Enjoy Summer Fruits and Vegetables with Easy Breakfast Smoothies

Visiting the local Farmer’s Market is one of our family’s favorite weekend outings.  We love the vibrancy of our local community on display – from the local musicians to our favorite food vendors.  The amazing bounty of fresh fruits and vegetables sometimes gets overwhelming though and I’m left with some produce that has to be used up on the quick.  My new favorite way to use a lot of produce quickly is of course – smoothies!  My mid-year’s resolution is to eat breakfast and smoothies have been the perfect solution – I can whip one up quickly while the kids are eating breakfast and just take it along to work in my handy mason jar glass (and I *love* these awesome mason jar lids with a flip cap, perfect for smoothies!).  I can drink it in the car or once I get to my office.

Last weekend’s indulgence resulted in too many cucumbers in my crisper, so I’ve been experimenting with cukes in my smoothies this week.  Now, many of us not-so-awesome cooks get intimidated about DIY smoothies, but I found a great basic smoothie formula that has been a guideline that has worked well for me in putting together tasty smoothies using whatever I have on hand.

Here is The Perfect Smoothie Formula (from nomeatathlete.com).
(makes 2 smoothies)
1 soft fruit
2 small handfuls frozen or fresh fruit
2-4 tablespoons protein powder
2 tablespoons binder
1.5 tablespoons oil
1.5 cups liquid
1 tablespoon sweetener (optional, less or more as needed)
optional superfoods, greens, and other ingredients
6 ice cubes (omit if soft fruit is frozen)

I like to add yogurt to my smoothies, however, so I usually omit the oil and use less liquid than this recipe suggests.  So, here’s what I pulled together for my smoothie this morning:

Maddy’s Awesome Summer Smoothie

1 banana, sliced and frozen
1 granny smith apple, cored and roughly sliced
1 1/2 cups spinach
1 small cucumber, sliced
2 tablespoons of vanilla protein powder
2 tablespoons of flaxseed meal
1/2 cup organic whole milk yogurt, plain
1 cup milk
1 tablespoon honey

Everybody in the pool!  That’s what I love about smoothies – so simple!  I dumped everything in my trusty Ninja blender and had an amazing smoothie in no time.

Since I froze the banana in advance (A great tip is to peel, slice and freeze bananas as they get too brown to enjoy fresh.  The additional sweetness is great for smoothies!), I didn’t add any additional ice this time.  I also kind of like my smoothies to have some noticeable texture to them, so I didn’t blend too long.  If you enjoy a smoother texture, I’d add a bit more liquid and blend a bit longer.

I really loved this healthy and tasty smoothie!  The kids tried it and admittedly they were not fans – I usually make their smoothies with a bit of apple juice and more frozen fruits so they get more of a sweet treat (unbeknownst to them, however, I do usually sneak a bit of spinach into their smoothies!  Shhh!).  Since they wanted smoothies of their own after seeing my breakfast treat, I whipped a random frozen fruit and yogurt smoothie for them too.

I didn’t keep a recipe here – I usually just throw in whatever is in the freezer and they are good with it.  Today I think we had mangoes, strawberries, bananas and blueberries (along with the aforementioned mystery ingredient – spinach!).  They were pretty happy with the results!

So don’t be shy!  Experiment with your favorite summer fruits and vegetables to make healthy smoothies for your family!  Let us know your favorite recipes – we’d love to try them too!

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