Tag Archives: smoothies

Fun Friday: Banana Split Smoothies

29 Aug
My kids never get tired of having homemade smoothies, especially on these hot days!

My kids never get tired of having homemade smoothies, especially on these hot days!

As I mentioned on Wednesday, this was our first week of school. It was a short week but being the first week, it feels approximately two full weeks long. Not only are we re-adjusting to the school year schedule, but we are also adjusting to a new schedule, an earlier schedule for our oldest daughter, who started her freshman year of high school this week.

To top it off, while our summer has been 8-10 weeks of perfect, not-humid, summer-like weather, not a day over 80 degrees, this first week back in our non-air conditioned schools on our not-air conditioned buses, it’s been nearly 90 degrees, hot and humid every.single.day.

On Day Two, the younger kids took the bus home. They were like soggy noodles getting off the bus; they were so hot, tired and sweaty. As soon as I saw them, I knew exactly what the quick fix would be: smoothies.

Even better, I had a new frozen yogurt in the freezer here at home, an Edy’s Slow Churned, Low Fat, Limited Edition yogurt. When companies call something “Limited Edition,” it almost always becomes a favorite flavor of mine and I almost always pine for it when they take it away from me.

As soon as I saw this, it went right into my shopping cart!

As soon as I saw this, it went right into my shopping cart!

This Limited Edition flavor was made for me: Fun ‘N The Sun Banana Split Frozen Yogurt.

No, I am not even kidding you right now.

It just so happened that I had this Banana Split yogurt, I had two frozen bananas, and I had chocolate syrup. I also had a freezer full of ice and some low fat vanilla yogurt (not the frozen kind) as well. My middle daughter was immediately intrigued by the idea of a banana split smoothie, having had her first-ever banana split dessert on her birthday at a local restaurant this summer.

Suddenly the heat wasn’t so unbearable anymore, and we got to work.

We use our Ninja blender all the time, and I’m so glad we made the investment. I was thankful this week as I put the frozen bananas, the ice, the frozen yogurt, milk and regular yogurt all into the blender. Our old blender could never have handled this type of all-out smoothie that we were creating.

We added some chocolate syrup in, and we turned it on.  Level 1 blending didn’t cut it, so we kicked it up a notch to Level 2. At the end, as I saw some of the ice still in decent sized pieces, I gave it a blast at Level 3.

I poured it into the glasses. My youngest daughter handed out straws. By this time, my oldest was home from her sports practice, which had been outdoors in the hot sun. She too, was melting on the spot. Her eyes lit up when she saw this smoothie that we’d concocted in her absence. She was just in time.

It

Was

Amazing.

If you have the chance, if you have the ingredients, and you’re in the mood, I *highly* recommend you try out your own banana split smoothie. The flavor was fabulous, it hit the spot on a hot day, and I will most definitely be making this again.

And when this limited edition frozen yogurt is gone, I’ll definitely be pining for it all year long until they (hopefully) bring it back again next summer.

 

 

Tags: , , ,

Sponsored Post: Dairy Pure Milk with a Worry-Free Flip Cap Recipe and Giveaway!

28 Mar
Have you seen it yet? Dairy Pure Milk has a great new flip cap!

Have you seen it yet? Dairy Pure Milk has a great new Worry-Free flip cap!

Do you ever have one of those “Why didn’t I think of that,” moments when you see something new on TV? I know I do!

I recently had one of those moments when I saw the television commercial for Dairy Pure’s new “Worry-Free” flip cap. I can’t tell you how many times our milk caps have gotten lost, accidentally thrown in the trash, or gone flying on to the floor upon being opened. In the past, I’ve had to put plastic wrap over our milk cover with an elastic band or use an old cover, or put all the milk into a pitcher, all to solve our milk cap problems.

Clearly, I’m not the only one whose household has had these types of milk cap worries, because Dairy Pure Milk recently introduced their new Worry-Free flip cap, which now keeps the cap ON the milk, where it’s supposed to be.

You can say it, I know you want to: “Why didn’t *I* think of that?”

Exactly.

Since we’re big smoothie people, especially now that the warmer weather is coming, I was excited to try out Dairy Pure milk and the great new worry-free cap, for a new smoothie recipe, which I’ll share below. I also enjoy using locally produced products and Dairy Pure is made by Garelick Farms in Franklin, Massachusetts, which is the town where both my husband I used to work.

Five important points!

Five important points!

When I tried out the Dairy Pure Milk, I made note of their Five Point Purity Checklist, which states the following:

*Our Farmers pledge NO artificial growth hormones

*We test our milk for antibiotics

*Continuously quality tested to ensure purity

*Only from cows fed a nutritious diet

*Cold-shipped fresh from your trusted dairy within hours

Those five points are all important, and I was pleased to know that Garelick takes those things seriously.

But it’s the cap….I love that cap! My days of plastic wrap, elastic bands and pitchers are a gone with the Worry-Free cap.

Before I share my smoothie recipe with you, I wanted to also pass along the Dairy Pure Recipe page in case you’d like to find even more recipe inspiration using Dairy Pure Milk!

And remember: Be sure to read to the end of this blog post, as I’ll be putting my instructions there for a Dairy Pure special giveaway!

Dairy Pure Milk with a Worry-Free cap is an excellent choice for your own smoothie concoctions!

Dairy Pure Milk with a Worry-Free cap is an excellent choice for your own smoothie concoctions!

Now…for my recipe! I often post smoothie recipes for my Fun Friday posts, and since it’s Friday, I thought a new smoothie recipe would pair well with my Dairy Pure Milk! I recently received a gift from my friend Amy: a jar of crunchy cookie butter!! She knew that I’d given up my favorite hazelnut spread for Lent, and she thought this delicious crunchy cookie butter would help me through the 40 days. She’s right! The jar is almost empty! I’ve been eating it with a spoon, but I thought I’d try it, along with the milk, in a smoothie and it was a.m.a.z.i.n.g!!

