refrigerators come small freezers so alyssa has also bought a set of freezer mates - modular mates for the freezer essentially. another great purchase for an organized fridge/freezer.

if you want to try out a green smoothie, here's jimmy's recipe:

The green smoothie is basically the same every time I make it, but it could be made from whatever is around. The important part is the green. Kale is the best, but you could use spinach or even green lettuce if the flavour is too much. The latter ones also make for a more liquid smoothy. My basic recipe is:

1-2 leaves kale (cut out the stem)
2 tbsp flax seed
2 tbsp wheat germ
1 chunk of ginger (about the size of the tip of your thumb)

Blend this stuff first with 2 cups of water to thoroughly break down the kale and flax seed. Then chop up and add,

1 apple
1 orange
1 banana
1 kiwi or pear (the kiwi's are weird in the winter, so I use pears now)

Blend it all together and you're done. That makes about 1.5 litres of green smoothie. The flavour comes from the fruit and ginger. I've found that the above is a combination. If we have strawberries that are about the go bad I add those, and blueberries are great too. I try to keep the cost down per smoothie so I only use berries when they're in season.

jimmy and alyssa already have two large fridgesmarts and have plans to buy a third - they are that worth it. if you want to keep your veggies fresher for longer, try the fridgesmarts.