Smoooooothies

As a mom I feel like I'm always trying to get my kids to eat their fruits and vegetables, but I don't hold myself to the same standard.  For example, today at lunch Ava wanted a treat after she finished her "good bites" as we call them.  She had just eaten chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast and I knew that she'd hit me up for a treat after dinner so I just had to put my foot down and say no, this would not be a 3-treat day (okay, I let her have Jello after lunch but is that really considered a treat, AND I made her split it with Sidney).  


While the girls napped, I ate my lunch - a turkey and avocado sandwich on whole wheat.  Decently healthy.  I was still hungry so I decided to eat one of my free Schnucks cookies.


Side story: When you bring your kids to Schnucks, our grocery store, they get a free cookie.  I think the employees hope that the kids will eat the cookie and behave themselves while the parents shop.  I don't think these employees have kids.  My kids are not aware of this rule.  They instead think that they get a free banana!  And they love it - you can't imagine their excitement when we stroll by the banana stand.  So while the kids eat their "free" banana I go get 2 free cookies and eat them when I get the kids down to bed.  Genius!


Back to my lunch story.  Just as I took a bite of my gooey butter cookie, Ava walked up.  Busted.  I felt so embarrassed that I offered her a bite.  You see, I had also eaten pancakes this morning.  They didn't have chocolate chips but they did have candied walnuts and banana.  So if I held myself to the same standard as my girls, I should not have been eating that delicious cookie.  


The lesson of this story: I need to shape up how I eat.  I realized that I don't eat very much fruit in the winter.  I'm not big on apples and pears and that seems to be in season throughout most of the winter.  I found this Smoothie idea on Pinterest and had to try it.  It's an easy and yummy way to incorporate fruit into my diet.  The best part there less than 1/2 gram of fat and ~250 calories per smoothie!


Here's what you need:

• Blender
• Mini muffin tin or ice cube trays
• 32 oz tub of Fat-free vanilla yogurt (I used Dannon Light and Fit but I think I will use Dannon's Nonfat Oikos Vanilla Greek Yogurt next time to up the protein)
• 1 cup Skim milk
• Your frozen fruit combo of choice (I picked strawberries, mangoes, peaches and blueberries)

Here's what you do:

• Measure 1 Tbsp scoops of yogurt into the mini muffin tin (I didn't have any ice cube trays available).  I didn't level it off because some of the yogurt sticks to the tablespoon. Once they are all filled, pop them in the freezer.
• I bought pre-frozen fruits, but if yours is not frozen you'll want to freeze them.  Tip: If you have fruit that you know you won't finish before it goes bad, freeze it for your smoothies.
• To freeze your fruit, first clean it and then slice it into bite-sized pieces.  Place the pieces on a silpat mat or on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet and freeze.  You'll want the fruit to be frozen through so that they don't freeze together in the packs.
• An hour or so later when everything is frozen, I laid out the ingredients to prepare my individual serving smoothie bags.
• If you use muffin tins to freeze your yogurt, let them sit out for a few minutes then use a spoon to pop them out.  Don't dip them in warm water - they will melt very quickly.
• Add ~1.5 cups of fruit and 3 yogurt scoops to a sandwich baggie.

• This recipe will make 8 individual serving smoothie packets.

• Then I package them up in a larger bag so they don't get lost in my freezer.

• When you're ready for a smoothie, all you have to do is pop it in your blender with a cup of milk (or more if you want to thin out the consistency).  I use the Ninja and I love it!  It's simple and super easy to clean.  I bought it at Sam's for $50 and it came with tons of extras. 

My total cost was ~$11 for the frozen fruit and yogurt.  That brings my cost for each smoothie to $1.37.  Not bad!