Beet and Blueberry Smoothie

I came home a little early from work today and decided to go through the fridge to see what we had lying around. With beets arriving every week from the farm, I have run out of friends to pass them off on, therefore we have many beets. My husband does not enjoy the taste of them so I've been trying out different recipes that he will give a try.
I found a beet smoothie recipe which I modified. Here it is:

Ingredients:

* Fresh squeezed juice from 1 orange
* 1/2 cup diced beets (I used cooked/ boiled beets, but you can also use canned)
* 1 1/2 cups frozen blueberries
* 1 banana
* 1 cup plain yogurt
* 1 Tablespoon flax seed meal
* 1/2 cup cold water
* 1 cup ice

My husband did like it, but it could have been the fact that our kids have been so sick, and we'll try anything not to get what they have (lots of antioxidants in this one). The kids took about 1 sip of the smoothie, so I poured the remaining smoothie mix into the pop molds, since they will eat anything in pop form. We'll try that for a snack tomorrow!

Peach Strawberry Smoothie

A friend of mine gave me a bunch of peaches from her tree, and they were very ripe and had to be used asap. I looked up a few peach smoothie recipes, but modified because I had other fruit that also had to be used up. These smoothies were delicious- and the kids also enjoyed!

Here's the recipe:
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1 cup frozen strawberries (I've been freezing them on my own since we have so many these days)
1 banana
5-10 peaches and their juices (as many as you have on hand- peeled)
1 Tablespoon flaxseed meal
Handful of kale, or any other green

Blend until smooth and serve. Enjoy!!

Mango Strawberry Carrot Smoothie

This smoothie required a little more preparation than my usual smoothies, but it was worth it. I mix-matched a few recipes to come up with this one because of the ingredients I had available- and I really wanted to use up carrots, since we have so many from our farm.
Here it is:
1 apple, peeled and sliced
1 cup frozen strawberries
3/4 cup mango juice (because I had it in the house)
1 cup cooked carrots (peeled and steamed)
1 cup milk or yogurt
handful of ice
1 Tablespoon flaxseed meal

Put all these ingredients together in a blender, and blend. Easy and delicious!

The kids enjoyed sipping on these smoothies, but I also used the leftover to make more ice-pops for tomorrow. They love anything in ice pop form! : )

Yogurt Smoothie Pops

My son just loves eating my homemade ice pops (sometimes for dinner), so I found some other healthy ingredients to add to them.

Ingredients:
1 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup orange juice
1 cup strawberries (use frozen if making a smoothie instead of the pops)
1 banana
1/2 cup swiss chard, green or rainbow
1 Tbsp flax seed meal (omega 3)
1 Tbsp light olive oil (omega 3)

Blend all the ingredients together. If making the pops, pour right into the pop molds and freeze. These are soooooo delicious. The kids want to eat them every night!

kale smoothie?

Really, you can't taste it! A delicious way to utilize this green or any other bitter green. My daughter loved helping to throw all the ingredients in the blender. She told me, "It is very hard work". After making this smoothie, we poured some into ice-pop molds to freeze for an after dinner treat. If I was only using it for a smoothie, using frozen fruit would have thickened the mixture up a bit.
Here we used:
2 bananas
1 cup strawberries
2 handfuls kale, chopped
1 cup fresh squeezed OJ
1 cup cold water
Handful of ice

Success! My daughter ate two ice pops after dinner!! And my son, well, half the pop was his dinner. :(