Funky Monkey Smoothie

Little bit of a different post for you today! From time to time I get requests for recipes or ideas of some healthy meals for kids. Truth be told, I am far from an amazing cook. In fact, my family is pretty lucky I don’t burn down our house most nights! While I’m still working on my domestic skills, I can pass along some quick, healthy snacks and treats we like to make. Smoothies have long been a favorite in our house. You can make them a million different ways and you can hide so many healthy ingredients. Yes, I did say hide- as much as I wish my kids would gobble up any vegetable I place before them, they are pretty picky (despite my best efforts). In our house, one smoothie in particular gets requested about 90% of the time. It’s deliciously healthy and tasty for toddlers, big kids and even adults. We call it the Funky Monkey.

This is packed with nutrients from fruit and veggies and has a nice amount of healthy fats and protein in the mix. Sometimes I joke with my husband that this is where the majority of my kids nutrition comes from each day since they eat like birds at almost every meal, yet always suck down these smoothies and ask for seconds. I have the recipe below, but modifications and tweaks work well with this so feel free to make it your own!

Funky Monkey Smoothie (Serves 2)

1 banana

3/4-1 cup frozen chopped spinach (kale works nicely too)

1 heaping tablespoon of almond butter

1 3/4 cups almond milk

1/2 teaspoon honey (more if you wish)

1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Thin slice of fresh ginger or dash of powdered ginger

Dash of ground cloves

Optional: chia seeds or flax seeds

They love their Funky Monkey Smoothies (and yes Annabelle is obsessed with Frozen)

Some notes: I use frozen organic chopped spinach (or sometimes kale) because it’s easier to keep on hand and I like that it makes the shake colder. I use a Vitamix to blend this but since there’s nothing to hard to blend up in this recipe, any type of blender should work. Annabelle takes an iron supplement and I get a liquid one from Whole Foods- it smells disgusting and I had no luck getting her to take it until I mixed it up in this. Just wanted to throw that out there since this covers other tastes well. Hope you all enjoy! xoxo