Sneaky Snack: Kale-Apple Smoothie

Having recently had jaw surgery, I’ve experimented heavily with pureed and mashed foods. I was so excited when a past issue of Real Simple Magazine had a list of 10 smoothie recipes! I have only tried one of them, because the store I went to only had kale in bulk. I figured I’d just try to knock that out before I ventured onto the next smoothie recipe 🙂

But we are LOVING this recipe for Kale-Apple Smoothies! Dexter and I do, at least. My (ultra-picky) husband took one sip and made a face. So I guess it’s not for everyone. But considering my 2 year old gets super pumped about it, it’s worth trying once!

It’s such a pleasant green color, and it’s packed with things that are great for you: kale, celery, banana, and a bit of apple juice. I also added a bit of spinach today!

While I was trying to do a quick photo shoot, Dex leaned over my glass and said, “MMMmmmm, smells dewd!”

I seriously love this kid, and I’m glad that I’m able to find ways to give him things that he both loves and are healthy for him! He calls it his “smoozie” and today he said, “Oh, a smoozie for a healthy snack!!!” I was really thrilled to hear him say that, partially because it’s super cute lol, but also because I hope I’m teaching him to make good choices for his health, and to be excited about it!

He get’s his “smoozie” in a sippy cup, and it helps if that cup has a larger opening. The smoothie is not a juice, it will have little veggie bits in it, so it can clog up a sippy nipple. Or you can just brave it like I did the first time, and give your child an open cup with a straw. If you don’t mind getting green smoothie EVERYWHERE. Seriously. Everywhere.

 
Also, as a side note, our preschool lesson this week includes learning about the color green. This is a great suggestion for a green-week snack, because it is so pretty and vibrant!

Recipe: Lemon Raspberry Bars With Cream Cheese Filling

This is what happens when you see someone else is having lemon raspberry cake (thanks Kaedra!!) but you don’t usually like cake AND you don’t have a recipe for anything lemon-raspberry-y.

Using a basic cookies-from-cake-mix recipe, I came up with this delicious monstrosity:

Step 1: Preheat oven to 350.

Step 2: Soften 1/2 stick butter.

Step 3: Start telling your husband a story and accidentally melt the butter entirely.

Step 4: Add an egg. 

Step 5: Add dry lemon cake mix. Use organic, so your dessert will be inherently better.

Step 6: Stir until you realize there is absolutely not enough liquid to moisten the dry cake mix.

Step 7: Soften another 1/2 stick of butter. Correctly this time. Feel pride.

Step 8: Decide there is STILL not enough liquid and add 1 Tbsp milk at a time until it seems right. This takes 2 Tbsp milk.

Step 9: Fold in 6oz of beautiful raspberries.

Step 10: Decide to pulverize the raspberries instead of gently folding them into the batter.

Step 11: Find a clean  pan. If you don’t have one, wash only one pan. You wouldn’t want to do any extra work. Dollop batter onto the pan in heaping spoonfuls. If you have extra batter, just put it into any other cooking apparatus and be done with it.

Step 12: Bake for 9-12 min.

Step 13: In the meantime, prepare filling/icing. Combine 8 oz spreadable cream cheese, 1/4 c powdered sugar, and about 1/3 tub of leftover store-bought butter cream icing.*

*Not all butter cream icing has streaks of green in it, but you can achieve this at home by sticking a knife with already tinted icing into your nice clean icing. Just throw the rest of that tainted icing back into your cabinets and save it for a rainy day.

Step 14: Blend filling/icing ingredients until smooth.

Step 15: Note a burning smell. Confirm that your haphazardly dolloped batter is now spilling over the sides of the pan and landing on the heating element of the stove. Yum! You’re almost done!

Step 16: Realize that during baking, your batter became a cookie conglomerate.

Step 17: Decide to make a cookie-bar casserole. Chill filling/icing while cookie mass cools, then stack cookie-filling-cookie into a casserole dish.

Now, despite how horrendous this thing looks, and all the trouble I had while constructing it, it tastes really really good. Especially that filling. It taste almost like cheesecake. I will use it in the future with other desserts. Also, if I ever make this again, I am just pouring the batter into a casserole dish, baking it as cookie bars, then icing it after it cools. But you learn as you go 🙂

Fruit Cobbler

I love cobblers! They’re the best comfort dessert. I typically use strawberries or cherries. Tonight, I used strawberries and peaches, because that’s what I had on hand and I was worried they might go bad.

I use my mom’s recipe, and little by little, I’m tweaking it to create exactly what I want. Here is the most recent recipe I’ve used:

Feel free to print this out for your collection! You won’t regret it 🙂 The cobbler I made tonight was still a little on the sweet side, and I believe that was because my fruit was so ripe. In the future, I’ll probably back the sugar down a little. But it was still incredible. Strawberry and peach was a nice combo! Also, I didn’t have any vanilla ice cream on hand, but I recently discovered that it goes great on this cobbler!

(Note: You can use self-rising flour instead of Bisquick or pancake mix, but it gives the cobbler a slightly gummy texture, sort of like a dumpling. A baking mix will give it a fluffier texture, which my husband prefers.)

**Thanks to Homemade By Jill for introducing me to picnik, a cool and free photo editing site. Jill has created a great step-by-step tutorial that I used to make this recipe card!