My daughter, Olive, is about 16 months old right now. She eats pretty much anything we give her and she has a very healthy appetite. We work really hard to make sure she eats a balanced, nutritious diet, but some days are easier than others. To make sure that she's getting a good amount of fruits and veggies I make her smoothies about 3-4 times per week. In my house, we call them "slurries". I know she'll eat everything I put in them individually, so it's not like I'm trying to "hide" anything just to get her to eat it! A nice effect (if you want to call it that), is that these slurries create instant poop. I'm serious, sometimes she'll go in the middle of drinking. So if you have a constipated baby, this is the ultimate cure!
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| My Vitamix. Basically the best blender you could ever own. It's pretty expensive, but it will blend ANYTHING into a nice, smooth puree. We have used it so much and it is definitely worth every penny spent! (If you don't have a Vitamix, you can still make this slurry, but I would defrost anything frozen as a normal blender might not be strong enough.) |
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Today's slurry mix: 1 banana, 1 pear (skin and all), 1 cup applesauce, 2 cups almond milk, 1/4 cup ground flax seed, 1/2 cup blueberries, 2 cups spinach, 1 cup broccoli, 1/2 cup peaches, 1/2 cup mango, 1/2 cup blackberries, 1 cup carrots, 1 cup watermelon plus juice. (Spinach, broccoli, mango, peaches, blackberries, and blueberries were all frozen.)
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Items I've put in other slurries in the past: beans (garbanzo, black, kidney), whole milk, kale, zucchini, squash, etc. And no matter what anyone says, you DON'T need to add anything like honey, agave nectar, or sugar to make it sweet. The natural fruit is sweet enough as it is!
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Side note: I didn't actually measure any of the ingredients. I just put an estimate of how much I used for reference. |
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| In goes the spinach, almond milk & applesauce. Blend! |
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| Added the pear, banana, & blueberries. Blend! |
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| Next: carrots & broccoli. Blend! |
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| Delicious looking watermelon & blackberries. Blend! |
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| Last but not least: ground flax seed, mangoes, peaches. One last blend! |
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| The finished product. I blend it for a while at the end to make sure everything is really smooth. This one turned out purple. Depending on the mixture, other times it will turn out green, gray, or brown. Not super attractive, but delicious! |
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The happy customer! When she gets finished sucking it down, she'll usually run up to me, hold her cup in the air and shout, "Mo! Mo!" (how she says "more").
I'm telling you, no matter how many different ways I've made this, Olive has liked every single one. It doesn't matter what I put in it, she loves it! One little piece of advice: If you finish and think that it tastes a little funky, throw in another banana. I guarantee that it will come out tasting like banana. I hope you enjoy coming up with your own mix and testing it out with your family! |
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