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Saturday, November 23, 2013

John's Favorite Green Smoothie

Most people are surprised when I tell them what John eats/drinks. They tell me that in a few years all he'll eat is macaroni and cheese, chicken nuggets and french fries. I absolutely (and respectfully) disagree. I feel we have a wonderful opportunity to train John's taste buds now so that he can taste the natural goodness and flavors of real food and learn to love them. And he does! This is one of his favorite smoothies. He often drinks 8-10 ounces in one sitting. (And John had just woken up in these pictures from a nap cut short by teething pain. Those darn molars! When are they just going to get here and stop hurting my little boy and keeping us all from sleeping!? Well, at lease John has his green smoothie to console him)

John's Green Smoothie
Serves 2-3

Ingredients:
- 1 apple, cored and quartered
- 2 large carrots, chopped into 2 inch pieces (or 8-10 baby carrots)
- 2 stalks celery, chopped into 2 inch pieces
- 1/2 (or a whole) lemon, rind cut off or peeled
- 1/2 a banana
- 1 cup pineapple (fresh or frozen) 
- 1/2 cup strawberries (fresh or frozen)
- 3 large handfuls organic spinach (3-4 packed cups)
- 1 Tb honey
- 2 Tb ground flax seed
- 1 1/2 cups water

Directions:
1. Thoroughly wash all veggies and fruits.
2. Blend all ingredients in a high-powered blender (Vitamix, Blendtec, Ninja, etc.)

Tips:
- Drink this in a glass jar with a bendy straw. it's just the best way. Really. It is.
- In the summer, I like to use all frozen fruit (except apple and lemon). Sometimes we freeze our own, sometimes we buy it frozen.

4 comments:

Maria said...

Hey!! Love your blog! It is so nice to find good healthy recipes! I feel like it is so much work sometimes to keep a family of six fed properly. I want to give up some days and buy all frozen dinners ;) So thanks for all your work in posting these.

My kids also love green smoothies and we make them similar to yours. We used to use lots of flax seed but my mom recently had breast cancer and in studying about it became weary of flaxseed. I guess it mimics estrogen and it's been unclear if it affects certain cancers (esp breast) and if it's safe to take while pregnant or breastfeeding. ANyways, maybe you know more about this then I do. Since my mom went through that we've replaced flaxseed for chia seeds for now.

Maria said...

Hey!! Love your blog! It is so nice to find good healthy recipes! I feel like it is so much work sometimes to keep a family of six fed properly. I want to give up some days and buy all frozen dinners ;) So thanks for all your work in posting these.

My kids also love green smoothies and we make them similar to yours. We used to use lots of flax seed but my mom recently had breast cancer and in studying about it became weary of flaxseed. I guess it mimics estrogen and it's been unclear if it affects certain cancers (esp breast) and if it's safe to take while pregnant or breastfeeding. ANyways, maybe you know more about this then I do. Since my mom went through that we've replaced flaxseed for chia seeds for now.

Emily and Seth said...

Great to hear from you Maria! Thanks for your comments! That motivates me so much to keep working at this. I agree that frozen dinners are always appealing as a mom. Sometimes you've got to find some convenience to get everyone fed when times are tough. But the rest of the time, I'm trying to do what I can to feed my family the healthiest yet tastiest food I can come up with. Glad you are too :)We are all a work in progress.
I read a book about flaxseed that really sold me on it's nutritional value. I have heard that there is little research about it's affect on pregnant and nursing women. But I'm interested if you find out anything more about it. Do you feel like chia seeds are kind of bitter or slimey? I'm trying to work with them...let me know if you have ideas to take the bitter/slimey edge off

Maria said...

I add chia to everything (smoothies, pancake batter, salads) and I actually never have really tasted them?! Weird haha