November’s raw butternut smoothie

I need to say upfront that this just might be my favourite smoothie recipe so far! Quite surprising, as the thought of adding raw butternut to a smoothie isn’t something that I would instinctively think of as being yummy!

Pumpkin and butternut are in season at the moment and, although we’ve used butternut in this recipe, you can easily substitute pumpkin or any other squash. The really great thing about this butternut smoothie is that it’s predominately made of vegetables. So without exerting too much effort, it’s a fabulous way to get more veggies into your kids (or your diet) without them even knowing.

Ingredients:

– about 100g butternut (great way to use up any left over bits of squash you might have in the fridge!) – peel and cut into discs/chunks
– about 100g very ripe banana – weighed without peel (frozen would be good, but not essential)
– half an avocado (ours was around 65g), skin removed
– 200ml unsweetened almond milk – our preferred brand is Rude Health as the blend of rice and almond milk adds a nice nutty sweetness to the smoothie (TIP: you may want to add more milk to taste as the avocado can make the smoothie very thick)
– we didn’t need to add any honey as the smoothie ended up being sweet enough thanks to the ripeness of the banana!
– you could add a few ice blocks too

Blitz it all in a blender till smooth and enjoy! This recipe will fill about 4 Super Squish pouches (depending on how much liquid you add – it’s a personal preference kind of thing!).

Raw butternut smoothie anyone?

We experimented with making a raw butternut smoothie today and it was unexpectedly delicious! No added sugar, dairy and gluten free and mainly made of raw vegetables.

My small helper downed 2 Super Squish pouches and gave it his seal of approval. Recipe coming soon… Watch this space.

October’s cauliflower smoothie

When I decided to do the seasonal smoothie campaign I wanted to focus on creating smoothies that are predominantly made up of vegetables with just a bit of fruit thrown in for sweetness.

While there is nothing wrong with all fruit smoothies, I’m trying to be more careful about how much sugar my 3 and a half year old has during the day. There is less sugar in a predominantly veggie smoothie than one that is mostly fruit, so that ticks this box. Also, this type of smoothie is a fantastic way to get additional vegetables into him without him knowing! It goes without saying that the smoothie had to be enjoyed by my 3 and a half year old. I wanted him to ask me for more when his glass was empty! Quite a challenge to say the least. I’m pleased to say that this smoothie passed the test!

There is an abundance of seasonal veggies in October. The most obvious of them all is, of course, the pumpkin. However, I’ve chosen to focus on one that tends to be overlooked – the cauliflower. My mission was to make a cauliflower smoothie! I don’t think you can be ambivalent about cauliflower – either you like it or you don’t! It isn’t one of my favourite veg and I don’t cook it often, so it was a challenge to come up with a smoothie recipe that made it the star. The great thing about adding cauliflower to a smoothie is that it has a rather bland flavour, and therefore can be used to bulk up smoothies without affecting the flavour too much.

Seeing as beetroot is also seasonal (and I had some left over in my fridge) I decided to throw that in too for a bit of vibrant colour. Avocado may not be in season, but I was looking for something that would add a creaminess to the smoothie. It worked brilliantly!

Ingredients:
70g fresh beetroot peeled
100g cauliflower
half a ripe avocado
2 small very ripe bananas (one large banana would work fine)
15 frozen raspberries (any frozen berries)
a small handful of ice
350/400ml unsweetened almond milk (my favourite brand is the Rude Health almond milk (a mixture of almond and rice milk), as it is naturally sweeter due to the addition of rice milk). Add milk to taste and to get the consistency you prefer.

Blitz and enjoy this yummy cauliflower smoothie!

This should fill about 5 Super Squish pouches, with a kiddie-sized glass left over for drinking straight away.

September’s beetroot smoothie

Maybe some of you have children that love beetroot. Mine does not. Not at all.

I even tried to get him to try beetroot juice once thinking that the gorgeous bright colour would make it palatable. It did not work at all and he refused to let the glass get anywhere near his lips! Off the record, I love love love beetroot juice and all things beetroot, so I can vouch for the deliciousness of the juice! So, in my quest to make the humble beetroot something that he would eat, I resorted to blending it into a smoothie. By the way, I initially tried apple instead of banana in the recipe and it wasn’t accepted by the 3.5 year old….

Fresh beetroot is in season at the moment, so should be readily available if you feel like giving this recipe a go.

Ingredients:
1 large ripe banana (try and get a very ripe banana to sweeten the smoothie as much as possible)
about 50g raw beetroot (peeled) – stains your fingers so watch out!
30g frozen raspberries (any frozen berries would work fine)
180 – 250ml freshly squeezed orange juice (or watered down according to your preference)

Bomb all of the ingredients in the blender and whizz till smooth. The colour is gorgeous!

(By the way, I initially tried apple instead of banana and it wasn’t accepted by the 3.5 year old)

Fills about 2 pouches with a little to spare (depending on how much liquid you add to taste)

TIP: I kept the smoothie in the fridge overnight and just blended it again the next day before drinking.

Super Spinach and Avocado Smoothie

I’m think I’m a tad obsessed with avocados at the moment! I’ve become a pro disguising them in all manner of foods to get my 3 year old to eat them.

My latest triumph is a variation on the monkey juice smoothie – think green boost smoothie – full of spinach and avocado. A very simple variation and one I almost didn’t post but, as I think it is one of the yummiest smoothies I’ve tasted in a long time, it had to be shared. The avocado gives it a thicker consistency than normal. If I close my eyes, I can almost imagine it’s a double thick milkshake! Almost…

How to make the smoothie:

Take the ingredients for the monkey juice smoothie and simply add half an avocado and a few extra blocks of ice. If the banana is really ripe it will help to sweeten the smoothie. You could also add a little honey or alternative sweetener to taste.

