Tomatoes in a Smoothie?

Thankfully I’m feeling much better.  Looks like it was a 24-hour flu bug that’s running through my department at work like a tornado. Three guys have been out sick with it and I didn’t need to take any sick days. :-) I crashed early last night when I was feeling the worst and work up feeling okay enough to go to work this morning. I honestly think my smoothie experiment this week has helped because when my insides weren’t feeling up for solid food, I could still handle a nutrient loaded smoothie. For the last two days, I’ve been having protein loaded smoothies for breakfast, lunch and dinner with light snacks on the side like fruit, popcorn, and edamame. It’s the perfect week to try this since hubby is on business travel and I wanted to see if this gave me more energy while cutting my meal-prep time down and giving my digestive system a rest. So far it has and possibly helped me rebound from a 24-hour bug quicker.

But to keep this experiment going, I’ve had to throw interesting ingredients into my smoothies to use them up before they go bad. Tonight was roma tomatoes since I have a big box of very ripe ones that either need to be eaten or dehydrated.

I chopped two up and threw them into the Vita-Mix with vanilla pea protein, chia seeds, red cabbage, watermelon chunks, broccoli, carrot and a little cacao powder and stevia for flavoring.

It was actually very tasty, truthfully I hardly noticed the tomatoes there at all and tasted the watermelon, vanilla, and cacao powder mostly.

I’m liking being able to throw just about any veggie into smoothies for a quick nutrient boost.

And I’m also liking the time my quick smoothie dinners are freeing up on these lonely weeknights, time to tackle other projects I’ve been meaning to get to like clearing out our guest room.

This may not look like much, but that’s the point! Just 3 days ago this room looked like it could be featured on an episode of Hoarders. Maybe not quite that bad, but it was loaded with wrapping paper, storage containers, old clothes, and other project remnants. I’m not proud of that, but lots of sorting, cleaning, organizing, and a huge trip to the Goodwill later I found the bed and dresser! And I’ve done all this because I’m totally re-doing the room into our dream office since this guest room has not been used for guests since… well we moved into the house years ago. And I’m out-growing my built-in desk in the kitchen area which could be better used for our work laptops anyway. By the weekend I should be ready to sell this furniture and plot how I want to use the funds at Ikea. I’ve been having a good time browsing featured work spaces on LifeHacker for inspiration. Some offices I like so far:

• Red Walls and Dramatic Lighting – Like the desk space and lighting here and that there’s plenty of room for multiple computers.
• Green Walls and Natural Wood – Love the colors here and think I’d like the room painted in a similar green.
• Tidy Workspace – Like the higher up shelf for multiple monitors.
• Earth Tones and Built in – Love the natural wood and that the center desk is big enough for multiple computers.  It just seems so classy and light.
• Wooden Simplicity – Love the natural, peaceful tones and centered desk

It will be awhile before the project is complete, maybe a month, with our work schedules. But I’m giddy about the possibilities and better use we’ll get from this room once complete and the serene, new workspace we’ll have.