Ja cię kocham…

It’s a party up in here!  This time last year, I posted for the very first time and had no idea what was going to come of this blog.  Little did I know that I would have so many foodie friends (HUNDREDS of you!) and so much support!  Thank you!

And in celebration of Ja cie kocham’s birthday, I’m making chocolate covered pretzels – a boatload of them.   They are festive, easy to make, and I’m probably going to eat them all within a few days.

I’m also going to use this time to recap on some of my favorite recipes of the year:

Breakfast:

Peanut Butter and Banana French Toast – Heaven on a plate.  ‘Nuff said.

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Appetizer:

Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms – What a crowd pleaser!  Make sure to double the recipe because these will be gone in minutes!

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Pizza:

Pear and Blue Cheese Pizza – Wish I would have thought of this one sooner!  Seriously melted in my mouth.  I could have eaten the whole pizza by myself.

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Sandwich:

Grilled Vegetable, Herb, and Goat Cheese Sandwich – Perfect for a picnic and requires no refrigeration!

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Chicken Dish:

North African Grilled Chicken Paillards – Add ethnic flare to your chicken with a few pantry staples!

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Lime Chile Steaks with Pico de Gallo and Homemade Guacamole – Home run dish.  Bursting with flavor and super healthy to boot!

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Vegetarian:

Lemon Chickpea Stir-fry – AMAZING.  Nothing is more gratifying than making a very healthy meal that is so full of flavor.  I had several people ask for the recipe because they loved it so much.

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Pasta:

Linguine with Bacon, Baby Spinach, and Sage – I found this recipe on the back of the pasta box.  Always check the back of boxes for recipes.  They tend to be real winners!

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Side Dish:

Grilled Pineapple with Agave Nectar (or Honey) and Coconut – Elegant, healthy, delicious!

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Cookie:

The best Chocolate Chip Cookies EVER.  They were huge, fat, chewy, and absolutely sinful!

Thank you for spending time with me in my little corner of cyberworld this year.  Here’s to many more years together!

Oh. My. Heavens.

This was absolutely to die for.  I totally made this on a whim and had no clue how it would turn out.  I had no clue that I would be making one of my favorite desserts of all-time.  I’ve always liked rice pudding, but this has fallen into the LOVE LOVE LOVE category.  It’s sweet, creamy, and light just as it should be.   Oh dear.  Probably not the best thing to have in my fridge during the New Year.  A New Year filled with promises to eat more wisely… but I did use brown rice (it’s all that I had) so that counts as healthy, right?

I vote yes.

Homemade Rice Pudding

Source: The Dutch Baker’s Daughter

Serves 8

Ingredients:

Bring the water, rice and salt to a boil over medium/high heat in a large, non-stick saucepan.  Cover and let it boil until the water is absorbed, about 7 minutes. Reduce the heat to medium, add the milk and the butter and bring to a boil, stirring often. Reduce the heat to simmer, replace the lid and let the rice cook for 90 minutes, stirring every 20 minutes or so.

Remove the rice from the heat and slowly pour in the beaten eggs, stirring constantly. Put the pan back on the heat and cook for another minute or two. Stir in the sugar, vanilla and the raisins. Serve warm or cold with a sprinkle of cinnamon.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  Here is a quick peek at the gorgeous table scape courtesy of my beautiful mother, Patti.

Hi, Mom!

My pictures are a little fuzzy and dark because I was making sure to keep an eye on the food.  Post-picture taking, I realized that my lens was covered with steam.  So I apologize for the lack of crisp pictures.  (I am a bit of a perfectionist…)

I am so thrilled to report that dinner was a hit, and I didn’t serve cold macaroni and cheese!  My biggest fear was the timing of all of the food because I didn’t want to serve my loved ones cold ham and crusty macaroni and cheese.  With help from Ma and Papa Zigs, dinner went without a hitch!  Thank you, Ma and Paps!!

Prior to the main meal, I made some “snicky snacks” or as my Polish Poppy used to refer to them as “hordy doors”.  Ja cie kocham, Poppy!!  Miss you.

A cookie display filled with Nigella’s Chocolate Christmas Cookies, shortbread, gingerbread, homemade chocolate covered pretzels, and caramel bites.  I added a little Chocolate Soynut Butter (sadly, I couldn’t find Nutella, but this work just as well) for the shortbread.

