Beet and raspberry "Grink" smoothie

Still struggling with the color of your green smoothie? Yet trying to increase you or your kids' s vegetable intake? I've got the perfect combination smoothie for you!

Try this:
1 raw beet, peeled and sliced
1 nectarine or peach
1 cup frozen raspberries
3-4 cups kale, swiss chard or spinach
juice of 1/2 lemon
2tbsp chia seeds
2-3 cups water
sweeten to taste with stevia powder or any other natural sweetener (except sugar)

Blend until you obtain a creamy smooth texture. Your smoothie will look something like this:

So even though you have lots of greens in there, the beet and the raspberry definitely win and give it a beautiful bright pink color.

If you think beets have an earthy taste and you usually avoid them like pest, now is the time to try this recipe. The fruits and stevia counterbalance the earthy taste and the lemon juice gives it a nice tangy twist. You can also add more fruits to your smoothie if you are extra sensitive to that taste. Beets are an excellent source of iron, magnesium, calcium, and phosperous! They are also considered a fiber food and contain vitamins A and C as well as niacin! 

Beets contain folic acid which is necessary for the production and maintenance of new cells. This is especially important for pregnant women or anyone undergoing physical healing. And lastly, they are an excellent immunity booster, detoxifier and a cancer fighting food.

And did you know that you can also eat the beet leaves? They are excellent, sauteed in the pan with a little bit of olive oil, garlic and salt. Not bitter at all. 

So no excuse, go and buy yourself some beets and try that smoothie. Look at what happened to ours:

A little heads up though: if you have a regular blender, like my Ninja Master Prep, or an Oster or something like that, it might be hard to get a really smooth texture, because the beet is a really hard vegetable. Make sure you blend long enough and add more liquid or a little bit of orange juice if you like.

For a perfectly sweet smoothie, check out the 3hp Omni V blender, by clicking on the logo in the right margin of this page. This will blend as well as a Vitamix or Blendtec for about half the price. I'm saving up for one and will do video demos once I have it in my kitchen!

sneaky veggie fruity popsicles

I'm always looking for creative ways to get more fruits and vegetables into my kids' diet. With summer approaching, and actually in full bloom on this side of the world, I am shifting from soups to smoothies and frozen treats. My kids love homemade popsicles, and I love them too because it's an easy way for me to sneak in stuff that they would never otherwise eat. I bought the molds at rite aid or target, you can find them online I'm sure, and I'm sure there is also a BPA free version of those, somewhere. I've just had those for several years and they have served me well.

You can get real creative with these, and throw a number of combinations into the mix. Some days, my kids aren't too crazy about their green smoothie. So rather than forcing them or tossing it away, I pour it into a popsicle mold for a later treat. Last year, I started adding leafy greens and chia seeds to the mix and this year, I added some green powder, and believe it or not, my kids didn't budge. They loved it! I even served it to 3 of my kids' friends yesterday, who were here on a playdate, and they all gulped it down.

So here is an example of a pretty green and good for you popsicle. The barley powder doesn't taste great, and it's pretty strong, so use it sparingly, and feel free to add more banana or other sweet fruit to cover the taste. 

1 banana

1nectarine

1/2 cup blackberries

3/4 cup blueberries

3/4 cup raspberries

2 cups packed kale leaves

2 tbsp ground flaxseed

1/4 cup walnuts

1tbsp barley or spirulina powder

1/4 tsp stevia

A little note on Barley Powder and why it might be good to include it in your diet:

NUTRITIONAL VALUE - A concentrated source of nearly three dozen vitamins and minerals, barley grass is particularly rich in vitamins A, C, B1, B2, folic acid, and B12; calcium; iron; potassium; and chlorophyll. Unlike most plants, barley grass provides all nine essential amino acids (those which your body can't produce).

HEALING CLAIMS - Barley grass is a powerful antioxidant that is believed to help the body kill cancer cells and overcome a variety of ailments, including acne and ulcers.

Put everything in the blender, add 2 cups of water and mix. Add more water if you want a smoother consistency. Once the mixture is well blended and smooth, pour into popsicle molds and place in the freezer for several hours.

En Francais:

Melanger dans le mixer:

1 banane

1 nectarine

1/2 tasse de mures

3/4 tasse de myrtilles

3/4 tasse de framboises

2 tasses de feuilles de chou kale, ou cottes de bettes ou epinards

2cs de graines de lin moulues

1/4 tasse de noix

1cs de poudre d'algue, spirulina ou d'orge (c'est sous forme de poudre verte)

1/4 cc de stevia ou autre adoucissant naturel

2 tasses d'eau

Verser le tout dans des moules a glace et mettre au congelateur.

Healthy Raw Granola Bars

Look at these beauties I made today! I just think they look so beautiful, so scrumptious, so rich of good for you stuff! I was inspired by this recipe at rawmazing.com, and then just kept adding to it. Which means I can't remember exactly the quantities, but I'll try:

1.5 cup raw oat groats (GF)
1.5 cup raw buckwheat
                                                          Grind in S blade food processor until it looks like a fine powder with some residues of oats, which won't grind very finely


1 cup pitted dates
a lot of cinnamon (maybe 1.5 tbsp?)
1/2 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 cup agave syrup
                                                           Add to the food processor and blend until it becomes pasty and sticky. If necessary, add some dates or agave so it sticks together.




