Smoothies

I have mentioned this in posts before, but Lily is a picky eater. When she is in the mood, she eats fine (well, fine within the limits of the food she enjoys), but when she doesn't want to eat, she is very picky. She doesn't love to eat breakfast, which becomes a problems because the word hangry? Her picture is next to the word in the dictionary on www.dictionary.com (because dictionary? who uses that anymore).

I discovered that, when Lily doesn't want to eat breakfast, she will drink a smoothie. I figure this is an acceptable substitute because she gets something filling, and decently healthy, instead of whatever breakfast food I could have prepared for her. Tom has always been a smoothie lover, so I decided to do a little researching and start making smoothies for us. Jackson eats anything, and smoothies were no exception. The kid sucked down his first smoothie in about two minutes.

I wanted something easy for me or my mom when making breakfast in the morning, so I made some smoothie bags that are really grab and go. I had the forethought to take some pictures of the smoothie-bag making process, so instead of just written directions, I have pictures, too!

Step 1: Gather the ingredients you will need. I used: frozen blueberries (2, 12 oz bags); frozen strawberries (1, 64 oz bag); frozen mango (1, 24 oz bag); frozen pineapple (1, 16 oz bag); 1 banana; 1, 32 oz container of plain yogurt; 1 bag of baby spinach; and some grape juice.

I also needed 17 baggies, 1 Sharpie marker, my immersion blender, and my silicone baby food trays

Step 2: Date the baggies with the Sharpie

Step 3: Divide up 1 cup of fruit into each bag (I think my bags have a little more than a cup of fruit in each bag, I ended up with 17 baggies of fruit). I have a few mixtures: strawberry/blueberry; mango/pineapple; strawberry/mango; mango/blueberry. I divided the banana into fourths and put a piece in some of the bags. Next time, I will make sure I have more bananas. Put the baggies into the freezer.

Step 4: Pour the yogurt in the baby food trays and freeze (it took most of the day to get really solid cubes)

Step 5: Blend the spinach and a bit of grape juice with the immersion blender. Pour the mixture into the remaining baby food trays and freeze.

Step 6: Once the yogurt and spinach cubes are frozen, pop them out and add them to the fruit bags. I did one of each cube in each baggie. I had a few extra yogurt cubes, so I added those to the bags that had a bit more fruit. Put back in freezer.

Step 7: When you are ready to blend: remove one baggie from the freezer. Pour into a blender cup (I use my immersion blender to blend, so you could put this all directly into a blender). Add milk or juice or whatever thinning liquid you prefer. Blend until you get the desired consistency. Add more liquid for a thinner drink. I pour the kids drinks into reusable tag along cups with straws. Before I drink mine, I blend in some chia seeds. You could add whatever extras you wanted, like flax seeds or even protein powder.

Overall, the bagging and blending process takes a bit of time, but the outcome is an easy week of breakfasts. I can literally grab a baggie, add some liquid, and blend. The smoothie is packed with fruit, spinach, protein, and fiber. Next time, I want to try some coconut water as my liquid to add to the spinach.

Hope you enjoy your smoothies!