Green Juice

I hope I haven't come across as this perfect mom who only feeds her kids healthy things, because that is definitely not the case. Rachel is a sugar-holic who gets sugary drinks and graham crackers nearly every day and candy whenever she can find it. I am trying to make sure she has a fruit and a vegetable for lunch, and one or both for dinner. This has become more difficult lately, as she has "discovered" that green food tastes nasty. I got her to choke down one bite of asparagus the other day, and she LOVES carrots dipped in ranch, but she won't touch spinach anymore. Meanwhile, Reuben has fallen in love with my spinach smoothies, and prefers them to his regular baby food.


All this has come together at a time when my mom has started ordering baskets of produce each Saturday, and challenging me to make sure it all gets eaten. Basically, we have a LOT of fruit and veggies in the house, and I hate throwing them away. Enter new lunch routine: What's-In-The-Fridge Green Juice.

The rules are simple. Look through the fridge, and the fruit bowl on the counter, and find any fruit that looks like it's not going to get eaten, either because it's on its way out, or it's something no one will eat (green apples, brown bananas, a plethora of oranges, fruit that is more work than it's worth...). Throw it in the blender, along with a heap of spinach and some ice, and let 'er rip! Voila: Green Juice. Rachel hates green food, but LOVES green juice.


Today's recipe went like this:
1. 2/3 apple that someone changed their mind about
2. 1 1/2 c grapes that were hidden under the celery and forgotten about (aka starting to wrinkle but still edible if you could get past that)
3. 1 banana that was more brown than yellow (the browner it is, the sweeter, btw)
4. 1/3 bag of spinach that was a day or two away from being old