Here’s the recipe that I created last week:

Throw it all in a blender and you're ready to go!

Throw it all in a blender and you’re ready to go!

COOKIE BUTTER & BANANA SMOOTHIE

32 oz. of milk (You can use your choice of skim, low fat or whole milk, We used skim.)

Two frozen bananas

1/4 to 1/2 cup crunchy cookie butter

Three scoops fat free vanilla frozen yogurt

Whipped cream (optional)

Place all your ingredients into your blender or smoothie maker and blend it up! So simple! You can choose to add a little whipped cream to your smoothie if you’d like!

And now….the moment you’ve been waiting for! The Dairy Pure milk GIVEAWAY!
I know that if you’re like me, keeping your cold groceries cold between the store and home is important! Therefore, I’d love to give TWO READERS a special insulated, re-usable, handled shopping tote bag from Dairy Pure Milk! You can use it to keep all your cold foods cold when you’re en-route from store to home. Now you can shop for all of your smoothie ingredients: milk, fruits and frozen yogurts and keep them all cold so that when you get home and unpack, your ingredients will be ready for blending!

Do you want one? Leave a comment on my blog! What would *you* make with Dairy Pure Milk?

Do you want one? Leave a comment on my blog! What would *you* make with Dairy Pure Milk?

Here’s how to enter for a chance at the giveaway:

Leave me a comment here on my blog, telling me something yummy you would make with Dairy Pure milk!

That’s it! Easy peasy! I will take all of the responses and randomly draw two names for the totes. Be sure to check back so that you know if you’ve won!

I will run this giveaway for ONE WEEK, until Friday, April 4th, at which point I will announce the winners on the blog and on Facebook.

Good luck!!

 

 **This is a sponsored post. I was compensated for this post.

However, all of the thoughts, and opinions I have expressed here are my own.**

 

 

 

Tags: , , , , , ,

Springtime Smoothies

15 Mar
A healthy springtime snack!

A healthy springtime snack!

Just the other day I wrote about some of the signs of spring’s arrival that I look forward to: things like the weather changing, longer days and the chance to play outside.

Another thing that happens when the seasons change is that our menu changes a bit too. As the weather warms up our snacks are often cool and refreshing rather than warm and toasty.  Our dinners are often cooked outside and then eaten outside too.

One snack in particular that my kids love is smoothies. I make them at home in the blender all the time, but most especially as the weather gets warmer.

Just the other day I got a request to go through the McDonalds drive through for one of their Shamrock Shakes. Unfortunately, that request had to be denied. However, I knew that at home, I could recreate the same sort of shake in the form of a green smoothie, and it’d be much cheaper and much healthier.

With some Aldi’s Nonfat Vanilla Yogurt, skim milk, ice and some green food coloring, (you could also add in some mint extract for flavoring if you wanted) I was able to create a snack that was lower in fat, calories, sugar and carbs than what the original request had been.

A quick couple of minutes in the blender and you've got your healthy after school snack!

A quick couple of minutes in the blender and you’ve got your healthy after school snack!

To give you some quick comparisons:

One cup of Aldi’s nonfat Vanilla yogurt:

140 calories

0 Fat
0 Saturated Fat

0 Trans Fat

1% cholesterol (5mg)

9% carbohydrates (27g)

22g sugar

13% protein (7g)

(don’t forget to add in your skim milk and if you’d like, some mint flavored extract and fat free whipped cream!)

One McDonald’s Shamrock Shake 11.3 oz. (nutrition information taken from Livestrong.com)

416 calories

15%  Total Fat (9.8 g)

30% Saturated Fat (6g)

12% cholesterol (38 mg)

24% carbohydrates (72.4 g)

18% Protein (9.4 g)

61.5 g sugar

So next time you get a request for that special fast food shake, see if you can recreate something similar at home too! It’s cheaper (especially times three or four people) and it’s better for you!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

After School Snack: Strawberry Banana Yogurt Smoothies

11 Apr

Great for sore throats, warm weather, a healthy snack!

We had an unusually warm, hot actually, March this year. The weather broke all kinds of records and we loved the taste of summer that came during spring. It meant a couple of things for us though: First it meant that springtime allergies kicked in early, so everyone started with sore throats and runny noses in March instead of April. Second, it meant that the daily “can we get ice cream” and “can we get frozen lemonade” questions started early as well.

When I pick my kids up at school we drive by one of our city’s popular ice cream drive ups as well as past our favorite frozen lemonade stand. On occasion, on super hot summer days we’ll stop there after school as a treat, but I wasn’t really ready to start that in March. Not yet. It’s an expensive treat, one we don’t do too often.

One particularly hot afternoon, as an answer to their pleas, I decided to make smoothies, something I often do as an after school snack, but not usually in March. On this particular afternoon though, I had fresh strawberries in my fridge, (frozen works well too) and I had bananas in my freezer, which I often use for banana bread, but they work well for smoothies too. I had some vanilla yogurt in my fridge, so I felt I could easily pull off some smoothies for an after school snack.

A blender doesn't have to be expensive to make a delicious treat!

My “recipe” isn’t exact, but into my blender I threw: a bunch of strawberries, two frozen bananas, milk, about a cup of vanilla yogurt, and some ice to make it have a frozen feel, like a milkshake, but healthier.

I added a dollop of whipped cream and a straw and I had a restaurant-quality summer beverage for my kids for after school. Not bad! Everyone was happy and I was glad there was even enough for me to have some!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,