Tzatziki made with my Homemade Greek Yogurt served with Crudites lovingly prepared by my sister and Cleanliness is Next to Godliness Food blogger, Emmy.

We also offered piping hot coffee and warmed mulled apple wine.

Here is my hubby, Jay, partaking in the warmed beverage.  Hi, honey!

And here I am just loving life and my 14 year old doggie, Cricket.

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And now for the main course all served on my Nana’s China:

Holiday Glazed Ham prepared by me and Smoked Turkey prepared by Papa Zigs

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Pineapple Filling

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Homemade Scalloped Potatoes made by Mama Zigs

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Simply Baked Macaroni and Cheese

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Cucumber Salad (one of Poppy’s specialties)

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Roasted Carrots and Parsnips with Sage of which I totally forgot to take a picture!

Photo courtesy of www.jewcy.com

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Fresh Cranberry Sauce with Apples and Ginger

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And also – plain green beans for Mom Mom.  She loves her green beans!

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To avoid complete carb-overload, Mom made me a fresh fruit salad.

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And for dessert….

… a semi-homemade ice cream cake!

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Recipes of our Christmas bounty will come in the very near future.   For now, I am going to make a delicious breakfast with the leftovers…

Until we meet again, I again wish you health, wealth, and a big belly from good food!

This Christmas will be the first time that I host a holiday dinner for a large crowd!  Needless to say the past month has been filled with scouring through recipes, testing them out and deciding whether or not they are worthy of a Christmas Feast.  My main struggle is trying to keep things fairly simple while creating an elegance and charm that sets this meal apart from any other weekend.  Simple Elegance.  Hmmmm…

One thing that drives me insane is an overly crowded dinner table FILLED with decorations, serving plates, glasses, butter, jam, and much more!  I am definitely one that enjoys simplicity and a fairly clear table.  (That was a MUST for our wedding -  a beautiful table with room to see the table cloth!)

Our wedding table scape…

I like to have a separate little table for large platters of food to give guests the room to breathe and more importantly room to eat!

This being said… I have to be honest with you.  I’m “hosting” Christmas dinner at my parents’ house.  I know!  After all of this explaining and these pictures… nope, I’m not having dinner here.  My home, as adorable and warm as it is, isn’t suitable for a crowd of 12.  Half of us would have to eat in the living room and the rest in the dining room and kitchen.  I prefer all of us at one table.  My parents’ house can accommodate such a crowd and my need for togetherness.   This doesn’t mean that I don’t like it when family members sit at different tables.  There is absolutely nothing wrong with people eating in the living and dining room at one time.  A lot of the time this is what happens at my house when we have guests over so please don’t think that I frown upon this.  It’s just for this particular meal I have a vision of all of us together because this is the first time in a very, VERY long time that we have so many loved ones gathered at one time.  I can’t wait for there to be too many family members to fit at one table!

Anyway, I really want to introduce to you these cookies from Nigella Lawson.  I just want her British accent and her incredible ability to speak as if she’s reading from a novel.   Nigella is absolutely lovely in every sense of the word.

These cookies are chocolate shortbread cookies.  Amazingly good but easy to dry out.  So keep a close eye on them.

Nigella’s Chocolate Christmas Cookies

Makes 24 cookies

Source: From Nigella Christmas by Nigella Lawson. Also found on Oprah.com

Ingredients:

For cookies:

2 1/4 sticks (18 Tbsp.) soft butter
3/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder

Topping:

2 Tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1/4 cup boiling water , from a kettle
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Christmas sprinkles

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325° and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl and, when you have a light, soft whipped mixture, beat in the 1/3 cup cocoa powder (sifting if it is lumpy) and, when that’s mixed in, beat in the flour with the baking soda and baking powder. Or just put everything in the processor.

Nigella recommends using vinyl gloves when handling the dough due to its sticky nature.  Personally, I didn’t find it necessary.  Pinch off pieces about 1 tablespoon in size, roll them into balls, then slightly flatten into fat discs as you place them, well spaced, on your cookies sheet.

Bake each batch for 15 minutes; even though the cookies won’t feel as if they’ve had enough time, they will continue to cook as they cool. They will look slightly cracked on top.  Mine never got that crackly appearance but I took them out anyway because I didn’t want to dry them out.  You’re icing them anyway.

Move the cookie sheet to a cold surface and let it sit for 15 minutes before transferring the cookies to a wire rack, with a sheet of newspaper under it (to catch drips while topping them).

