How can someone love a Vita-Mix so much? The past 8 months have been so fantastic thanks to this workhorse of a kitchen machine. Every morning I drink a green smoothie that is made of oranges, lettuce or another leafy green like kale or spinach, and frozen blueberries or raspberries. It is simple and a very nice way to start the day.

Peaches are in season here in Colorado, so I am pleased to start the day with local, seasonal produce that hasn’t been shipped in from Florida or California. This is my low carbon footprint breakfast drink that I’ll enjoy until I bid farewell to my favorite fuzzy fruits…

Into the Vita-Mix goes 2 or 3 peaches (pitted, of course) and as much lettuce as you can stuff in there. I have an heirloom mix I picked up at the Farmers’ Market. Add a little water and some ice cubes if you’d like it cold. Turn it up to speed 10, then high, then enjoy.

I am a HUGE fan of Alton Brown and often stay up late watching his shows. I caught one on making tomato sauce and think (without being overly dramatic) it changed my life.

I bought 20 pounds of Roma tomatoes from the Boulder Farmers Market and got ready to make some sauce. 20 pounds of tomatoes turns out to be a lot of tomatoes. Alton Brown’s recipe calls for 20 Roma tomatoes, cut in half and seeded. I used more like 60 Roma tomatoes, cut in half and seeded, and ran out of Pyrex baking dishes for roasting.

Just as a side note… I did not even come close to using all 20 pounds of tomatoes in this batch of sauce. The rest were used in a Grilled Roma Tomato Sauce, which turned out really good, so I repeated that recipe (basically tripled it) and made 4 jars to freeze for future use.

But, back to my Alton Brown-inspired sauce. I washed, cut in half, and seeded as many tomatoes as would fit in 6 Pyrex baking dishes. Then I coarsely chopped an entire bulb of locally grown garlic and a large yellow onion and tried to evenly distribute the garlic and onion throughout my 6 dishes. I drizzled olive oil over all of the tomatoes and sprinkled them with sea salt. It’s really quite simple.

Then, into the oven! 2 hours at 325 is a long time, so don’t plan to make this sauce if you need to leave the house.

I shuffled the baking dishes every 45 minutes or so to be sure they were evenly heated. After 2 hours, Brown suggests cranking the heat to 400 so the tomatoes caramelize for 30 minutes.

They come out of the oven looking beautiful and delicious. I let them cool and then scooped them in manageable batches into the Vita-Mix to blend them into a smooth sauce. This sauce, I must say, is FANTASTIC! Absolutely worth the time and effort, I promise.

In the end, I wound up with these 4 jars, which I froze for future use. I will let you know how I use them.

Happy cooking!

I am on a steady regimen of Vita-Mix smoothies. Lettuce, orange, and blueberries for breakfast, followed by some variation of the combo pictured here for lunch.

This one turned out great… for a bunch of veggies blended into a drinkable beverage, or as I prefer to call it, a healthy lunch smoothie.

There are no exact measurements here. Add more of what you like, but not necessarily less of what you don’t like! Don’t skimp on the greens!

• a few broccoli florets
• 2 carrots
• 1/2 red pepper
• 1 golden delicious apple
• 10-15 beet greens, wilted
• a handful of wheatgrass
• a handful of sunflower sprouts
• 3 frozen strawberries
• 1/2 red beet
• 1-2 cups water

I usually make brown rice milk, so I decided to switch it up a little and make wild rice milk. I had a wild rice blend from the bulk section of Whole Foods and made it for another meal. Using 1 cup of the cooled, cooked rice and almost an entire container of water, I blended it on high in the trusty Vita-Mix for a few minutes.

Taste it. Add more water if it is too thick, and a little maple syrup if you’d like to sweeten it.

Enjoy a rice milk that lacks stabilizers, emulsifiers, canola oils, etc. Have you ever read those labels? I’d prefer to make it myself.

Store in the fridge for up to one week.