Monday, March 15, 2010

Green Smoothies

Healthy and fun for St. Patrick's Day...and any other day! I first saw this recipe on my friend, Heidi's blog, the original comes from PrairieMama...but Heidi adds raspberry yogurt, so I decided to try her version...
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What you will need…
  • A ripe banana
  • 3-4 oz spinach
  • hot water
  • a generous Tablespoon of ground flax seed
  • 8 oz of yogurt
  • two cups or more of frozen fruit
  • juice or water to top it off

Have your blender ready.

First add one ripe banana, fresh or frozen.

Then add 3-4 ounces of frozen spinach.

Next, pour HOT water over the bananas and spinach almost to covering them. Your smoothie will still be cold, but the hot water just helps the blending along.

This next step is very important. If you don’t follow these instructions carefully then your smoothie will result in disaster. Are you ready? Here goes… Put the lid securely on the blender. You can see how this step would be important. If you didn’t, there would be bits of spinach and banana flying all over your kitchen if you didn’t. And that would be a disaster to waste all of that lovely spinach.

Now we blend. We blend a lot. We will blend until the spinach is broken up and the texture is a smooth green.

Keep blending.

Now you can stop blending.

Look at that beautiful green color!

We’re not done, yet. Next you add a generous Tablespoon of ground Flax Seed. (You can find it at Super Wal-Mart for under $2 in the baking aisle)

The next step is where we stray from the original recipe. Yogurt. My friend does not add yogurt, but our family loves this addition. Our favorite is raspberry flavored yogurt.

I like to buy the quart size and I have only been able to find two brands that make raspberry in that size. Western Family and Mountain High. We tried Mountain High Raspberry flavored and it was NO GOOD. Too tart. We prefer the sweeter flavor that Western Family offers. (In the pictures I am using vanilla yogurt. Find out what flavor your family likes.)

Now it is time to add the frozen fruit. I buy the six pound bag of Dole Mixed Fruit (strawberry, pinapple, peach and mango) from Sam’s Club. Fresh fruit would work as well, but I love the slushiness that the frozen fruit adds. I cut up some peaches and strawberries to freeze and they worked nicely as well. Frozen blueberries are also nice to add along with the other fruit.

And finally we add the liquid. I used juice when I first started making these smoothies, but now I just use water. Sometimes hot water, sometimes cold water.

Now get ready to blend one more time.

And that’s it! Now pour yourself a glass and enjoy!

What doesn’t look appetizing about that? Just because it is green? Sissy.

Don’t forget the baby.

Kid’s love green smoothies, too! So don’t forget to share.
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This recipe really was delicious! Little Miss drank it faster than I've seen her drink anything before. (Maybe that's because I usually water down her juice...this has flavor!)

And my picky Mr. Man even tried it! Thanks Heidi for passing it on!

I'll definitely be making it again.

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