Green Super Smoothie

We have a favourite smoothie recipe that is great for breakfasts, snacks and as a dessert (maybe not all on one day). I use a pineapple and banana as a base and sometimes if I happen to have oranges and extra time I squeeze some orange juice otherwise I use filtered water. Pineapple, banana and orange give a great child friendly flavour and allows you to put all sorts of healthy goodies in. Then I add fresh spinach, as much as I can get away with, which usually is about two very generous handfuls!

This is the last of my own grown spinach from the garden for this year, it’s been attacked by bugs and slugs, overgrown by weeds, so I picked what I could and left the rest for my hens to enjoy.

…only one modest handful this time…huh…but one handful of fresh organic spinach is better than no spinach at all :)

SO…

…that’s the smoothie part and for the “super” part I add: ground flaxseed, ground hemp seeds, spirulina powder, maca powder, coconut oil. Sometimes I add all of these, sometimes just a selection. Apart from coconut oil, which adds a tropical twist to the smoothie – you can’t taste other ingredients and children love it.

I actually put the spinach in last otherwise the spirulina and maca powders end up all over the walls of the jug and don’t mix into the smoothie.

• Servings: 2 adults or 1 adult and 2 children
• Time: 10minutes
• Difficulty: easy
• Print

Ingredients:

1 large ripe banana

2 fresh pineapple rings

1-2 generous handfuls of fresh spinach

300 mls orange juice or filtered water (add more liquid if you don’t like a thick smoothie)

Optional (use all of these, none of these or pick and choose) :

1tbs raw organic coconut oil

1-2 tsp freshly ground flaxseeds

1-2 tsp ground hemp seeds

1tsp of spirulina powder

1tsp of maca powder

Directions:

Put all ingredients in the blender and blend until desired consistency (my children like it smooth). I tend to put the liquid in first and loose spinach last, and I use my fruit chilled. You can freeze pineapple and banana in chunks and blend it from frozen, for thicker- ice cream like texture.

Hope you’ll enjoy your vitamin, mineral, protein and omega 3 rich tasty drink!

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Celebrating harvest

At the weekend we visited Attingham Park, which is part of National Trust. It is an 18th century mansion and a great big estate, with amazing deer park, miles and miles of wonderful woodland as well as gardens to inspire (though I manage to bring my camera with an empty battery so didn’t take many pictures). It was a weekend of harvest festival and it was great to take part in it. There was some apple pressing using apples from their orchard, locally made cider, butter making and many other things to taste and see. I love these impressive harvest displays:

I haven’t been too enthusiastic recently when it comes to veggie picking in my garden. Knowing that with every basketful of tasty tomatoes, we re getting closer to the end of the season and am aware of all the digging and green house cleaning that will have to happen soon. But the wonderful harvest atmosphere stayed with me and I am more appreciative of our last few crops we re yet to enjoy.

On a quick and different note, this is where my blue African flowers found their home, brightening our hall way.