I’ve been blending fruits and veggies into a pre-dinner green smoothie for my wife and I for years. But, besides Going Mom giving Avery a tiny sip from her glass, I never made one exclusively for her. Well, that just changed.
Thursday morning had her swarming around me doing the sign for milk but fussing and running away from me when I pulled out a bottle. Toddler confusion!! It only gets worse, huh?
We had bananas, and I know she loves eating them sliced and topped with NuttZo……
…but I wanted to get her hydration needs fulfilled plus add a little extra nutrition. What better way to do that than a green smoothie?
Diligently working my way around the toddler obstruction in the kitchen, I gathered organic kale, carrots, green banana (these are great for gut health from their resistant starch), NuttZo, unsweetened almond milk, and a couple packets of stevia for sweetness.
A few minutes later, and we had ourselves Avery’s first green smoothie! What took a few minutes, felt like forever with Ms. Impatient, and she was grabbing at her sippy cup before I could hand it over.
That’s a good sign, right? I love that she’s up for drinking whatever, even if it is dark green! To avoid spillage, I made the hand-off for her little hands to better grasp and she got right to it.
Yeah, so we need to work on how to use straws, but the main point is that she was downing her first green smoothie! I had some too, and you could definitely taste the kale, but it was anything bad, I was quite pleased with the outcome. I’m thinking she was too.
Success! Another Avery first and another meal option opened up! I ended up replacing the straw lid with her regular sippy cup lid to avoid a mess, but a mess happened regardless. She’s use to walking around the house with water in the cup and we don’t think much of it when a little spills out….different story now.
I decided green smoothies may not appear in her sippy in the immediate future, but it’s great to know she’ll drink them. There was one problem though….I made a giant batch of the smoothie and had a lot left over. Even after drinking a glass myself, there was plenty more, and the thing about fresh food is, it doesn’t last that long.
So I did what anyone would do, I turned the green smoothie into green bread. I measured not a single ingredient, but with coconut flour, stevia, peanut flour, and baking powder, I created something similar to my Green Coconut Carrot Bread. In my microwave omelete cooker, of course.
Now we have a few batches of green smoothie bread which turned out a lot better than I thought. It’s sliced and ready for eager little fingers to snack on next time she’s demanding something…….which is always!
Unless she has a Catch-Me-Kitty to keep her occupied, that is.
It’s the day before running the longest I’ve ran in a very long time, 13.1 miles. Kelley is running the 5k and G-Ma will be with Avery watching and cheering us on. We have rain in the forecast, so I’m interested to see how that will turn out.
I’m planning on running in my Soft Star Dash RunAmoc Shoes, but mine are the ones with bullhide leather soles which equals zero traction on wet surfaces. Only time will tell, I’ll be sure to update you early next week.
Until then, I have two lovely women, one my mom, the other my wife, to celebrate Mother’s Day with after the race. We went to an awesome coffee shop called Brewed almost a year ago and will go back to treat the deserving ladies. Hope Avery doesn’t make us regret waking her up so early just so we could run!
Do you have green smoothies on a regular basis? If so, do your kids have them too?
Do you have a favorite recipe or just throw things in and blend like I do?
Yay Avery, hell she eats better than anybody I know! Always good to get them hooked on healthy stuff early. My daughter can eat her weight in salad and it’s arguably her favorite meal. Good luck on the run!
I’m proud of how well she eats. Carrots are real treats to her and hopefully it stays that way. That’s awesome Sloane loves salads, always encourage the green love!
Oh wow -fantastic, we are big smoothie fans too #BigTopBlogParty
Just can’t beat getting so much goodness crammed into a drink. Thanks for commenting!
Love this! We are a big smoothie fans in this house. Always good to get them to eat well. Much better than what most people eat. Thanks for linking up with us on the #bigfatlinky hope to see you there next week
Appreciate it, Martyn. Smoothies are awesome, unless you make them crappy….as I’ve done plenty of times! Thanks for hosting #bigfatlinky!
Awesome story… I have tried to get my kids to go green, not a 100% fans… but I have found that when i make my morning shake of : frozen fruit (semi unfrozen), a little kale, juice (usually a v8 mix or a fruit mix, sometimes even homemade frozen concentrate), some yogurt, and protein powder… the kids love it then (minus the protein powder, instead I add some powdered pediasure). I don’t add any other outside sugars since usually the yogurt is flavored and the juice plus the frozen fruit has sugars with it.
Our shakes with those ingredients I am sure isn’t 100% healthy but it allows me to get some extra things into the kids that tend to be picky sometimes lol.
#BigTopBlogParty
Thank you. It’s great what you can put in a drink for kids to get more nutrients they wouldn’t touch otherwise. What you’re doing sounds much better than most and I say keep at it! Glad you made it over here to visit and appreciate the comments!