To make the topping, put the cocoa powder, confectioners’ sugar, water and vanilla extract into a small saucepan and whisk over a low heat until everything is smoothly combined. Take off the heat for 10 minutes.

When the cookies are cool, drizzle each one with a tablespoonful of chocolate glaze—it will help “glue” the sprinkles on in a minute. Use the back of the spoon to help spread the mixture, though an uneven dribbled look is part of their charm. After you’ve iced 6 cookies, scatter with some of the Christmas sprinkles and continue until all the cookies are topped. If you ice them all before sprinkling, you will find the cocoa “glue” has dried and the sprinkles won’t stick on.

From Nigella Christmas by Nigella Lawson.  Copyright © Nigella Lawson 2008. Photographs Copyright © Lis Parsons 2008. Published by Hyperion. Available wherever books are sold. All Rights Reserved.

Now that I’ve given you the run-down of our pre-Thanksgiving feast, I am happy to share our dessert!

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a sucker for dessert.  No matter how full I am after dinner, I still have room for dessert.  Knowing this, I made sure to make a healthy dessert.  Despite its healthy ingredients, the results were creamy and wonderful.  I didn’t feel like I was selling myself short with the lack of sugar, cream, and fat.  It was a perfect light dessert to end a wonderful and guilt-free dinner.

Spiced Pumpkin Mousse

Source: Clean Eating Magazine Nov/Dec 2009

Serves a huge crowd!

Ingredients:

2 15oz. cans of PUMPKIN PUREE (not pumpkin pie filling!)
1 1-lb. pkg silken tofu, drained well
1/2 cup pure maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp. cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground ginger
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. ground cloves
1/4 tsp. sea salt
1/2 cup plain Greek Yogurt
1 oz. dark chocolate, cut into thin shards (about 1/4 cup)

Directions:

In the bowl of a food processor, combine pumpkin and tofu.  Process until combined, about 30 seconds.   Add maple syrup, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and salt.  Process until combined, about 30 seconds more.

Transfer mousse to a resealable container, cover, and refrigerate.  Preferably for a few hours.

Drain any water that has accumulated and give it a quick stir and scoop 1/2 cup mousse into 10 small ramekins or glasses.  Top each serving with a dollop of Greek yogurt and chocolate.  Keep refrigerated until ready to serve.

“What is a Pawpappy?”, you might ask.   My response is that is that a Pawpappy is a WHO, not a what, and Pawpappy is my dad.  Long, long ago my father decided during an episode of Empty Nest (hello 1990s!) that his grandchildren were to call him Pawdaddy.  Mind you, I was in my pre-teens and teen years in the 1990s.

Then I moved into my twenty-somethings.  My family went on a summer vacation to the beach and heading home from a grocery store, my dad and I saw a restaurant called Pappy’s with a BIG, pink pig as its mascot.  Dad just started dying of laughter, and when I inquired about this hysterical laughter my father decided that his grandkids were to call him Pawpappy.  He also decided that my mom is to be called Popeye – so they would be Popeye and Pawpappy.   And even though this is potentially a “you had to be there” scenario I must share with you that at this moment I have never laughed so hard in my life.  Let me also note that this conversation was 6 or 7 years ago, and my parents still aren’t grandparents.  My mom refuses to accept Popeye as her “grandma” name, but now we all call my dad “Pawpappy”, “Pawpaps”, or “Paps”.   Mom, you know we’re going to end up calling you Popeye

Paps’s birthday was yesterday and in honor of him, I made him his favorite dessert food… or should I say the only dessert that he eats: ginger snaps.  His birthday cake was actually a block of smoked muenster cheese (his favorite and he likes allll cheese) with candles in it.

Happy Birthday, Paps!  We love you!

Homemade Ginger Snaps

Source: For the Love of Cooking
Yields 18-24 cookies

Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups of flour (I used unbleached)
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup of brown sugar (I used turbinado sugar or “sugar in the raw”)
1 egg
1 tbsp water
1/4 cup molasses (Mine was unsulphured)
2 tbsp white sugar (again, I used turbinado sugar)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, ginger, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves and salt then set aside.

In a large bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg then add water and molasses and mix thoroughly. Gently stir the dry mixture into the molasses mixture.

