Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Nourishing Smoothies My Kids Actually Love

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You’ll read in this post about how I have to cheat just a little bit in order to make these smoothies for my kids. But at least these are still nourishing smoothies, and my kids all love them! Even my high schooler.

As you know, Matt and I drink our salads – loading our smoothies with a huge amount of greens, then blending in frozen fruit and milk. We don’t add any sweeteners, and we are good with that. The fruit sweetens these enough for us, and at the end of the day, we are simply trying to get as much nourishment as possible during these days that it’s very difficult to even find time to eat at all.

Our kids though? They aren’t huge fans. Who can blame them? They like their smoothies sweeter than we do. And the truth is the amount of greens that I put in “the adult smoothies” is pretty substantial. Spring mix in that amount does change the taste of the smoothie and indeed, green (greens) and red (fruit) make brown. So our smoothies aren’t pretty. :)

When there is this much sweetness going on at our house,
why would Matt and I need to add sweetener to our smoothies? Ok then.

How to Make Nourishing Smoothies that are Kid Friendly

Back when I “only had four kids” who weren’t all babies at the same time, I took the time to add separate ingredients to my smoothies. Goodness, somehow I even had a freezer full of fruits that we had picked, prepared, and frozen ourselves!! (How in the world did I ever have time to do all that work!?) I sweetened those smoothies with maple syrup or honey, and my kids guzzled them down.

But now.

I know it may sound silly, but as I’ve shared so many times lately, I’m often preparing food with just one hand as I am almost always holding one of our babies. So getting a bunch of different ingredients out of the fridge or freezer to add to the blender? Well, I’ve just found that I have to keep everything to a minimum.

The solution I’ve found is a bit of a cheater method. I buy frozen mixed fruit in bulk from Costco (which is totally not cheating – those good fruits are there to save us all, amen!). Bags of mixed fruit make it easier to give us a variety without pulling out several different bags. One bag. Two or seven fruits. Beautiful!

But here’s the cheat part: I use containers of Vanilla Yogurt. I add around 16 ounces to our blender, along with milk. This covers three ingredients with one grab from the fridge (vanilla, yogurt, and sweetener), so the vanilla yogurt sweetens the kids’ smoothies and flavors them too. Yes, it adds sugar to their smoothies. I’ve decided that I don’t actually care. THIS IS HOW I GET MY KIDS TO EAT SPINACH.

Oh yeah. Because I put fresh spinach into my Blendtec when I make these too. Not as much as I do when I make smoothies for Matt and me. But enough to be sure they all get a nice serving of fresh greens. Between the tasty fruits and the sweetened yogurt – every single one of my kids will drink a big cup full of smoothie and some of them ask for more.

They even know there’s spinach included and I think they are kind of proud. (And probably relieved that they aren’t being forced to eat a salad with dinner.)

These cups hide weird smoothie colors

If I add greens to the blender along with frozen blueberries and strawberries, the dark color of the berries hides the greens. But if I add greens to the blender along with bananas and peaches, the smoothies turn out…not pretty. No matter! All the kids drink their smoothies better from cups with lids and straws anyway. These cups make it fun (except for when they argue about who gets which cup, oy).

Nourishing Smoothies My Kids Actually Love

Here’s “the recipe” even though we all know that measuring ingredients into a smoothie isn’t a real thing. So add the words “give or take” to any of these as you make smoothies based on what you have and what you can put into your blender with one hand.

Nourishing Smoothies My Kids Actually Love
 
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Author:
Serves: 5 servings
Ingredients
  • 2 cups fresh spinach
  • 3 cups frozen fruit (any combination of blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, bananas, peaches, pineapple, oranges, or grapes)
  • 2 cups vanilla yogurt
  • 2 cups milk
Instructions
  1. Blend ingredients together in a high power blender until smooth.

 

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How to Drink Your Salad (and love it!)

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Today I will teach you how to drink your salad. I’m quite sure you will love this idea as much as I do!

See, here’s the thing:

Matt and I like to eat a big salad every day. Scratch that. Matt and I know we need to eat a big salad every day. It’s amazing for our overall health as leafy greens are so incredibly nourishing! But shucks if eating a big salad isn’t actually as much fun as we all wish that it was.


As our family has grown and my hands have become more full of little ones again, I’ve been known to frequently grab greens out of a container in the fridge and eat them on the fly – no dressing, no extras – simply because I rarely have time to build a salad in a bowl and then sit down to chomp it down. Does it takes good, these greens straight out of the fridge? Well, it doesn’t taste bad. But it’s not as fun as eating other food. Again, I just do it because I know my body needs it. Every single day.

Most of us have heard about throwing leafy greens in smoothies. I’ve done it off and on for years, but I never really bought into it as a great daily habit until last summer.

Our three littlest boys and I would go on super long walks every day (before our girls moved in). We’d come home and enjoy chilled smoothies to refresh us. I loaded them with frozen fruit and greens. The boys drank them without hesitation. Matt and I loved them. And finally it hit us: Why should we ever eat salad again?

Well, we did wonder: Would smoothies made with frozen fruit and greens be as wonderful during the cold winter months? Would we get burned out on green smoothies? Was this only a temporary wonderful idea?

Many months and hundreds of smoothies later, I’m happy to report that we are still so very happy with the fact that we can drink our salad every day! It goes down easy. It tastes like fruit. We can drink it on the fly, which is incredibly important during this very busy season in our lives full of both big kids and many little kids.

How to Drink your Salad (and love it!)

  1. Stuff as many leafy greens into your blender as you dare. I put in way more greens than we would typically eat in a regular bowl of salad and our bodies are very happy about this. I also have and highly recommend a Blendtec blender as this will blend your greens into complete smoothness and oblivion.
  2. Add your choice of frozen fruit. I buy big bags of mixed fruit for a fun variety. It includes berries, peaches, and pineapple. Super delicious!
  3. Pour in milk to fill the blender half-full or whatever liquid amount is recommended for your blender so that your smoothie doesn’t explode to the ceiling of your kitchen. Whole milk yogurt is also an awesome “liquid” to include.
  4. Add sweetener or protein powder if you like. Matt and I have found that the fruit alone makes the smoothie sweet enough, so I don’t add any maple syrup or stevia anymore. During the summer we added protein powder to make the smoothie more like a meal. But this winter we’ve left it out.
  5. Put the lid on and blend until smooth. Drink your salad and love it.

And just like that, you have one or two days worth of salad to drink. Perhaps you’ve been doing this all along. Perhaps this is a new idea for you. Perhaps you knew about it but needed the reminder about what a great idea it is!

Here’s what my blender looks like before I get all the goodies mixed up. :)

Give this a try and let me know how you like it!

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