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Monday, November 5, 2012

Pinned it, tried it, liked it {Green-ish Smoothies}.

I've had a few questions about how I make my green-ish smoothies for the boys, so I thought I'd do a quick post on it.


My whole family loooooves smoothies.  Well, sometimes Brennan declares them to be "too cold", even though he'll suck down a milkshake faster than I can suck down a Big Gulp of Diet Coke.  That's fast people.

They're also a super easy way to sneak some great nutrient-rich foods into your family's diet ... whether it's the little monsters who will eat anything, the middle sized pizza-chickie-fries addict, or the big giant "I had no idea there were THAT MANY calories in ice cream" man in your life.  Just sayin'.


When I this Make-Ahead Freezer Smoothie recipe from Lindsey of Neck Rolls & Toe Crust I had to try it.  They're easy-peasy were a big hit with all of the boys - big and small.  But of course, I made my own twist on them because that's just how I roll.  I added more kale and spinach because I have a very hard time getting veggies into Brennan and Brian, some chia seeds because I had them and they're good for you and they just blend in with the fruit seeds, and used milk and juice instead of the Silk because that's what we had.    I also don't assemble them ahead of time because I'm not pressed for time in the morning and we like to vary the flavors ahead of time.  So here we go...

Green-ish Smoothies
adapted from Neck Rolls & Toe Crust

1 big bag of kale
1 big bag of spinach
2-4 containers of greek yogurt (Can be flavored if you want, but doesn't have to be.  Doesn't really even have to be greek.)
1 cup ground flax seeds
1 cup chia seeds
1.5 cups milk
1.5 cups juice (any kind is fine)
assorted frozen fruit
juice to make it into a smoothie

First step is to make the "green muffins "or "Power Packs" as Lindsey calls them.

Get out your blender!  Dump 2 handfuls of kale and 2 handfuls of spinach into the bottom of the blender.  Add 1-2 containers of yogurt, 1/2 cup flax seeds, 1/2 cup chia seeds, 3/4 cup milk and 3/4 cup juice.  Your blender is probably super full now.  Cap it and blend until there's more room in the top of the blender.  Add another handful of spinach and another handful or 2 of kale.  Keep blending til it's nice and liquidy.  (I like to make up words.)  Pour into a muffin tin.  One blender full will fill all 12 tins.  Stick them in the freezer.  Repeat with remaining ingredients and freeze those too.  Lindsey's recipe makes 4 batches, but because I wanted to use extra veggies and yogurt per green muffin, mine doesn't go as far.

OK, so once they're frozen, take them out of the freezer and let them sit out for a few minutes to soften until they're easy to pop out with a butter knife.  Then I throw them all in a gallon size ziploc and throw them back in the freezer.

When it's time to make the smoothie, throw 2 green muffins into the blender, along with as much fruit as you'd like.  We sometimes buy a bag of mixed frozen fruit and sometimes buy separate kinds of fruit, sometimes throw in a banana.  Then add as much of any kind of juice you want to make it liquidy enough for your preference.  I recommend starting with a little juice and adding as you blend.  You don't want to over-do it.

Of course, if you're 12 like me, you have to stop to giggle about the descriptions on the frozen fruit bags.  Who's job is it to decide what goes on the bags?!

My favorite is strawberries, blueberries, and cran-grape juice.  Brian likes mixed fruit, a banana, and orange juice.  These are both more of a fruit-juice smoothie.  You can also use milk and/or yogurt instead of juice to make more of a yogurt based smoothie.  We've done it and it's good, we just prefer a juice-based one.

If you don't want to go through the process of making the green muffins, you can always just throw some kale, spinach, greek yogurt, chia seeds, flax seeds, milk, and juice in the blender along with your fruit.  ;)  I did it this morning and it was fine, but I will say that it's hard to get the greens as finely shredded as they are in the green muffins.



Side note, I discovered Lindsey's blog and her artwork through a post from Jessica of The Southern Belle {BOY MOM}.  Then she painted this gorgeous picture of Cooper, which I gave to Brian for his birthday last year.  He loved it and I love it and she's just too darn talented.  So while you're enjoying a smoothie you should check out her Etsy shop.



1 comment:

  1. So I'm kinda anti smoothies but I really like this picture of your dog.

    ReplyDelete

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