Shape dough into balls then roll them in the two tablespoons of white sugar.  Place the cookies about 2 inches apart onto an ungreased cookie sheet, and flatten slightly. Bake for 8-10 minutes. Allow cookies to cool on the baking sheet for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack.

These are too good to be true.

Just looking at these makes me want to eat the whole batch.

As I tell my friend Caren, overindulgence and I battle frequently over sweets.

Overindulgence is sitting next to me right now telling me to eat a cinnamon bun.  He’s a bad, bad influence.  Why must you tempt me?

I cannot give into him NOW.  I already had a cinnamon bun.  Ohhhh but they look so good.  I’ll just have a bite… or two.

No.  I must fight it.  I must.

I did fight the urge to put the ooey, gooey cream cheese icing on top.  Okay, I’m lying.  I just didn’t have any cream cheese, but they didn’t need them…

Be ready to stir, roll, bake, and eat in a little over 30 minutes.

Fastest Cinnamon Buns

Source: Cook’s Illustrated’s recipe made by The Kitchen Sink

Makes 8 cinnamon buns

Ingredients:

For the Buns:
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup packed (5 1/4 ounces) dark brown sugar
6 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon plus 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 cups (12 1/2 ounces) unbleached all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting the work surface
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 1/4 cups buttermilk

For the glaze
2 tablespoons cream cheese, softened
2 tablespoons buttermilk
1 cup (4 ounces) confectioners’ sugar

Directions:

For the Buns:
Adjust an oven rack to the upper-middle position and heat the oven to 425°F. Brush a round 9-inch nonstick cake pan with 1 tablespoon butter. Spray a wire cooling rack with nonstick cooking spray.

Combine the brown sugar, 4 tablespoons granulated sugar, cinnamon, cloves, and 1/8 teaspoon salt in a small bowl. Add 1 tablespoon melted butter and stir with a fork or fingers until the mixture resembles wet sand; set the filling mixture aside.

Whisk together the flour, remaining 2 tablespoons sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Whisk together the buttermilk and 2 tablespoons butter in a measuring cup. Add the liquid to the dry ingredients and stir with a wooden spoon until the liquid is absorbed (the dough will look shaggy), about 30 seconds. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured work surface and knead until just smooth and no longer shaggy about 30 seconds.

Pat the dough with your hands into a 12 by 9-inch rectangle. Brush the dough with 2 tablespoons melted butter. Sprinkle the dough evenly with the brown sugar filling, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Press the filling firmly into the dough. Using a bench scraper or metal spatula, loosen the dough from the work surface. Starting at a long side, roll the dough, pressing lightly, to form a tight log. Pinch the seam to seal. Roll the log seam-side down and cut it evenly into 8 pieces. Turn the pieces over on their flat sides, and with your hand, slightly flatten each piece of dough to seal the open edges and keep the filling in place. Place 1 roll in the center of the prepared pan and then place the remaining 7 rolls around the perimeter of the pan. Brush the rolls with the remaining 2 tablespoons butter.

Bake until the edges are golden brown, 23 to 25 minutes. Use an offset metal spatula to loosen the buns from the pan. Wearing oven mitts, place a large plate over the pan and invert the buns onto the plate. Place the greased cooling rack over the plate and invert the buns onto the rack. Cool about 5 minutes before glazing.

For the glaze:
While the buns are cooling, line a rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper (for easy cleanup); set the rack with the buns on the baking sheet. Whisk the cream cheese and buttermilk in a large bowl until thick and smooth (the mixture will look like cottage cheese at first). Sift the confectioners’ sugar over the mixture and whisk until a smooth glaze forms’ about 30 seconds. Spoon the glaze evenly over the buns; serve immediately.

Happy 100th post, Ja cie Kocham!  This blog was started merely for me to keep track of my own recipes.  I’m notorious for cooking something and not being able to find the recipe for future use so this blog was initially meant to serve as a private food diary for me.  Well, that lasted all about a month when my friends and family kept asking to see it.  So I gave in and made my Ja Cie Kocham visible to the public.  And here I am 100 posts deep.

To make this post even more special it happens to fall on my beautiful puppy’s 1st Birthday.

We don’t have children of our own (yet) so Noodles gets all of our energy and love.  We HAD to celebrate her birthday!  What kind of parents would we be if we didn’t?   I know it sounds corny and quite frankly even ridiculous – I have seen those crazy Dog Moms on Oprah and Dr. Phil that treat their dogs like humans and even chew their food for them – but rest assured that we’re not THAT crazy.  We just love any excuse to celebrate.  And yes, we love our Bean!

