Purple Smoothie & Green Hummus

I was temped to have a fun weekend breakfast this morning like Banana Chocolate Chia Seed Pudding, but opted for my old faithful smoothie since I had a morning run planned. By fresh produce supply was still pathetically low, this is what I came up with for smoothie ingredients – Pea Protein, Vitamineral Green, sprouted lentils, two really ripe kiwis, carrots, ginger, and a cute, little beet.

With these odd combos, I always like to see which color wins and even with all the green from the lentils, kiwis, and Vitamineral Green, the little beet still won.

And had a pleasant mild ginger flavor and sweetness from the kiwi.

The following run was perfect since hubby decided to run with me, a fun change from running solo. He doesn’t know it yet, but I’ll be dragging him on many more runs. :-)

Later I overflowed the cart, as usual, at Whole Foods loading up for the week scared at what the checkout damage would be. But it was only $115, go figure! Still I try to alternate between Trader Joe’s and farmer’s markets for cheaper shopping and only splurge at Whole Foods about once a month for specialty ingredients.

For dinner I was still using up old produce, like these 2-week-old potatoes that really needed to be used up and fresh fennel fronds.

Last night I resisted getting fries with the mushroom burger and decided to make up for it tonight tossing the fries with olive oil, chopped fennel fronds and salt.

Then baking for about 30 minutes.

Until they became nice and crispy.

To go with the fries, I experimented with a hummus recipe creating this basic recipe, but using spinach and zucchini in place of the garbanzo beans.

Which gave me a vibrant green version that was a little runny, but still good.

The Hulk-green hummus was fun with carrot and red pepper sticks, kind of a salad in party finger food format and possibly a kid-friendly one. The fries were great with a crispy, non-greasy texture and a mild licorice flavor from the fennel and even better dipped in Vegenaise. :-)

The hummus had a strong, savory spinach flavor that went well with the fresh veggies and a texture good for dipping.

And we had Smokey as our dinner guest sitting patiently on the floor trying to get our attention.

Maybe trying to find the right time to start talking to us. She’s so eerily good at making direct eye contact and meowing as soon as we look at her, that we’re pretty sure she’s actually an alien in a cat’s body who will one day reveal her master plan to us.

Or maybe she just wanted green hummus.