back in business

There is much rejoicing in these parts over a tiny piece of six-pronged plastic:

It's called a coupler, and it connects the base of the blender to its jar.  This is our second replacement coupler, just arrived a couple of days ago, after searching high and low and everywhere else for the one I had ordered a few months ago and stashed for when the then-current coupler finally lost all its prongs in the process of twice-daily drinakable yogurt and smoothie blending.

Considering the amount of blending that goes on around here every day with all the yogurt we consume, it's understandable a few parts of the blender would need replacing now and then.  In the interim we made use of this behemoth for the daily blending needs:

While it did an admirable job pinch hitting (blending?) for the laid-up blender, I'm ever so grateful my handy husband was able to get the blender back up and running like the washing machine (among other things).  I fully expect the missing part to turn up any day now that we've gone and ordered another one.  That's alright.  We may need it eventually, considering we whaz up (to borrow an expression from chef Jamie Oliver) 4,621 gallons of smoothies or thereabouts each year.

Occasionally, the elder lad has been known to swill a sip or two of drinkable yogurt.  He developed his own recipe...

 ... and (with supervision) he takes care of the blending.

Here's the recipe I've come to expect for breakfast, a mid-morning snack, a drink to take along on the afternoon school pick-up run, or a bedtime snack (I blend it up after dinner and stash it in the fridge):

Mama's Go-To Smoothie:
3-4 frozen strawberries
3-4 frozen peach slices
5-6 frozen blackberries
2/3 cup plain low-fat yogurt (sometimes I use Greek yogurt for half of this amount)
1/3 cup apple juice
1/3 cup Green Goodness juice
1 Tablespoon flax oil

Welcome back, Blender.  It's great to hear you whirring again.  Food Processor, we thank you for going above and beyond.  We'll let you go back to blending up salsa and what not...