Bliss!!

Avo fab vegetable smoothie

I grew up in South Africa in an area where it was commonplace to see avocados the size of an average side plate, not the teeny varieties that the shops tend to sell!

One of my fond childhood memories is of my dad, heading off to the trees at the bottom of the garden with a special long stick, to go and collect the massive fruit during avocado season. We’d have to get to them before the monkeys did! He’d bring his haul into the kitchen, where we’d devour the ripe ones straight from the skins! So my love affair with avocados started very early in life. I definitely can’t say the same for my son, who refuses to eat them. As they’re a great source of healthy fats and loads of other good things, I have tried to disguise them in a few ways, including homemade ice cream (my own concoction, which was rather disgusting!) but without success.

Until this morning, when I made my new ‘avo fab’ vegetable smoothie, which was wolfed down by the adults and little kid in the family, much to my surprise!

I wanted to make a yummy smoothie that was predominantly made of vegetables as we had an abundance of them in the house. I wasn’t sure if that was going to work, but it did!

Here’s what went into the smoothie:

– 1 courgette
– 1 carrot
– half an avocado
– about 300mls of freshly squeezed orange juice
– handful of ice cubes

I have an orange juicer so made my own juice, but you could easily substitute with freshly squeezed shop bought orange juice (not made from concentrate).

I didn’t bother peeling any of the vegetables but roughly chopped them up and blended everything together. You can experiment with different quantities of the various veggies and the amount of orange juice you add, until you get the taste and consistency that you enjoy.

I found that if I added less orange juice, there was a definite avocado aftertaste which I was trying to avoid. You could probably add less orange juice if you added an apple to the mix and topped up the liquid with cold water.

This made enough for about 4 Super Squish pouches, or enough for 2 adult-sized portions and a little kid-sized one.

If you’re not popping this into pouches, simply pour into glasses, add courgette slices for garnish and you’ve got a fun addition to breakfast!

‘Fruity yoghurt surprise’ smoothie

We tested the strength of the Super Squish pouches this week.

I knew that they were strong and have never leaked while I’ve been using them, but we felt that a little ‘scientific’ experiment was needed to help verify this. We filled a few pouches with some yummy fruity yoghurt smoothie and my little 3.5 year old super kid jumped on one of them. Result = no spillage of it’s precious contents or breakage of any kind! Have a look at our experiment……

If it had spilled, it would have been a huge waste of the delicious smoothie inside – I called it ‘Fruity yoghurt surprise’ because I threw in whatever fruit I had in my fridge at the time that needed eating. SURPRISE!

If you want to substitute other fruit, I would keep the banana as a staple, but find other alternatives for the pear and the strawberries.

This is a great quick morning breakfast fix (you could add some oats, ground flaxseed or oat bran for a bit of extra staying power) or perfect for a lunchbox treat.

I took:

1 banana

about 100g of fresh strawberries

1 pear

a cup of (organic) full fat greek style yoghurt (I would imagine that a dairy alternative would be equally yummy)

enough milk to make it into a thick milkshake consistency (added as I went) – you could add a milk substitute such as unsweetened almond milk

then blitzed it all together until smooth.

It filled 3 Super Squish pouches with extra for me to drink as a reward.

Cherry monkey juice smoothie

In celebration of the glorious sunny weather yesterday, I decided to whip up a monkey juice smoothie, but I found that I only had enough ingredients for half the usual amount. So, in slight desperation, I searched in the freezer and fortunately came across a bag of frozen cherries! I can’t remember buying them but, at that moment, I was really glad I had.

I added about a cup of frozen cherries to about half of my Monkey Juice smoothie ingredients, blended them together and then added a bit more almond milk to get the consistency I wanted. Voila! An awesome, refreshing, icy cherry smoothie. Delicious! You could of course add any frozen berries – it would work as well.

Cherry monkey juice smoothie

‘Monkey’ juice – fabulous green smoothie

This smoothie was named by a friend of mine while trying to convince her 3 year olds to try this nutrient packed yummy smoothie! It did the trick, the littlies gulped it down and the name has stuck in our house.

It’s great for little kids and bigger ones (including grown ups!) too. It can be made dairy free or gluten free if you use suitable milk alternatives like oat milk, soya milk etc.

You need:

two large handfuls of baby spinach (or one kale and one baby spinach)
a large banana (can add an extra one if you want to – this will make it sweeter)
250ml of milk (or milk alternative)
4-6 large ice cubes
Optional – a tablespoon of flax seeds, a few soft dates/a teaspoon of honey or alternative sweetner

Put everything into a blender, whizz and drink.

Fills about 4 Super Squish pouches.

Refreshing watermelon smoothie

I bought a watermelon and of course it was too big for our small family to eat it all, so I decided to see if my two-year old and hubby would enjoy a watermelon smoothie or slushie.

I put about 600g of cubed watermelon in a blender with seven or eight strawberries, then I added a few sprigs of fresh mint (actually I keep mine in the freezer, so it was frozen fresh mint!) I put the whole lot in the blender and whizzed it up. It was still a fairly thick consistency so it was fine to put into the pouch. To be honest I didn’t know if the little man would drink this, but I presented it to him and he really liked it! (I do think the Super Squish pouches help make any blended fruit seem exciting).

You need:

600g watermelon
a good handful of strawberries with the cores removed
a few sprigs of mint (optional, but it does give an extra dimension for the grown ups I think!)
a blender

Fills about 5 Super Squish pouches.