Recipe: Smoothie Pops!
silver spoonscanada
(Mar.01.10)
I've written before of my love for the smoothie. While I have no trouble eating my veggies, I am terrible at eating fruit. Smoothies offer a fun way for my family to get their daily fruit credits in.
Last week, when a bout of stomach flu blew (pardon the pun) through my house, I had to get creative. No one wanted to eat anything (for obvious reasons). Not even offers of pancakes and ice cream worked. But somehow when I mentioned smoothie pops, the reaction was, "YEAH! SMOOTHIE POPS!"
They didn't eat much of them, but it was more than they'd consumed in the past three days, so I'll take it. Plus, it's super easy for kids to make and takes up a bit of time I like to tick off under the "we did something together" category.
SMOOTHIE POPS! (Suitable for kids 9 months to 109!)
1 ripe banana, sliced (you can have bigger kids to do this with a kid-friendly knife; IKEA has good kid-sized cutlery)
1 kiwi (slice in half and have kids scoop out with a spoon)
1 mango, sliced (tricky, so best left to grown-ups)
1 cup frozen berries (we're big fans of PC Organics Wild Blueberries but any berry combination will do)
The juice of 1 orange (what kid doesn't love squeezing oranges?)
1 cup 2% or whole yogurt
Throw all the ingredients in a blender (a hand blender works too), and pulverize. Depending on the texture, you may have to add more yogurt. You want the consistency to be thick, but still liquid enough to be drinkable.
The next part is messy but fun: pouring into molds! The choices are endless -- the once catch being that it's harder to find molds at this time of year. I just discovered these Kinderville silicone molds ($20) at Parenting by Nature. The pops come out in ice lolly shape, so no handle is required at all.
If you want to control how big of a treat your kids get, or want to limit waste (little guys tend to give up before pops are done, or just let them drip all over the carpet) then opt to pour the smoothie into cute silicone or rubbery ice cube molds, like the Plastis from IKEA ($2 each), pop them in the freezer and check on them in 30-45 minutes or so. Once they start solidifying, slide in your handle of choice (toothpicks, skewers with the pointy bit trimmed off, or popsicle sticks) and then leave to harden. Pop them out as needed -- the adorable shapes and small size make them an easy favourite.
There, I just gave you a good 30 minutes of quality indoor time with your kids. Oh sure, you'll have to deal with the aftermath of "Are they ready yet?" and the pouting that comes when they're not. But once they're done, you'll have at least 15 minutes to yourself while they enjoy their treat (which you'll probably spend cleaning up the kitchen, but well, that's how it goes).