See more Wordless Wednesday posts.

Stumble it!

Ever since Jessica Seinfeld appeared on Oprah touting her new book “Deceptively Delicious,” there’s been lot of talk around the internet about sneaking veggies into kids’ food. Some are for it, some are against it. I tend to take a somewhat moderate approach. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with mixing vegetables into other foods, but I don’t believe in intentionally trying to deceive your kids. Seinfeld says she will set a box of store-bought mac & cheese out on the counter so the kids assume that’s what she is making, while in the meantime she is whipping up her own healthy homemade mac, cheese & veggie blend. That feels dishonest to me and rubs me the wrong way. It seems like a quick and temporary fix to me and I don’t think that will establish good eating habits for later in life either. However, just because I don’t agree with it doesn’t mean it won’t work for some parents and their kids. Bottom line is we all gotta do what’s best for our family.

Anyway, in the spirit of sneaking veggies, I wanted to tell you about a new delicious smoothie recipe that I got from Julie at Rarely Home Mom. Here’s the kicker - it’s got spinach in it! The smoothie is called Groovy Green Goodness and green it is. I’m a fan of spinach, but I admit to being skeptical about drinking it, so I put off making the smoothie for a week. But with a name like Groovy Green Goddess, I couldn’t resist it for long. Yesterday after picking up some organic grapes, I decided to give it a go, and low and behold it was delicious! It seriously does not taste like spinach.

Here’s the recipe:
Groovy Green Goddess
1 banana, cut in chunks
1 cup grapes
1 (6 ounce) tub vanilla yogurt (I just used a few scoops of vanilla yogurt out of my 32 oz. container)
1/2 apple, cored and chopped
1 1/2 cups fresh spinach leaves
optional - ice

Place the banana, grapes, yogurt, apple and spinach into a blender. Cover, and blend until smooth, stopping frequently to push down anything stuck to the sides. Pour into glasses and serve. Serves 2

I also added some wheat germ to mine and you could substitute other flavors of yogurt if you like, as well as other fruits, though you may not end up with it being a groovy green color if you add berries and such.

I know, the real question is - what did the kids think about it? They loved it too! Ava was particularly impressed by the green color - which is her favorite. She gulped her’s down (and yes, I showed her that there was spinach in the blender before I made it), then started in on the one I was sharing with Julian (who drank it right up too). Pretty soon Ava had commanded control of my cup and was doling out sips to me and Julian while she intermittently took sips herself. I never would’ve thought the three of us would be doing battle over a spinach smoothie. ;)

Give it a try and see what your kids think. In the spirit of involving them in the process (something Michelle at What’s Cooking is very fond of and I think is a great idea as well), I encourage you to let them help you put the ingredients in the blender (using safety precautions like not having the blender on the base, of course). :)

I’m now wondering if it would taste as good with frozen spinach since I don’t often have fresh spinach on hand. Hmm. Guess I will be conducting my own experiment to find out.

Here are more great smoothie recipes.

Stumble it!