Success! Lemon Lime Shake

After several tries with jello and juice, I've finally gotten a good lemon lime shake. It's not yet a key lime pie flavor, but at least I'm past the curdled texture of previous attempts at citrus flavors.

1 or 2 envelopes of 'True Lime"

1 envelope of Truvia

1Tablespoon of lemon flavored pudding mix, sugar free & fat free

1 scoop vanilla shake powder

6 oz. water

8 - 10 ice cubes

Put water, Truvia and True Lime into blender. Stir on low speed. Add vanilla powder and lemon pudding mix. Add ice cubes one at a time until your desired consistency is reached. Since this has a pudding ingredient, it will thicken quite quickly. Pour into a tall glass and enjoy.

End of Summer Chopped Salad

This is not a shake. This is a chopped salad that uses vegetables that are plentiful at the end of summer in Wisconsin. If you don't have your own tomatoes, cucumbers and parsley in abundance, they are fairly inexpensive at the farmer's market right now, or even at the grocery store. Make this about a half hour in advance of eating, so flavors can meld, and so that you get a bit of juice from the tomatoes and cucumbers. I like to make a couple of servings at a time, so I have it for lunch at work the next day. If you try to keep it more than 24 hours, it gets a little mushy, so make only enough for one or two meals at a time. Here's the recipe:

2 or 3 ripe tomatoes

2 slicing size cucumbers

4 to 8 stems of parsley (I prefer curled parsley to flat leaf parsley)

1/2 small onion

1 tablespoon lemon juice

salt & pepper to taste

7 or 8 medium mint leaves, well washed (optional)

Cut all vegetables directly into your serving bowl. Cut out top of tomatoes, and cut into quarters, then quarters into 3 or 4 pieces each.  Chop cucumbers into similar sized pieces, discarding large seeds if necessary. Using a kitchen shears, chop parsley leaves into bowl, discarding thick stems. Stack mint leaves, and cut into thin slivers into bowl. Finally, chop onion into bowl. Sprinkle lemon juice over all, add a few shakes of salt, and a couple of pepper, and stir well. Allow to marinade for a half hour before eating. This recipe is two meals worth for me, but as an accompaniment salad, it's probably about 4 servings.