Easy Kid Smoothies

Kids and food can be a challenging subject.  Sometimes my girls are in a funky mood about 'eating' food so I'll give them an alternative: Drink a smoothie!

Living in Florida makes for most of our days to be a perfect 'smoothie' day.  Here are two of my easy 'go to' kid smoothie recipes that I whip up quite often.  You can switch up the fruit and make it fun and interesting for them.  Moms need 'easy' solutions!

Mango Delight Smoothie

• 1 cup of *frozen* mango chunks (either fresh ones you cut up OR from the freezer section.  I prefer the fresher variety)
• 1 cup of Vanilla (unsweetened) almond milk. (mangos have a ton of natural sugar already)
• 4 to 5 ice cubes

Add all the ingredients to your blender (I have a VitaMix) and mix at high speed.

Next is my:


Banana Peanut Butter Smoothie: (I like this one a lot because of the protein) 

• 1 frozen banana
• 2 TBSP of Peanut Butter (creamy or crunchy)
• 1 cup of Vanilla (unsweetened) Almond Milk
• 4 to 5 ice cubes

Add all the ingredients to your blender and mix at high speed.

You'll see, they'll be asking for more.  Enjoy! 

*This post was not sponsored nor was I compensated. 

Garbanzo Bean Salad

~Garbanzo Bean Salad~

Okay, so here's a fairly simple bean salad recipe that I think most of you would enjoy.  It's a perfect dish for a hot summer day.  It was a last minute whip-up I made to accompany some Grilled Herb de Provence chicken I made.

The ingredients you'll need (minus the radish.  Changed my mind later.)  I recommend using fresh veggies and herbs whenever possible.
Parsley has a long 'crisp drawer' life so store it smartly.

First drain your garbanzo beans and corn well and then dump away! 

Next take your parsley and either hand chop or put it in a handy food processor (which is what I did).  Dump that in too!

Next you'll want to add in your dried cranberries and chopped walnuts (you can alternate using other nuts like sliced almonds or chopped pecans to switch it up).  

Go nutty on yourself! 

Go ahead and mix all that yummy stuff in to get it looking pretty and colorful! 

 Now that you've got that mixed, go ahead and cut grape or cherry tomatoes in halves.

 I like to keep the grape or cherry tomatoes on hand because you can use them in so many recipes.  Just rinse them and store them in an air tight glass container (or BPA fee plastic one).  It'll keep them bursting with goodness!

 Little fingers must be supervised! My sweet Sabrina loves to help in the kitchen.

 Next grab your plump little tomatoes and dumb them in!
Your salad will be shouting with some gorgeous color now.

 Grab yourself about two to three lemons and cut them in half.

Love the bright and beautiful 'yellowness' of these guys!

 I next took my handy little citrus presser and squeezed the heck out of half a lemon.
Continue with the rest of them and you should turn out with
 about 1/4 c. to 1/3 c. of fresh lemon juice.

 Next grab your olive oil and pour in about 1/3 c. of it into the lemon juice.

 Next add some salt to your dressing mix.

Add black pepper too! 

Stir the dressing mix up and then generously pour in onto your salad.  

Take a large spoon and mix, mix, mix it well.  Give it a taste test to see if you need to add a little more salt or pepper or lemon and then, ENJOY! 

Prep Time: 20 minutes  Difficulty: Easy  Servings: 8

Ingredients

• 1 can of Garbanzo Beans (drained)
• 1 can of Yellow Corn (drained)
• 1 small bunch of fresh Curly Parsley
• 1/2 c. of dried cranberries
• 1/2 c. of chopped walnuts
• 1 cup of cherry or grape tomatoes (halved)
• 1/3 c. of lemon juice (from 2 to 3 lemons)
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. black pepper
• 1/3 c. of olive oil