So anyway… Angela gave me an idea for the post and that is to give you a glimpse of my preparation. You see a huge part of my preparation takes place only a couple of times a week, and this is a huge time saver over the week. I also REALLY do not like to be caught unprepared with no ready to grab food. Eating mostly vegan, mostly raw, I am hungrier more often than if I were eating foods with denser calories.

So here is what I did this morning. First lets start with the vegetables and fruits I am going to prepare, that I get all out… (I have a very large kitchen with lots of counter space.

What I did this morning.

1. Made a huge veggie salad,
2. put veggies and fruits "ready to eat" in containers for snacking
3. made a fresh  smoothie.

Time in Kitchen 1 hour, 10 minutes. What you see above is an accurate (close to) view of the fruits and vegetable amounts I processed.

2 pounds carrots – 3 large, peeled chunked and set aside for juice,  2 large, sliced thinly in bowl for salad,, and the rest cut in 'sticks' in container for snacking.

1 head of celery – 2 stalks sliced in bowl with salad, The rest cut in 'sticks' in container for snacking.

Peppers chunked and tossed in the salad,

Beets – washed, tops and thin root removed, 3 set aside for juice, the rest in container for later.

onion – 1/2 chopped in the salad,. The rest saved for something else.

Beans (Yellow and Green) 1/2 of each chopped for salad,, the rest topped, snapped and in container in fridge for snacking.

Broccoli – 1 head…. 1/2 of the florets in salad, 1/2 the florets in fridge for snacking and the stalk set aside for juice.

Cucumber half – chopped for salad

1 cup frozen mixed berries in the blender for my smoothie

Apple set aside for juice

Grapes washed and put in serving sized containers (6) for snacking

Flax seed oil in blender for smoothie.

Once the veggies were prepared and salad put away, and snacking sticks strips etc put away, I took my carrots, broccoli stalk, beets, and apple that I had set aside and juiced them. Then I put the juice in the blender with the berries and the flax seed oil and made a YUMMY mid morning smoothie for my snack!

So now I am ready for the day. this amount of produce will do me 2 days in summer because I am not eating much else. It also encourages my daughter to eat better (she grabs a container of grapes and some carrots for school snack) and my son who LOVES raw fresh green and yellow beans. In the winter I am eating other things as well because the produce is not as nice or as abundant as it is from local farms right now!

:-)