health foods

Hi boys and girls! This is Michael Gillan Maxwell, The Lunch Laddy, comin’ at ya with a new installment of The Lunch Lady Cookbook. Today we’re gonna do some gustatory galavanting with the ultimate “meal on the go” ~ “smoothies”. These recipes are good and good for you!

Stop all the moaning and groaning! I know what you’re about to say. People write me all the time to say: “ Lunch Laddy ~ W.T.F. dude? What kind of Lunch Lady Cookbook is this anyway? You promised us classic Lunch Lady comfort foods and you keep comin’ at us with whack stuff like vegan dishes, quiche and God knows what all? Where’s the good stuff like Lunch Lady Meatloaf and Lunch Lady Sloppy Joes? And by the way ~ no Lunch Lady Mac and Cheese? C’mon! What gives?” To which I reply: “Patience Grasshopper. All in good time. I promise. In fact, the recipe after this will be so heart-stoppingly unhealthy, you’ll need the crash cart and paddles to revive you!”

The first smoothie on today’s list is: (Tada!)

“All-Time Incredible Hulk Monster Behemoth Breakfast Smoothie”

For this you will need the following:

1 Banana
1 Mango
1 Handful Blueberries
2 Whopping Tablespoons Low Fat Greek Yogurt (I prefer vanilla)
1 Cup Chai Tea

( I use Bolthouse Farms Vanilla Chai Tea with 59 grams of soy protein per 52 oz. bottle. That’s “Soy Protein”, nimrod, not “Soylent Green” ~ there’s a big difference. It also has 18 amino acids and builds strong bodies in 12 ways like Wonder Bread ~ and no, it’s not the kind of acid you took at that outdoor music festival last year.)

1 Tablespoon Garden Greens Protein Shake

( This has soy, spirulina and pea proteins ~ that’s “pea” ~ not “pee!” Jeez ~ will you please get with the program?)

Toss that stuff in a blender and whip it into a frothing slosh. (Not to be confused with Old Frothingslosh a prosaic working man’s beer from Pittsburgh)

Drink heartily. You should be channeling Yule Gibbons within 10 minutes, but take his transmissions with a grain of salt because I think he met his untimely demise from eating pine cones, one of the very things he extolled the virtues of.

Follow with a brisk 40 minutes of nude Tai Chi and a sponge bath on your balcony. The neighbors love that kind of stuff.

Musical Pairing:

Hamza El Din “A Wish”

Hamza El Din is a legendary Nubian composer and in my humble opinion, the greatest oud player in the world,

Now hang on to your hats kids because here comes the next one. I call this the Lunch Lady

“Lunch When You Ain’t Got Time to Munch Smoothie”

You’ll need to hit the produce department at your local grocery store pretty hard for this one. You’ll need:

1 Raw Beet
1 Handful Spinach
2 Stalks Celery
1 Handful Baby Carrots
1/2 Cup Carrot Juice

Again, throw that stuff in the blender and put the pedal to the metal. If you don’t have a blender, you can use a weed whacker or a boat propeller, but it’s not recommended. Whaddya mean you don’t like beets? Quit whining, ya big baby. If it helps, pour a couple of shots of vodka in there and call it a Bloody Mary. Anyway, beets are good for you. Just ask Dwight Shrute. You’ll be channeling Jack Lalane after this one. He lived to be 100 and had like a 26 inch waist. Although, if you hit the vodka too hard you’re more likely to be channeling Jack Palance. In either case, you should be levitating shortly.

Beets Are Good For You! — Beets Are Good For You

Musical Pairing:

Tinariwen “Amassakoul”

Tinariwen is a band of Tuareg-Berber musicians from the Sahara Desert region of northern Mali. The band was formed around 1979 in refugee camps in Libya but returned to Mali after a cease-fire in the 1990s. Their music totally kicks ass.

The Lunch Laddy is going to throw a bone to all you naysayers out there with one final recipe. The Lunch Laddie is a transplanted Wisconsin boy, die hard ex-pat and life-long cheesehead! This power packed concoction is called:

“The Bucky Badger Cheesehead Smoothie”