Green Smoothies

I started doing green smoothies when my 10 month old daughter with no teeth refused to eat baby food anymore. Basically, she wanted to be just like her big brother and parents. She wouldn't eat our food if it was blended up either because it didn't look like ours. She wouldn't eat soft things off of her tray; it had to come from our plates. Just for a little while I would chew up food from my plate, take it out and put it in her mouth. Sounds so disgusting. It was gross but when it's your baby, you don't minds as much - though I did still mind. So that's why I started doing green smoothies. I love it and so do my kids :)

One recipe I've developed is the

Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake Green Smoothie

Place in blender and let soak for 15 minutes:

4 Cups Water (you can do milk)

4 Tbsp Chia seeds

4 Date frozen and pitted

Then add

1 Cup spinach

2 Cups pitted frozen cherries

1 Cup vanilla or plain yogurt

and one of these three options

about 1/4 Cup Cocoa Powder

or

Two Carnation Breakfast Packets

or

1 Cup Chocolate milk powder mix

Then you blend it all together. You can't even tell it's green. Sooooo good. Also, you can do this without the Chia seeds and dates.

I buy my greens when they're on super good sale. I wash it all, wrap some up in a towel for salads that week (it stays fresh longest this way) and freeze the rest. I freeze it cause then when we don't have fresh veggies we can make green smoothies and still get the nutrients. Because it's blended you don't have to blanch it. Just wash and then freeze. I like putting four portions in a gallon freezer baggie or two portions in a quart freezer bag.As I press out all of the air I make  sure the four portions stay separate. Once the bag is zipped up I push around the lettuce to make the four portions distinct and make sure they won't freeze together. When we make a green smoothie we just take out one of the portions and drop it in the blender. I love it.