How I get my kids to eat greens

My kids eat lots and lots of healthy stuff. More than most kids. Fruits, veggies, grains, meat - even new stuff. HOWEVER, they do not like greens. Of any kind. Except romaine lettuce with more croutons than lettuce.

Enter the green smoothie. I had never heard of such a thing until about a week ago when one of the real food blogs I follow posted a recipe for one. It's simple enough - just blend up a carload of greens, add some fruit, water and maybe a milk product and then hope for the best. So I did. Let me tell you that a green smoothie is really, really GREEN. Like slime green. It doesn't taste like greens, though, and that's the most important part.

Turns out that my kids will not only drink the green smoothie, but they DEMAND it! Each and every time they down a 4 oz. glass I estimate that they are getting 1 cup of raw greens, plus a serving of fruit and cultured dairy. Score!

Green Smoothie Recipe
5-6 cups Trader Joe's Southern Greens mix (pre-washed, pre-cut. easy peasy!)
water so that the greens start to blend
plain keifer - about 1/2 - 1 cup
1 large banana
1 cup or so frozen pineapple chunks

Put the greens and a bit of water in the blender and let it go until it's smooth. I have to poke my greens down and mess around a bit with it to get it to blend. Then add the rest of the fruit and dairy. Blend until smooth. Serve to your peeps and keep those fingers crossed!

Christmas Crafting

declan with a santa beard and hat

aubry in santa hat

nola rocking the santa face

nola created the ultimate christmas decoration -
flying santa and reindeer attached to the ceiling fan. love it!

Quote of the Day

"Math is kind of feeling like an old friend now."
-Nola, age 6.5

Who knew you could make THAT?

Today's surprising food creation was homemade TORTiLLAS! You know, the kind you can buy at the grocery store. Soft, yummy flour ones. Turns out, it's super easy, cheap and takes about as much time as buying them at the store.

Kitchen Stewardship has an excellent tutorial for making tortillas in different ways. I chose the first version - AP flour, water, salt and coconut oil. This was the first time I broke out the coconut oil, primarily because I didn't have time to let butter soften. Nor did I have time to let the dough sit in the refrigerator for 4-24 hours. They still turned out GREAT! I was surprised that the coconut oil tasted great in the recipe - just a hint of coconut, not off-putting at all.

I loved making the tortillas on the cast iron skillet while the other components of our fajitas were cooking. What fun and EVERYONE liked them!

Field Trip Wednesday

Today we went to the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philly. The kids have been asking to see the dinosaurs, so off we went. I realized quickly after missing the turn to the museum exit that I NEED A GPS OR AN IPHONE, stat! Added about a half hour to our trip time - aargh!

We met our friends Terri, Zach and Max in the lobby and set off for the dinosaur dig. Everyone had a great time with the safety goggles and metal scrapers. We all found bones, but no one managed to get any out of the dig site. Better luck next time! The kids also enjoyed running on the dinosaur treadmill, climbing in a t-rex scull, and walking like dinosaurs.

I made Nola check out the authentic Egyptian mummy on display. She has been a bit scared of mummies ever since we studied them in history. Maybe seeing the blackened, mummified corpse cured her? (or not...)

Turns out both Nola and Aubry are afraid of butterflies - BUTTERFLIES!!! The museum has this wonderful butterfly exhibit where they fly around freely in a natural setting. Sometimes the butterflies even land on you! After Nola and Aubry heard this choice bit of information they could not get out of that room fast enough. Declan, on the other hand, flung his hand out toward the butterflies and yelled "land on you, land on you!".

We had a great time today. Looking forward to another field trip next week!