Smoothies Without a Blender and Preserving like a Boss

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This week has flown by! I've been experimenting with making smoothies with a potato masher as our blender broke, and I've been craving one like a pregnant lady. I'm not sure if I'll replace it with a crank blender, as it is all plastic, like all blenders you'll run into, so this may be a permanent solution. 

Here's how I potato mash a smoothie (photos coming): 

1. Cut all greens (for green smoothies) and fruits, etc. as small as you can.
2. Mash all greens in a big bowl (for a green smoothie) first, as mushy as you can.
3. Then mash fruits next, mushy as you can.
4. Add in yogurt or other liquids at this point and mix well. I like to use frozen yogurt I chopped up in small pieces for more of an ice cream texture.
5. Enjoy your lumpy, plastic-free and nonelectric smoothie! (I still like it, but may not be for everyone.)

Back up to dehydrating apricots 24/7 from two ladies in my ward.

Also canned a jar of blackberries from our yard, and a quart and a pint jar of blueberries from the farmer's market.

Visited my grandma while UG1 played with my much younger cousins. She sent me home with a bag of 12 or so yellow crookneck squash from Grandpa's garden. I got one of our pressure canners fixed. I canned the squash with the help of Mr. Greenie who took turns with UG3 that night. Here are the six beautiful sealed jars from my first pressure canning session and the first vegetables for winter! 

The girls and I also had lunch with one of my aunts this week. 

Last night I made pizza from scratch with no cheese (we're out) and cooked beans as a partial substitute for flour in the crust, and baked snickerdoodles with more beans as a partial flour substitute and applesauce as a partial oil substitute since we're low on coconut oil. To finish the house heating session off, we oven canned the dried cantaloupe and apricots while Mr. Greenie and I budgeted for the week. 

We're really plowing through our debt, and are already almost halfway done with paying off our second debt. Our emergency fund is still untouched and full. Not bad for starting Dave Ramsey's Baby Steps a month ago!

We don't have our swamp cooler working (needs full replacement since we bought the house a year ago, so we've been enjoying the weather all summer long), so it was in the lower nineties inside on the main floor! 

Next time your spouse or kids complains that you keep your thermostat too high, just tell them that Little Urban Greenie has it in the upper eighties and low nineties and hides down in her basement to keep cool.

Here's to more plastic-free, nonelectric food preparation and less plastic, local food-

Little Urban Greenie