We all know how popular green smoothies have been recently. It's no wonder, they manage to make your spinach and kale taste like milkshakes! I have such a fantastic, little smoothie recipe and suggestion for you- to cut your morning prep time down to ZERO and your clean-up to a ONE MINUTE snap!
I was browsing Pinterest like I always do, when I came across this great blog post about Green Smoothie Prep Packs on the blog: Clean Food Crush.
The premise is, you take twenty or thirty minutes, let's say on a Sunday night to wash and prep your fruit and greens, portion everything out and seal them into individual Ziploc freezer bags. Then, every morning for the coming week, all you have to do is pop the contents of a bag into a blender, add a cup of coconut or almond milk and you're done!!!
I knew that these prep packs would be a great help to us in the mornings, but I didn't realize how DELICIOUS they would be, like eating a glass of chocolate-strawberry ice cream! I altered the Clean Food Crush's original recipe a bit to add some protein and healthy fats. I also customized our greens and fruit. Here's what I did, I think this will become a favorite with you and your family too.
Noah's Favorite Green Smoothie Prep Packs
This recipe makes roughly five day's worth of smoothies if you use five gallon size bags. Each Ziploc bagged portion is enough for at least two large smoothies. You can play around with the ingredient amounts, including the liquid to change the portion size and consistency. There was about twenty minutes of prep for five days.
Into each gallon-sized Ziplock bag add.....
1 & 1/2 Cups washed baby spinach
1 sliced banana
1/2 Cup to 1 cup cleaned and sliced strawberries depending on optional fruit below
Optional - 1/2 cup frozen or fresh blueberries.
1 serving chocolate whey protein or other protein. We Like Designer Whey Protein, it can be found at Trader Joe's
1 Tbs. coconut oil
1 sliced banana
1/2 Cup to 1 cup cleaned and sliced strawberries depending on optional fruit below
Optional - 1/2 cup frozen or fresh blueberries.
1 serving chocolate whey protein or other protein. We Like Designer Whey Protein, it can be found at Trader Joe's
1 Tbs. coconut oil
Once you have all of your ingredients in the bags, you can roll them up, which squeezes excess air out and makes the packs smaller. Next, carefully make sure that you close and SEAL each bag correctly and pop them in your freezer!
Once everything is good and frozen, simply take a bag out, (maybe use the back of a spoon to whack the bag and break up the chunks a bit) put everything into a blender with a cup or more of coconut or almond milk. We like it with unsweetened vanilla coconut milk.
Blend everything up and voila! You're done!!!! MMMMmmmmm.....strawberry-chocolate ice cream that's dairy-free and good for you! You get the greens, the fruit, the protein and the healthy fats. Who could ask for more! :)
6 comments:
Hi Lauren,
This is the first time I leave a comment on your great blog, althougt I regularly visit and do appreciate your articles, suggestions and more than anything, your optimisitc state of mind 😊
Preparing in advance the ingredients for the daily smoothy is an excellent idea to help to save precious time in the morning rush and I thing I am going to copy from you 😉
I just wanted to underline that coconut oil is not the best oil to use on a daily basis : 90 % of the fatty acids of the coconut oil are saturated which increase the LDL cholesterol.
Hemp oil or linseed oil are much ealthier. Grapeseed oil also, but the taste is stronger.
Wishing you all the best,
Kind regards,
Pascale (from Paris, France)
Hi Pascale!!!
Thank you so much for your comment and for reading along! I greatly appreciate it your advice. I will definitely speak with my nutritionist about your mention of LDL and suggestion of linseed oil and grapeseed oil. I have used both of those nice oils before and love then. :)
For what it might be worth, I don't use coconut oil everyday, and my nutritionist feels that coconut oil can be beneficial. http://drhyman.com/blog/2016/04/06/is-coconut-oil-bad-for-your-cholesterol/
All of this said, I have to believe that moderation is the key to anything. Thank you again for getting me to think and discuss. I appreciate it. You have inspired me to go cook with my Grapeseed oil today!
Thank you Pascale!!! :)
Hi Lauren,
Thank you for your answer and for the link to the very interesting article about coconut oil and cholesterol.
Apparently, and contrary to what I thought, the link between saturated oils and LDL cholesterol is not so clear and you are completely right when you mention that the key is moderation to anything.
Looking forward to reading your next inspiring article, and wishing you a beautiful Sunday,
Kind regards,
Pascale
Hi Pascale!!!
Thank you again! You said it so well - it's "not so clear" is how I also feel. I understand! :)
I will still definitely speak with the nutritionist whom I am working with and I will be sure to ask about the safety of coconut oil consumption. I was to know more too!
Thank you so much for your kind words!!!
xo,
Lauren
This looks fantastic. Thank you so much for sharing. :)
I really like this idea! We make smoothies a few times per week, usually on really time crunched days. This would make it even better. For my blender's sake I don't think I can freeze the banana too, though. I need something not frozen or my blender chokes! ;)
Post a Comment