Despite the fact that my Vita Mix is still en route (at last check, it was in Ohio) I decided to dive into green smoothie-ville this morning. Since I still have a cold, I thought a super dose of greens might help. I had two very ripe bananas, so I chopped ‘em up and tossed them in the blender. I added a handful of pineapple chunks, a handful of goji berries and two handfuls of baby spinach, as well as a cup of filtered water. Although my current blender is a standard Target issue Hamilton Beach, it did pretty well. I poured a glass full and put the rest in the fridge to take to work. The first glass was, well, strange. It was a weird mustard color with red spots. It was room temp and very thick, and although the flavor was okay, I wasn’t loving it. I chugged it anyway, with plans to tweak the rest of the batch. Before I left for work, I added another cup of cold water to the mixture still in the pitcher and gave it another whirl. This, coupled with 30 minutes of cooling in the fridge, helped immensely. And I found that the more I drank, the better it tasted, so that by the time I got to the end I wanted more. So, all in all, a pretty successful experiment. I do have to say it left me with a weird taste in my mouth, though. I’m curious to see how this works with other greens. Next on my list: kale and rainbow chard.

I love pineapples. They’re one of my favorite fruits. But, since they tend to be big and prickly, I usually just buy the pre-cut chunks in the little plastic containers. However, when my husband was at the store yesterday, they were out of pre-cut ones. So he brought me a whole pineapple. My first one ever. The only problem now is that I don’t know what to do with it. How does one core a pineapple?

Well, thanks to Health.com, I have the answer:

1. To prepare a fresh pineapple, start by cutting off the top and bottom so that the fruit sits flat on your work surface.
Then place the pineapple upright on a cutting board, and, using a sharp knife, cut thick strips from the sides, from top to bottom, to remove the brown skin.
2. Cut away any “eyes,” or brown spots, that remain. Slice the pineapple in half lengthwise and then into quarters.
3. Cut out the core from each quarter.
4. Then, slice pineapple into ¾-inch-thick pieces.
Check out the original article for photos of each step.

For more on the fruit sushi recipe, click here.

I recently stumbled upon an ultra-cool website: gliving.tv. It’s all about living a green life, and includes smart, eco-friendly fashion choices, sustainable home upgrades (composting toilets, anyone?), green cars, green (and not so green) celebrities, music reviews, hard news stories and more.

I’m most interested in the Green Chefs section, which features recipes and videos for a variety of organic and healthy fare, most of which is both raw and vegetarian. I watched videos (iTunes also has podcasts) for making raw fruit sushi, raw Jamaican jerk kabobs, and organic chocolate martinis. There are also recipes from a handful of guest chefs, including notable raw foodists Matt Amsden and Sarma Melngailis, as well as gliving regular Vanessa Sherwood.

I was goofing around on Facebook tonight, and I stumbled across a profile eerily similar to my own, for a girl named Nicole. We live in the same city, our birthdays are 3 days apart, we have the same unusual book listed in our favorites, we have similar political leanings, we’re both pro-Macintosh and anti-global warming, and she is in the same career field as my husband (for now, although he’s going back to school for GIS).

She also had a link to her etsy store, where she creates the coolest frickin’ thing ever: personality penguins. There’s yoga penguin, raw food penguin, pirate penguin, vegetarian penguin…it’s like she’s custom made them all for me! I don’t want to come off as a crazy stalker; I just think it’s weird how many random things we have in common. Maybe we’ll run into each other in Atlanta some day.

I got my juicer at Bed Bath and Beyond.

When it comes to food, I’m prone to giving up things: meat, soda, dairy, cooking…About six months to a year ago, I also gave up juice. For one thing, it’s generally pasteurized, which is a no-no in raw food land. For another, it’s pretty high in sugar, and I prefer to just eat fruit so I can get the tasty juice and the filling fiber.

But when I started my raw food journey last summer, my first purchase was a juicer. It allows me to make fresh, healthy, raw juice whenever I want to. It still lacks fiber, so I don’t overindulge, but sometimes fresh juice is a refreshing alternative to water. Right now, I’m fighting off the flu, so I made myself some juice today that was delicious. Here’s my recipe:

2 or 3 organic apples (I used Ambrosia and Red Delicious)
2 organic navel oranges (I had one regular and one blood orange)
1 organic lime
A handful of organic pineapple chunks
A chunk of fresh ginger, or a pile of freshly grated ginger

I ran the whole thing through my Breville juice fountain, and poured it over crushed ice. I’m hoping the vitamin C and the ginger will combat my cold, and that the fluids will keep me hydrated as I lie here sweating!