smoothie recipe.

i am posting sk's smoothie recipe. i got the idea from my friend amy who makes them for her son. not that smoothies are anything new and you can make them any ole way you want i suppose - in fact, amy and i don't make them the same, but the key ingredient for your's truly that i was so excited for amy to tell me about is ...shhhhhh, don't tell sk......SPINACH. that's right, sarah kate eats a whole lot of spinach each week and she has no clue she's eating it. i offer her veggies still at her meals, but i don't stress over it if she doesn't eat every single piece of broccoli on her plate since i know she's getting her fair share of veggie goodness from her daily smoothie.

i make sure my food processor is full to the top with the ingredients that i want to be in her smoothie. if it's full before i blend it together then i know i'll get 2 sippy cups out of it. i will use one sippy cup on the day i make it and put one in the fridge for the next day. this way i'm not having to use and clean my f.p. every single day.

so this is what i do....i put about 5 or 6 cubes of ice in the f.p. bowl first. on top of that i put a layer of frozen organic blueberries. i get all my frozen fruit/veggies from whole foods (publix sells the cascadian farms frozen blueberries that i like to grab from time to time). then i cut up a fresh organic banana into 3 or 4 chunks and throw that on top of the blueberries. this week, i added a new ingredient... i had some frozen sliced peaches in my freezer so i threw in about 4 or 5 of those (so great that you don't have to thaw any of the frozen veggies!). then on top of all the fruit i put a few spoonfuls of stoneyfield organic yogurt . we usually buy either strawberry or mixed berry yogurt, but you could just use plain yogurt - probably would be less sugar if you used plain, but stoneyfield is already so low in sugar and you're only using a few spoonfuls so we use the fruit yogurt for flavor=) i buy the low-fat big (32oz.) tub of yogurt since sk has been cleared to switch to 2% or even skim milk. i have another friend who buys the whole milk tubs since her daughter could use the extra calories. oh also, if you buy stoneyfield yogurt then be sure to create an account online (look up stoneyfield) and you can enter in your special code from your products and get points which in turn will get you some free healthy products!

then....the green stuff. i buy frozen organic spinach. i just cook a couple of handfuls and then store the bag in the freezer until time to cook more. i put about a handful of the cooked spinach on top of the yogurt in my food processor. the other half i store in the fridge until it's time to make another smoothie....so i'm not always stinking up my house with spinach! then i just chop and blend until it's at a "smoothie" consistency. sarah kate slurps down her nutritious and delicious treat. i serve it to her with a meal.....i would never let her walk around the house with it (it has blueberries in it for crying out loud.) it's so yummy and kids cannot taste the spinach which is such a vitamin rich veggie.

from trial and error i've learned to stay away from berries with little seeds like strawberries. strawberries make yummy smoothies but my processor does not chop them up completely and the seeds are annoying when trying to drink the smoothie. also, i do not use the little sippy-cup stoppers for the smoothies.....they can be quite thick and the stoppers prevent the yummy goodness from flowing freely to the toddler's mouth & tummy=)



organic produce can get to be expensive. i'm pasting a chart below of the produce that is most/least likely to be contaminated with pesticides and such. kind of gives me an idea of what foods i'm willing to "give up" on as far as organics goes. for example...if the organic bananas aren't as green as the regular bananas then i'll just buy the regs because i know they'll be less likely to go to waste. and i know that bananas are less likely to be too contaminated with pesticides because of the thick peel. (i've heard you should still wash the banana after you peel it. what-ev-er....we are healthy peeps over here but we're not crazy...you have to get over it at some point and just eat your dang food.)

12 Most Contaminated

• Peaches
• Apples
• Sweet Bell Peppers
• Celery
• Nectarines
• Strawberries
• Cherries
• Pears
• Grapes (Imported)
• Spinach
• Lettuce
• Potatoes

12 Least Contaminated

• Onions
• Avocado
• Sweet Corn (Frozen)
• Pineapples
• Mango
• Asparagus
• Sweet Peas (Frozen)
• Kiwi Fruit
• Bananas
• Cabbage
• Broccoli
• Papaya

*info from organic.org

so that's it! she gets 1 smoothie a day.