And Bean loves her Peanut Butter!  (I let her lick the spoon after I was done scooping the peanut butter…)  She also loves getting presents…  she waits patiently… well, as patiently as a birthday puppy can!

When we first got Noodles, she was so little and had lots of black hair.

As you can clearly see in her more recent posts, her dark black hair has turned a whitish-gray.  She’s half Maltese and half Yorkie so I guess the Maltese in her is coming through!

So let’s talk about these dog cookies.

1. They are so simple to make.
2. You can’t screw them up.  It’s impossible.
3. The original recipe CLAIMS to yield 10 “biscuits”, but mysteriously I ended up with 36!
   
4. And you can eat them, too.  They are not sweet at all so I added some chocolate
   

Please note that Noodles is watching Mommy partake in a cookie….

Peanut Butter Banana Doggie Cookies

Source: Allrecipes

Yields A LOT of cookies…

**Feel free to make the cookies really thick to cut back on the amount and to appease your larger doggies.  My dog is little (10 lbs) so I made the cookies thin so she could easily consume them.**

Ingredients:

1 egg
1/3 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup mashed banana
1 tablespoon honey
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1 egg white, lightly beaten, for brushing

Directions:

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F (150 degrees C). Lightly grease a baking sheet.

Stir together the egg, peanut butter, banana, and honey in a medium bowl; blend thoroughly. Stir in the flour and wheat germ; mix well.

Turn dough out onto a floured board and roll to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into desired shapes with a cookie cutter, place on prepared baking sheet, and brush tops with egg white.

Bake biscuits in preheated oven until dried and golden brown, about 30 minutes, depending on size. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Ugh.  What an awful picture.  Just had to get that off of my chest.

Oh how excited I was to bake.  I hadn’t baked in a while, and I just had the urge.  I came across a recipe that was so easy – no eggs, no milk, no butter.  Minimal ingredients make me happy especially when I bake because I dread the sink full of dishes after I’m done.   This was no fuss, required no grocery shopping, and had chocolate in it.  Works for me.

Well, it didn’t work for me.  Don’t get me wrong, this is a fabulous recipe.  I’m just not a fabulous baker.  I either take the baked goods out too soon or too late.  I rarely clutch that perfect time when the cakes, cookies, and muffins are perfectly moist and stay intact.

I posted a picture of when the mini cakes were intact.  The second I tried to take them out of the loaf pans, they fell apart into a disastrous pile of crumbles.  It still tasted fantastic, but it looked like absolute crap.  Pun intended.

This was soooo yummy… but unfortunately I had to run out to the store to buy an intact dessert for the guests that were soon to arrive.  I wasn’t about to serve them a pile of crumbs.  We win some and we lose some, right??

Vegan Chocolate Cake

Source: Martha Stewart Living, December 2007

Ingredients:

Vegetable-oil cooking spray
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oil – safflower, canola, or grapeseed work well.
1 Tbs. vanilla extract
2 tsp. distilled white vinegar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Coat an 8-inch round cake pan with spray.

Whisk water and cocoa in a small bowl until smooth. Combine flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.  Add cocoa mixture, oil, and vanilla. Whisk until smooth. Whisk in vinegar. Pour into pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. Run a knife around edge of cake, invert it onto rack, and turn cake right side up. Let cool completely.  And let’s hope your doesn’t fall apart like mine did.

Did I mention that I love dessert??  Did I mention that I love fresh fruit??  Let’s combine them, shall we?

I was SO excited when I found this recipe.  I made rootbeer floats for my students not too long ago so the idea of milkshakes was still lingering in the back of my head.

I also had all this fruit in my fridgie since there was a mega sale on berries last week.  Yes, I said last week.  Yes, it was time to use up my berries!

You can’t get any simpler with this recipe.  Three ingredients and one blender.  That’s all that you need!  You ready to make your blueberry milkshake???

PS – You could easily substitute the ice cream with yogurt and a few ice cubes for a delicious breakfast smoothie!

Blueberry Milkshake

Source: Noob Cook

Serves: 1-2

Ingredients:

3/4 cup vanilla ice cream
1/2-3/4 cup fresh blueberries
2 Tbs. milk

Directions:

Combine all ingredients into your blender.   Blend until smooth.

DONE!  YUM!