Alternatively titled: Dairy Free Smoothies or What I Give My Toddler Who Refuses To Eat Stuff
I make a LOT of smoothies around here, y’all. Scarlette is 32 months old and weighs 22 pounds. When you’re born weighing just one and a half pounds, lots of different doctors care about how much you weigh for a really long time. So basically when Mommy makes meals there is a lot of calorie loading going on. Have you ever had avocados in your omelets? Because I’m pretty sure Scarlette thinks that avocados are a part of the egg.
I’ve been giving her smoothies for as long as she’s been allowed to have them because they are such an easy way to get in some extra calories and she couldn’t tolerate any form of Pediasure. For me, these are sort of my “peace of mind” drinks because if she’s having a tough day eating, at least I know that she’s had something I feel good about.
Scarlette can’t have milk or yogurt because turns out, she does have a pretty severe milk protein intolerance (I swear I have a post talking about all the preemie/development stuff coming!) so I use coconut or almond milk in the majority of her smoothies but you can just sub regular milk if you don’t have to worry about that. In addition, many of Scarlette’s lingering prematurity issues are GI related so I tend to add flax seed and spinach to most of her smoothies.
I use fresh produce from the farmer’s market and our local farm co-op when possible and supplement with frozen when needed. This year I bought tons of fresh fruits from the farm and put them in our deep freezer to use in the winter. That makes me sound uber-organized so let me just tell you about how my kid ran around nekkid from the waist down today because mommy is so behind on laundry that we had no clean underpants in this house. Oh and also, she’s 35 months old now, not 32. It took me that long to finish writing this post. So there’s that.
Anyhow, here are some simple, healthy, and kid friendly smoothie ideas that I use!
Scarlette’s Super Smoothie
This is our go-to smoothie that I make a few times each week and Scarlette and I both drink this one, it makes enough for a glass for each of us. Some people have matching mother/daughter outfits, we have matching Mommy/Baby smoothies.
- 1/4 cup of blueberries
- 1/4 cup of blackberries
- 1/4 cup of raspberries
- 1/2 cup of strawberries
- 1 1/2 cups of vanilla coconut milk
- A few spinach leaves (that is a very technical measurement.)
- 2 tablespoons of honey
- 1/2 cup of crushed ice
- 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
- 1 tablespoon of peanut butter
- 1 tablespoon of flaxseed
- 1 tablespoon of hemp hearts
Scarlette’s Special Saturday Smoothie (Or: Chocolate Banana Smoothie)
This one is just for Saturday mornings in our house. And also, in our house I add lot of flax seed to this one, but you only need to do that if your kid has GI issues like mine, on account of the banana. Seriously, that’s all the banana that’s allowed in our house on a weekly basis, y’all.
- 1 cup of vanilla coconut milk
- 1 tablespoon of honey
- 1/2 of a frozen banana
- 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder
- 3 tablespoons of peanut butter
Peaches and Cream Smoothie
One of the perks of being a Georgia girl is that our local peaches are to die for. This is basically like drinking dessert for breakfast if you use fresh peaches in the summertime.
- 1/2 cup of raspberries
- 1 teaspoon of honey
- 2 peaches; pitted & chopped
- 1/2 cup of dairy-free yogurt (I like vanilla)
- 1/4 cup of almond milk
- 1/2 of an avocado
The trick to a good smoothie is to put all the liquid in first. Maybe I am the only person on the internet that did not know this but I kept jamming up our blender by throwing all the ice/frozen fruits in first. And then when I read about putting the liquid in first I was like “THIS INFORMATION JUST CHANGED MY LIFE” and now I blend through that stuff like butter.
Also, it does help to have a good blender. I tried doing these in our mini blender so I didn’t have to haul out the big one but it doesn’t work at all, despite being marketed for quick smoothies. We have this one (which you’ll remember from 2006, when we registered for it because Jeff insisted that we NEEDED it. We didn’t use it until 2012, when I started making smoothies for our child. I’m just saying. But to give him credit, it does work pretty amazingly.
What are your kids’ favorite smoothie combinations? I’m always looking for new combinations to keep her interested and I’d love dairy-free recommendations because turns out? It’s sort of hard to find smoothie recipes without some sort of dairy in them.
