The Smoothie Follies

Smoothie FailIt all started back in October when I was grocery shopping. There – sitting in the produce aisle – was an entire banana box full of bananas for $8.00.

An entire banana box!

Yes, they were getting ripe fast – but still it was a great  deal!

I bought them and we ate them – quickly.

The last few we peeled and threw in the freezer.

A few weeks later I saw the same deal. Only this time the kids weren’t so thrilled with eating that many bananas. More went in the freezer.

Then my husband brought one home. Even more went in the freezer.

This went on well into November before we realized that none of us even wanted to look at a banana again!

Last week I cleaned out the freezer and realized that we had many, many bags of frozen bananas – and there were starting to impart a banana flavor in the homemade rolls and even the frozen french fries they shared the freezer space with.

Major banana fail.

It was time to use them up. The problem was, we are banana’d out. We’ve had banana bread, banana muffins, banana cake…you name it, we ate it, until we can’t stand to look at it again!

Then I thought of smoothies.

I taught the kids the basics, gave them a few ideas ideas – and set them loose. The only rules were they had to use a frozen banana AND they had to eat what they created.

Boy – were they creative!

Some were actually good.

Dagmar’s peanut butter, yogurt, banana and chocolate syrup was yummy. As was the blueberry, raspberry, banana and yogurt combination.

Pedro did not do as well.  His banana, chocolate syrup, raspberry syrup, and a carrot stick combo was not very tasty. It was edible, however. But in his zeal to out-do his siblings he added barbecue sauce.

Words can not describe.

He sat and tried to drink it for over an hour (remember rule #2!) until I showed him mercy and grace, allowing him to feed it to the chickens. Such relief on his face! (I did hear him tell his brother at lunch that he could still taste it several hours later!)

The kids continue to enjoy smoothies for breakfast and snack – but are more cautious about their choice of ingredients!

Little by little the massive banana pile in the freezer is slowly dwindling – one smoothie at a time.

And when I go grocery shopping – I walk right by those cheap bananas!

PS: I’ve linked this post up with my friend Myra over at My Blessed Life for her Friday Fails fun!

The Art of Subterfuge in Mothering

This morning as I whipped up some apple, pear, banana fruit smoothies for my children and watched them guzzle them down, I got to thinking.

Now I realize that thinking that early in the morning can often be dangerous, as my brain is not fully activated yet. But my idea seemed like such a good one- are you ready? I could hide other fruits and vegetables in their smoothies!

It was brilliant!

Just think about the vegetables that could be blended right in!  Even my pickiest eater wouldn’t be able to pick them back out again!

Think about the nutrients my kids would unknowingly consume! Frozen peas, carrots, green beans, celery… no, wait…those are too normal. What about broccoli or kohlrabi or Brussels sprouts?  I know- tomatoes!

Some mothers seem to get away with it on a regular basis.

My sister-in-law Julie cooks up a vegetable medley that she hides in almost everything. Her meatballs are so packed with vitamins they should have a warning label. “Beware: These meatballs are extremely healthy and will make you as strong as Popeye.”

My friend Cinnamon concocts a smoothie for her children that includes spinach! Yes, spinach. And they drink it?! As if any of my kids would voluntarily drink something green.

Ahh yes- that brings us to the heart of the matter. When tricking kids into eating something healthy it must be well-hidden.

How could I possibly disguise the color and smell of say, spinach. It tends to be quite green no matter what you do with it.

Believe me I know. My Mom was always trying to hide things from us. Didn’t always work though. Her most famous cooking story remains “The Legend of the Green Fish Loaf.”

She had discovered a recipe for a fish loaf using canned salmon and spinach. She decided that she would just throw the spinach in the blender with the other ingredients and hide it. We would never know it was there!

She learned that spinach cannot be disguised. It turned the entire salmon loaf green.

We rushed to the table in anticipation of supper and there IT sat.  All green and bubbly with cheese on top. I wish we would have taken pictures of our faces as we sat around the table looking at IT.

IT went over like the proverbial lead balloon. Poor Mom has never been able to forget it. (Being the good children that we are, we keep reminding her.)

No, I realize now that such thinking is quite dangerous. There is an art to subterfuge as a mother, and I definitely have a lot to learn about it!

Hey, I still have a kid who can pick out ground up onions in a meatball.  Maybe I should send him to Aunt Julie’s for awhile….