Smoothie Love

Do you smoothie?

We are big smoothie fans around here as soon as the temperatures rise, and it’s a yummy, easy and fail-safe way of getting a huge serving of fruits, dairy AND veggies into everyone first thing in the morning.

I am a rule- and recipe-follower by nature, with the exception of smoothies, and it’s somehow freeing to dump ingredients haphazardly into a blender, push a button and create something good every time!

My go-to formula is:

1 banana (fresh or frozen—I rarely have frozen ones on hand but when I do it’s a treat because it makes the smoothie more like ice cream)

1 handful frozen fruit

1 handful baby spinach

Several scoops plain yogurt (we do whole milk but it could be any kind. I’ve also done vanilla yogurt which is good, but I prefer plain to limit any extra sugar—these are sweet enough!)

OJ (again I don’t measure but maybe ½ cup)

Two recent additions for a little extra oomph:

Chia seeds (about 1 T) for extra protein, fiber and Omega 3s

2-3 drops essential oil (I’ve been doing tangerine lately because it’s what I’ve had on hand, but I could see any citrus oil being good here)

A somewhat obvious note: The spinach will make the smoothie green if your frozen fruit is lighter in color (like peaches). If you have a toddler, you understand this could be a disastrous misstep, so you might want to stick to strawberries, blueberries etc! Eloise has learned to drink a smoothie regardless of color, but she used to voice her opinion for a “purple smoothie” and we had many a green smoothie passed up!

This is the blender I have. It was fairly inexpensive and does well with frozen fruit, ice, etc, but it is LOUD. Like, terrify your baby every time loud. I used to have to run downstairs in the morning once Eloise was awake in her crib, get everything in the blender and blend it up before bringing her downstairs. As she got older, she would request her “blender hat” (any winter hat with ears) and just run in the other room when she knew I’d be turning on the blender. Now she can be in the kitchen and just covers her ears, but poor second child Amelia doesn’t usually have the luxury of mommy jumping through any smoothie hoops, and this morning I blended away with her in the high chair! If it were in the budget, I’d splurge for a Vitamix.

Also, I’d highly recommend these Take and Toss straw cups for smoothie-drinking babies and toddlers. They are dirt cheap, the straw is wide enough that it rarely clogs unless I’ve made the smoothie too thick, and they stack nicely in our already-full-of-baby-paraphernalia cabinets!

What are your favorite smoothie combos? Any fun add-ins I’m missing?