That was the base. Then I started adding, and you can do the same with anything you'd like that is raw or dried... Here is what I remember adding:


1/2 cup dried goji berries
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cocoa nibs
1/4 cup chia seeds
1 cup sunflower seeds
1/2 cup pumpkin seeds


I added all that and blended just for a little bit so as to keep the pieces intact and not grind it all. I wanted some color :) I think I threw in a bit of flaxseed or hemp oil at the end to moisten it, and a couple tbsp of apple sauce, because it was a bit dry and would crumble when dry.


Then I spread the paste in my dehydrator and turned it on 115 for about 6 hours. If you don't own a dehydrator, you can spread these on a cookie sheet and put in the oven for about 30-45 min at 200 degrees, or even less, if you can. Cut into rectangles or squares before putting in the oven, so that when they are done, you can just pull them apart easily.


Store in a tight container, in you fridge or freezer if you used the dehydrator.


And let me tell you, they are as delicious as they look!

Healthy Snacks for Little Snack Monsters

Aaaaah, snacks... the snack issue... the snack problem, the darn processed snack that my kids could live on! If it was up to them, they would just eat snacks all day long and skip the meals. They would have snack for breakfast, lunch and dinner, and for snack too!

 I am slooooowwwly winning the battle for healthy snacks, but it is not easy. Between school recess where little friends bring not so healthy (but "looking" healthy) processed snacks, or the playdates, birthday parties, and the trips to the grocery store where they go straight for the boxed cereal (aka empty calories, don't even get me started!), it sometimes feels like pushing a boulder uphill.


I have started to make my own cereal bars in my dehydrator, and I swear, if I could wrap those in processed food papers, my oldest one would eat them. But because they are homemade, he's decided he's not going to like them :(

One thing I don't want, however, is to be a nazi granola mom that takes the fun out of eating and forces my kids to eat the way I do when they see no reason for that. So it's a slow process of teaching and educating them about making healthy choices. In the mean time, I have learnt to read labels and navigate the aisles of the grocery store.

The only place I feel confident buying processed snacks at the moment is Trader Joe's, and maybe whole foods. The reason is I just found out that none of the products that have the Trader Joe's label use any GMOs. I have another post in my mind about how to avoid GMO foods, but in a nutshell, certain ingredients like soy, canola oil, corn and beet sugar for example, are always GMO, unless otherwise specified. And guess what? They are in almost EVERY processed food! Except for foods that carry the TJ's or Whole Foods label.

For me, as a mom, that was fantastic news! that means I can once in while buy that box of cereals or cookies or crackers without feeling too bad.

But most of the time, this is what you will find in our pantry, besides fresh fruits:

•  Non sweetened dried fruits: banana, mango, pineapple, apples, apricots, raisins, peaches, figs, dates, prunes... TJ's has a variety of them. Make sure you pick the one that has no sugar added, as many do, and dried fruits are already naturally high in fructose.
• Raw nuts and trail mixes: The Go Raw Trek Mix from TJ is the only one I find that is fully raw. When nuts are roasted, they oxidate and the healthy oils they contain are degraded.

 That is why we also buy almost only Raw Almond Butter. the yummi sunflower seed butter is made with roasted sunflowers and has added sugar, and peanut butter is generally made with roasted peanuts. We avoid the latter, as my husband is highly allergic.

• Apple sauce, apple carrot crushers (the kids love them, and it's a sneaky way to get some carrots in), with no sugar added.
• Eggplant Hummus: of all the hummus sold at TJ's, this one is the only one that doesn't have canola oil. Canola oil is not a healthy oil. Generally processed at high temperatures, and almost always made from genetically engineered crop, I avoid it like pest. This Hummus had only pronounceable ingredients, which means it more natural and healthy in my opinion. The kids eat it with baby carrots or sugar snap peas, or on pita bread.
• Brown rice cake: The kids love to spread almond butter on them and a little bit of honey, or eat them plain
• Pure bars: made out of dried fruits, nuts and some agave syrup, they contain pure products (depending on your stance on agave, which I am still undecided about). No unpronounceable ingredients, no additives, just pure.
• Occasional fair trade organic dark chocolate. The one pictured above is very basic, no weird ingredients, no soy lecithin or corn syrup, just 3-4 ingredients, the way chocolate is supposed to be.

There are a few more items that I sometimes buy, like organic tortilla chips, organic popcorn made with olive oil (though I tend to make my own popcorn at home with organic coconut oil and organic popcorn, which you can find at TJ's). But those items involve processing food in oil at high temperature, so by nature... not good for you! However, I don't want to be extreme and traumatize my kids or annoy my friends. There is room for celebrating, special treats, and special occasions, exceptions, and all that good stuff. What I am talking about here is the daily routines, the eating habits that we are trying to form in our kids.


What about you? What healthy options have you found for your little snack monsters? I would love to hear them and get some ideas from you, or questions, or comments...