The Green Smoothie

You are going to see my eating habits here and they are not similar to Bob Harper's.

I eat cheese on everything, dip my veggies in ranch, and LOVE my burgers and chicken fingers! But I also play volleyball avidly, run 3 times a week with my gal pal, and feel emotionally and physically more fit than ever before in my life. I just hiked/ran Mt. Rose summit yesterday in 3 hours 40 minutes ( I know because we had to pick up G Boy from school by 3! ). The three things I do for my health and the health of my kids:

(1) little to no soda

(2) cooking 90% of our meals at home

and

(3) green smoothies!

I've been asked by a few of my friends how I make my green smoothies - mainly because my kids adore them and we all know how big of an asset that is! Guess what - I don't have a recipe! But for you I'm going to try my best. And the good news is you get to play with it until your family loves it as much as mine. You can be a hardcore raw-foodie in this or go my way and just make veggies taste good for the family.

The general concept is to keep some fruits and veggies in the house (frozen and fresh) and mix and match till your heart's content. You can also add protein power. I have a vanilla powder from Arbonne I like.

My favorites ingredients are kale, apples, carrots, tomatoes, & apple juice; I try to keep these around as much as possible and others like strawberries, spinach, yogurt, and peaches, I use on occasion.

I know some people need more direction that that, totally understandable! So here's two recipes you can feel free to follow or hack:

Today's smoothie with what I had on hand (I'll call it Super Green):

a cup of spinach

(I usually don't use spinach but stole some from dinner at my mom's last night)

3/4 my blender of (un-squished) kale leaves

4 large baby carrots

1 small tomato

1 cup of vanilla yogurt

5 ice cubes

1 cup of apple juice

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As you can see I didn't have any fruit on hand as it's time to go to the store soon and the apple tree in the backyard is past harvest for humans and on to the bird harvest. BUT the apple juice and yogurt will punch it up enough to get those veggies down - and you probably would have fed those items to your kid today anyway.

My more normal smoothie (I'll call it The Awesome Abby):

1 whole apple cut into 4's

4 baby carrots

5 frozen strawberries

3/4 a blender of fluffy kale leaves

5 ice cubes

1 cup of apple juice

1 big scoop of vanilla yogurt

And that's it! Well one more thing - if your blender sucks, your smoothie may too. Serious raw-foodies use a Vita-Mix. If you can afford it, go for it! My husband wasn't going to lay down $500 for a pregnant wife (at the time) who had a juice craving so we ended up buying a Breville from Bed Bath and Beyond. We even were blessed to pick up the floor model for 60% off! I suggest you start with what you have and after the kids drink 30 cups of kale your husband may just start to see the investment!

I'll try to get more green smoothie recipes to you approved by my kids G Boy and C Baby soon. I hoped this helped!

♥

Special Note on KALE: This green seems to last the longest in the fridge. I use a "FridgeSmart" system from Tupperware but my mom just washes and puts into a ziplock bag (wet-ish) accompanied by 3 paper towel sheets. It lasts at least two weeks, maybe three. And there's always a first time, if you don't know what kale looks like go here.