Hi everyone,
I have been on a mission to incorporate more veggies into my children’s diets, and I thought a great way to do that would be to make them smoothies. Celia really outdid herself with this recipe. The kids (and adults) absolutely LOVE it. So delicious and festive. Check it out…
Ingredients:
- ¼ c pumpkin purée
- 1 c baby carrots
- 1 c coconut milk
- 1.5 c ice
- 1 T almond butter
- 1 T raw, unfiltered honey
- ¼ c unsweetened dried cranberries
- 1 t vanilla
- ½ t nutmeg
- ½ t cinnamon
Once you have all the ingredients, I’m sure you probably already know what to do but I’ll show you some pretty pictures anyway.
Step 1: combine all ingredients in a blender:
and then, blend on high until smooth.
Easy peasy and seriously so yummy.
This particular recipe makes about 24 oz.. which is 2 12-oz adult portions or 4 6-oz kid portions. (Y’all like how I can still do simple division!?) =P
I was curious to see what the nutritional facts would come out to, so I uploaded the recipe on this website and created the following label for a 6 oz portion. I’m pretty happy with the stats!!
(Disclaimer: if you are a numbers person I realize that 120 g is actually 4.23 oz not 6… The website didn’t allow me to enter ice as an ingredient I’m guessing since it doesn’t have any measurable nutritional value for the chart. So the volume created by the ingredients is off. But don’t worry I have tried this recipe out for myself and it really did make about 24 oz.)
Anyways… as you can see, our Harvest Breakfast Smoothie provides 98% of the recommended daily value of Vitamin A in just a one 6-oz glass. If you don’t remember what Vitamin A does for your body from your last nutrition class, here is a little refresher of its benefits copied and pasted from U.S. National Library of Medicine’s article on Vitamin A.
Vitamin A helps form and maintain healthy skin, teeth, skeletal and soft tissue, mucus membranes, and skin. It is also known as retinol because it produces the pigments in the retina of the eye.
Vitamin A promotes good vision, especially in low light. It may also be needed for reproduction and breast-feeding.
Retinol is an active form of vitamin A. It is found in animal liver, whole milk, and some fortified foods.
Carotenoids are dark-colored dyes (pigments) found in plant foods that can turn into a form of vitamin A. There are more than 500 known carotenoids. One such carotenoid is beta-carotene.
- Beta-carotene is an antioxidant. Antioxidants protect cells from damage caused by substances called free radicals. Free radicals are believed to contribute to certain chronic diseases and play a role in the aging processes.
- Food sources of carotenoids such as beta-carotene may reduce the risk for cancer.
- Beta-carotene supplements do not seem to reduce cancer risk.
I’m also happy to see that the sugar content is relatively low and that all of it comes from unprocessed, real food sources.
So yay for a healthy, kid approved veggie smoothie recipe to put in the books. Hope you all enjoy!
In Health,
