The Perfect Smoothie

29 Sunday Apr 2012

Tags

bananas, healthy snacks, recipes, Smoothie, treats

I never said anything about taking the perfect picture.

Banana Yogurt Smoothie

Ingredients: 2 cups of milk (or soy if you’re LI like me), 2 tbspn of plain or vanilla low fat yogurt, 1 large banana cut into chunks, 4 cubes of crushed ice.

First thing’s first, start with the liquid. Pour your milk in the blender and add the yogurt in. Start on a low setting, on blend. Add the bananas and blend until they are fully incorporated, I like to use liquify so that there aren’t banana pieces. Bananas can get slimy and ew. Now, if you like your smoothie cold you can either put it in the chill for a bit or add three cubes of ice and crush them on high (liquify). You don’t want bits of ice floating around either, that would make this a chunkie, not a smoothie.

You can add protein powders, honey, sugar or frozen fruit, if you like. If you don’t live with your mama, you can be as creative as you want, like skipping the milk altogether and just using juice and something that rhymes with chekilla or shmodka. If you’re a perfectionist like me, here’s a tutorial. A smoothie is usually thick and smooth (der!). A frappe’ is frothy from being blended a while longer and usually has some coffee in it. A milkshake requires ice cream instead of fruit or yogurt. If you didn’t know, now you know. Enjoy!

A Healthier S’more

30 Friday Dec 2011

Posted by sommysmommy in Desserts

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

bonfires, healthy snacks, S'mores

First, let me tell you there might not be any such thing as a healthy S’more. When you are ready to say that out loud and accept it we can move on. You good? Good. Now, let me tell you that I really did try to make a nutritious but delicious campfire treat with all the sweet goodness and marshmallowy yumminess that you want to taste when you bite into a S’more. I had a great idea. I was going to use mini marshmallows, bananas, granola and Nutella, but this is Saipan. In Saipan, you either scour half a dozen stores for three ingredients or take what you get. The bananas at “Joyful” Market looked nasty, but not in the sultry Janet Jackson way; the only granola available were the ones in bars and Nutella? Forget about it. And so, the S’more On A Stick was born.

Drizzle some honey in a small bowl. I would have picked Nutella to substitute chocolate, but I’ll explain why I didn’t.

Find the child who is most likely to want to help if you use the word “smash” when you ask. Put a few chocolate covered graham cracker cookies in a baggie and let her go to town. In my perfect recipe, I would have used Nutella instead of chocolate and granola instead of graham crackers, but having found none I settled for Keebler’s chocolate covered graham bars. Nutella would have done what the honey did, which was bind the granola/graham crumbs to the banana/marshmallow. That would have used way less chocolate (A.K.A. evil sugar) but still tasted amazing. When making something you plan to feed children, it is always a good idea to enlist their help. I say this as if I believe it, but I actually needed the girls to help make things go a little faster. I also wanted to try to convince them this would taste awesome by letting them play with their food. Soak skewers in water to prevent them from catching on fire.

Dip individual marshmallows into the honey, coating half of it. Roll the sticky half into the chocolate graham cracker crumbs. Arrange them crumb side up on a platter. When you’re ready, insert the skewers into the mini S’mores. I sprinkled the leftover crumbs on the platter. Waste not want not. Whatev.

What makes these healthy -er? Well, nutrition is not just about what you eat, but how much you eat and when you can’t find healthy substitutes, the next best thing to do is moderate what you let yourself consume. Less chocolate, fewer cookies and only one marshmallow, but still delish! I call it a success.