Smoothie Packs

I’m the kind of cook who has grand aspirations and fails about half the time. Especially when it comes to a healthy and filling breakfast. Those cookies from the previous night are just so tempting some times, but definitely not an appropriate breakfast! I’ve learned my lesson with this recently while trying to explain to my 3 year old why mommy is eating a cookies at 8am, ha! No good reason there! So, a few weeks ago I decided to start prepping smoothie packs to eliminate the “what can I grab quick for breakfast?” conundrum. 

Hidden Greens – bunch of spinach, cup of frozen blueberries, slice or two of frozen mango, heaping tablespoon of coconut oil, half a frozen banana.

Protein Pumpkin Pie – 2 frozen muffin tin scoops of pumpkin pie mix (this is a perfect way to save that 1/2 a can that always seems to be leftover from various recipes), scoop of protein powder <— my favorite.

Berry Blast – 2 big scoops of frozen blackberry and raspberry (marionberries if you have them!), 2 teaspoons chia seeds and 1 frozen banana.

Pine-Straw-Banana – 2 spears of frozen pineapple, 1 big scoop of strawberries, 1 frozen banana and a heaping tablespon of coconut oil.

Peachy Green – 10 slices of frozen peaches, 1 big handful of spinach, a few chunks of frozen mango, 1/2 a frozen banana, dash of chia seeds and scoop of almond butter. 

From here, I dumped each bowl into a freezer baggie and placed them in the freezer. Done! Now, with one quick dump I have all my ingredients in the blender and add just enough liquid to get it spinning well. My liquid choice alternates between almond milk, whatever juice we have on hand or my favorite, Naked Juice Mighty Mango … whatever seems to match the best. It’s that easy to have quick smoothies ready to go! 

A side note on ingredient sources – I pick and prep like crazy during the summer months to stock up on fresh, local produce. For things like mango and pineapple (not even close to being available locally) I’ll watch for a good sale on and then stock up and freeze. Organic spinach, coconut oil, almond butter and bananas all come from Costco. Because, well, Costco pretty much owns me :) 

And, I can’t say enough good things about our Vitamix. It’s a billion years old (bought it at a garage sale and the label definitely looks like it’s from the 80’s) and it still works amazingly well. Then again, if the price point of the Vitamix isn’t up your alley, I can vouch (via my sister) that the Ninja does a good job too. 

 

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