A.k.a. How I get my kids to eat raw spinach

We like smoothies. All the peeps in my house have milk sensitivities in some form, so smoothies are our alternative to ice cream. And snack. And breakfast. Sometimes lunch. You get the idea.

A friend got her boys to drink those suspicious looking green smoothies by calling them Hulk Juice. She's smart like that.

To start, get some fresh spinach. I grow Bromingdale Spinach and New Zealand Spinach in my garden. New Zealand Spinach is great because it self seeds and grows year round in central Florida. I just leave it wherever it sprouts in my garden and pluck leaves as needed. The name is misleading, however, as it is not really a spinach, but it does have a similar nutrient profile, thus the name.

The long leaves with magenta stems are beet greens. I like gathering all my greens in the baby stage because they are more tender and have no bitterness. If you don't have a garden, farmer's market or store bought is good too. So you have your spinach and have rinsed it. Fill up a blender cup with about 1 cup spinach, loosely packed. Then pour in a bit of almond milk, 1/2 cup should do, and send it for a blend. I blend the greens first because they seem to have a finer size that way.

Add one and a half frozen bananas. I buy my Almond milk ($2.79ish) and bananas ($.44/lb) from Aldi. I buy about 5lbs of bananas at a time, let them ripen, eat what we want and when they get a bit too ripe for our liking, I peel them and freeze them in a ziplock. So then pour more almond milk to fill your blender cup or however much to get the consistency you like. You can also add in all natural peanut butter or almond butter or flaxseed. Blend, and enjoy! I like to enjoy mine with a big smoothie straw. Little bendy straws drive me nuts.

Hulk Smoothies

Ingredients:

1 cup fresh spinach

About 1 cup almond milk

1 1/2 frozen bananas

Recipe:

Blend washed spinach and 1/2 cup almond milk till spinach is fine. Blend in bananas and rest of almond milk. Enjoy!