Making Smoothie Magic
I do not support the trick of hiding vegetables in my kids’ food. In theory. I think they should learn to embrace both the flavours and benefits of ingredients like kale. In principle. In reality? I’ve got one kid who can be cajoled into trying a forkful of new foods and one kid who would sooner eat his My Little Pony toy than eat a bite of spinach. I know it’s just a phase but before we move on to the next fun chapter I’ll do what’s necessary to get some vitamins in them. Which is why my best friend right now is the smoothie. It’s always popular and it can be made with just about anything.
Anything, that is, if you’ve got a good, well-built blender to puree everything to an appealing consistency. As part of my foray into ingredient subterfuge I’ve been having a good time playing with the Magic Bullet NutriBullet. It comes with two different cups so you can either make a little or a lot of whatever you’re whipping up, as well as two blades depending on what you’re working with. You just fill the cup with your ingredients, twist the appropriate blade on top like a lid and then twist the whole thing onto the machine’s base and away you go! Within seconds you’ve got a smoothie (and an easy clean up).
Although I usually include the kids in much of what I cook I decided it was best for me to work alone since I intended on using a big bunch of spinach. For the first smoothie I made, I followed a suggested recipe that came with the Magic Bullet.
2 cups greens
1 cup berries
1 apple, cored
1 banana
1 Tbsp chia seeds
water filled to the Max. line.
I’d finished loading up the cup with ingredients when Julian wandered into the kitchen. And froze. He pointed to the green layer at the bottom of the cup and asked, “What is that?” “Spinach!” I replied. “How are you going to make that yummy?” “It will be, trust me.” He did not look convinced. I gave everything a whiz and poured the deep, green drink into three small glasses. The apples and berries gave it a bright, fresh flavour and I loved it. I’m definitely add this combo to my own roster of morning smoothies. I’ll never know if it was the colour that the kids objected to but they said it was, “Ewww.”
My next attempt was much more successful with my skeptical children.
1 cup frozen mixed berries
1 banana
1 cored apple
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 Tbsp chia seeds
water filled to the Max. line
The result was creamy, sweet and most importantly purple. There was quiet in my kitchen as the kids consumed the whole batch in one long drink. And then made funny faces with their purple smoothie moustaches.
I’m going to keep experimenting with different ingredients. The Magic Bullet NutriBullet (which you can find, along with so many other life-saving appliances, at Canadian Tire) comes with a recipe book to get you started. I think a smaller quantity of greens might make past the veggie guards known as my children. At least, I’m going to keep trying.
This post was generously sponsored by Canadian Tire, but the opinions and images are my own.
For more information, visit the Canadian Tire Destination Home Guide
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We're Ceri and Laura, a couple of magazine-editors-turned-food-bloggers. Also, we're mothers obsessed with delicious, healthy, family food. We're constantly thinking of ways to make your time (and our own!) in the kitchen easier and more productive, but still nostalgic for the days when dinner was cereal eaten over the kitchen sink.
13 Comments
Chrstine
March 18, 15:04I love smoothies and so do my kids. I must admit, I even think it’s a bit “ewww” to put spinach in a smoothie but I’m willing to give it a shot! We always use our old blender which barely works. I like the idea of being able to use a smaller cup. I’m always too lazy to make and clean the blender for 1 smoothie for myself, but this seems to take away that problem. I’ll check it out – thanks for the post!
Barb Fedor
March 19, 19:40I received a NutriBullet for Christmas and absolutely love it. I found kale a little easier on the taste buds vs the spinach. We even have my husband drinking one in the morning. He usually has a cookie for breakfast. I put in ground flax and hemp seeds. Using one frozen fruit (we use strawberries from Costco) makes the drink cold and refreshing. A squeeze of fresh lemon also helps. We have experimented with all kinds of combinations. The sharp blade of this bullet makes a smoothie in just seconds. It cleans up very quickly. Love this thing!!!!!
Kim
April 03, 19:21“one kid who would sooner eat his My Little Pony toy than eat a bite of spinach” – SO funny only because it’s so true! My favourite part is when I finally convince my son to eat a little bit of whatever and then he spits it out and starts wiping at his tongue. Seriously.
Green smoothies: One thing I did recently with my boys (2 and 5) is start Monster Smoothies (said with scary voice). The kids’ cups are clear so I stuck some stickers on the outside of the cup so it resembled a monster face. Then when filled up the cups are green monsters. Instant hit!
Barb, in the comment above, says she found Kale better than Spinach. I might have to try Kale again, but my first Kale attempt wasn’t a winner.
I usually buy three or so bunches of bananas, freeze them in chunks and then pop them in my smoothies.
x K
Jan @ Family Bites
April 04, 08:39So funny about the spinach. I know it sounds strange but Jackson will eat that over almost any other vegetable, which doesn’t bother me because now I can happily swap in most other greens in place of it and he doesn’t even notice. He’s so weird!
P.S. Your kids are totally adorable!
Courtney
April 30, 21:22It may not be for the kids, but I find I can put any veggies I want in, if I add a scoop of Advocare Spark. I was just using it for when I go to the gym, but now that I got a magic bullet to do “juicing”/smoothie stuff, I tried adding it in. It makes it sweet and bumps up the supplements. I wanted to get into juicing, but I didn’t want a juicer that would have left over pulp. You’re getting rid of good stuff! I love the magic bullet because it purees everything and you get ALL of it. Thanks for this post!
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