In cooking class this week, we began celebrating St. Patrick’s day a little early. Because we were also making Irish Soda Bread, the recipe for which we will share in another post, we needed something fresh and GREEN to balance out our meal.
Enter The Green Smoothie.
We like drinking our greens, but we prefer smoothies to juices since, when you keep all the parts of the fruits and the veggies, you get more fiber. In the afternoon class, we are still practicing our knife skills. We had quite a few apple core pieces that made it into our smoothies, but they did not affect the final effect after it’d gone through the blender.
Some of the kids were making stank faces as they tore up the swiss chard leaves, cut the celery, and added the spinach leaves, or some merely looked unconvinced that they were actually going to imbibe these things. They seemed excited about the vanilla and, of course, the raw honey. We talk a lot in the classes, especially when a Yummy has food aversions, about how being a chef is magical. You may think a certain ingredient is yucky on its own, but when you put it with other ingredients, the magic happens.
O., one of my mini-chefs, sat happily slurping up her green smoothie, and her mama came over to her and asked, “Can you believe that you’re eating swiss chard?”
She looked a bit shocked at herself, replied, “Nope!”, and continued to drink it till it was all gone.
The sole mini-chef who refused to take even a single sip of her smoothie was, of course, one of my children. Genevieve told me that she wasn’t going to try it. When I asked her why not, she replied, “It is a green smoothie. I only drink pink smoothies.” Hmm, seems like the perfect remedy for pinkatitis to me!
May the luck of the Irish be with you, Yummies, and may you try this incredible fresh, green smoothie very soon.
Green Smoothies with Greens, Celery, Green Apple, and Mint
- 1 large handful of spinach
- 2 large swiss chard leaves, torn into pieces and middle stems removed if you have red swiss chard (for color only)
- 2 stalks of celery, roughly chopped
- 2 tart green apples (Granny Smiths work well)
- a handful of fresh mint
- 1 T. raw local honey
- 1 c. yogurt (optional)
- 2 c. apple juice (milk, water, almond milk, etc. are also good)
- 1 t. vanilla extract
- 3 bananas, cut into 1-inch pieces and frozen
- In the pitcher of a blender, add all of the ingredients.
- Place the lid on the blender, and put the pitcher onto the blender’s base.
- Blend till completely, uniformly, green. Pour and serve with a straw.
- Enjoy!
