Ok, I know I have mentioned periodically how fussy my family is to feed. Well lately the girls have been surprising me. We joined a CSA so we get fresh farm produce every week. YUM. Well all of the sudden my girls, even Allison, started enjoying salads! Salads! And I have been hearing much less “YUCKS” from Allison (she was the worst!). Well the other day I checked out some vegetarian cookbooks from the library, and one of them had some smoothie recipes that included such oddities as kale. Hmm.. well I had some kale, so we gave it a try. I didn’t mention the kale to the girls, but Allison noticed the teeny tiny green flecks. I told her it was kale, and even showed her the kale, and said that this cookbook suggested it, what did she think? Her resonse? “yum! Kale!” Wow. I’m gonna put kale in all our smoothies from now on Plus this book also suggested nutritional yeast and other add ins like wheat germ, etc. So guess what? LOL.

And dinner tonight….I made chicken, corn, beans, soup and fruit smoothies (I will share the recipe in a minute - I promise). Allison does not like soup. Never has. This soup is a zucchini soup, so I really didn’t expect Meredith to like it either..she likes soup with noodles shaped like Dora’s head. Anyway, Meredith ate TWO bowls of this soup, and I didn’t even fix a bowl for Allison, knowing that she won’t eat soup. But she actually requested a bowl…a bowl of zucchini soup….GREEN soup, and ate the whole thing, saying “that was good soup!” And Allison got seconds of her chicken too! AND baby Lydia, who hasn’t been very cooperative at meal time, ate almost all of her dinner as well.. The smoothies…vanished. Not drop left. I bet if I had offered, I could have found takers for licking out the blender…..I found this recipe in one of the cookbooks. HUGE hit. HUGE. So simple.

3 cups watermelon, seeds removed
8-10 frozen strawberries
cup or so of plain yogurt (we didn’t have any, so we used a container of raspberry yogurt).

Pulverize in your blender! It was, according to the girls, the best smoothie ever. They wanted more, but I was drinking the rest, and didn’t want to share, so they were told that it was gone. Whines and begging and pleading did not persuade me to give up my smoothie….but we will make this one again and again…next time I’m adding kale and yeast

I have been watching shows like “Honey, We’re Killing the Kids” and “Jaime’s School Lunch Project” and they are sorta freaking me out Baby steps….but my kids will know what asparagus is if ever confronted by one on the streets.