Monster Green Smoothie

This is super random, but has me rather excited. I am on a mission to feed my family better. Rather than being one of those sexy super spy missions that requires a black spandex bodysuit and lots of tiny gadgets, this mission looks more like me sitting at the computer a lot. I read a lot about nutrition, and I search for new recipe ideas a little bit obsessively. But feeding a family with three children who have not been raised on 100% healthy food for their entire lives, and a husband who has some, ahem, pickiness issues, is a challenge. Perhaps if I'd been one of those moms who never pulls through a McDonald's and whose kids have never had anything with sugar in it, I'd have them happily eating nothing but broccoli and brussels sprouts. Alas, I am not that mom, and my kids will chose crappy chicken nuggets over almost anything else, any day of the week.

I've had a recent success, however, and when I come up with a recipe or food idea that is not sugar laden, and all three of them will eat, I get a little excited.

Enter the Monster Green Smoothie!

(I totally made that name up just now)

There's really nothing revolutionary about this recipe, and I'm sure you'll find numerous versions of a green smoothie that are basically the same. So to say I "created" this isn't quite accurate. Mostly, I just threw a bunch of stuff in a blender and hoped for the best. But this combination has proved to be delicious, and although it does contain orange juice as a base (aka, sugar), it is healthy enough for my liking.

And my kids are drinking these with breakfast. Cue Hallelujah Chorus in my head.

Monster Green Smoothie

• Handful of spinach and kale
• Lime juice
• Coconut milk
• 1/2 to 1 ripe avocado
• Frozen banana chunks
• Orange juice
• Lemon juice
• A few ice cubes

Short version of the directions: throw it in a blender and turn on.

Longer version:
I blend the spinach and kale first, with a few squirts of lime juice and enough coconut milk to get it to blend. The lime juice cuts down any bitterness in the green stuff.
Once it is nicely liquefied, I add the other ingredients - the avocado makes it creamy and adds healthy fats, frozen banana is awesome in smoothies, and they like them really cold so I still add a couple ice cubes. Grayson came up with the idea to add a squirt of lemon juice, and usually another squirt of lime juice, at the end. The kids seem to think those little squirts of acidity to be essential, but bet they can be left out and probably not alter the flavor a whole lot. Add enough orange juice to get a good smoothie consistency and blend away.

I have a Ninja Kitchen Prep, which is a pretty cool blender, but not one of those crazy expensive ones, and it blends everything up just fine.

The smoothie ends up a fabulous green color, and it is full of some good stuff - and best of all, my kids happily slurp them up. This has vegetables in it, people. That is huge.

I realized I probably should have taken a picture, because blog posts look better with pictures, but I didn't and my kids already drank theirs down. If I think about it, I'll add one later, but chances are I won't - so I submit the lack of picture as evidence of this smoothie's yumminess - gone too quick to photograph!