make-ahead smoothies

One of my goals over March Break was to make some healthy, freeze-able food. When I'm teaching and Isaac is working and going to school, our diet quickly slides into a routine of perogies, frozen pizzas and pasta (and grill 'ems ... mmm ...)

Since I am chronically running late every morning (not being late -- running late -- there's a difference) I was inspired to make some make-ahead breakfast smoothies. My main source of inspiration (besides what I had in the freezer): http://www.theyummylife.com/Oatmeal_Smoothies

Each of the six flavours of smoothies on this site include oats and chia seeds. Oats help make the smoothies a filling meal; chia seeds are, from what I understand, really good for you and they are thickeners. So if you usually rely on ice to thicken your smoothies (like I do) and hate it when they get warm and runny, this will solve that problem.

The author suggests to grind up a large batch of the oat/chia seed mix. Put both ingredients in the blender according to the ratios given and grind them up until you have a flour-like consistency. Then for every smoothie you want to make (a "batch" only makes one pint jar) add 1/4 cup of the oat/chia mix. (This is the same ratio she uses for her Fro-Yo pops -- haven't tried those yet.) I now have a jar of leftover oat/chia mix for the next time I make smoothies.

For each smoothie recipe I used honey as the sweetener. Because I lovelovelove honey.

For each smoothie I used Greek yogurt because a) it's thicker b) it has more protein and I plan on these smoothies being breakfast and c) there were some 50% off containers at the grocery store.






















Based on my tastes and what I had in my fridge, I chose these four flavours to try:

1. Apricot Orange Oatmeal Smoothie (3 jars -- batch doubled, stuff added)

This was my least favourite. I didn't like the tiny bits of dried apricot (to be fair, she did warn me) and the flavour was off to me. I ended up adding lots of honey and some regular yogurt because the taste was so tart. I also spilled a bit more almond extract than it called for, so that needed to be watered down with regular yogurt, too :) To be honest I would not make this recipe again.

2. Apple Peanut Butter Cinnamon Oatmeal Smoothie (2.5 jars -- batch doubled)

This. was. amazing. I doubled the batch and it gave me 2.5 jars ... excellent, because I couldn't wait to eat some. I couldn't stop "tasting" it. I was a little surprised because I'm not normally a big peanut butter fan, but this is delicious! It's also the easiest to throw together because the fruit in it is simply unsweetened apple sauce. I'm definitely going to make this one again and again -- it was my favourite.

3. Strawberry Banana Oatmeal Smoothie (3 jars -- doubled the batch)

Shocker -- this one was good, too. Pretty classic. Unfortunately my stomach doesn't like raw banana so these are for Isaac. I used two frozen bananas I had in the freezer. Last summer I also crushed some extra strawberries into a sauce and poured it into an ice cube tray, then put the cubes in a freezer bag -- I used the strawberry ice cubes and a little less liquid.

4. Pomegranate Blueberry Oatmeal Smoothie (6 jars -- multiplied the batch by five!)

I had a freezer bag of wild blackberries, so I used them up for this smoothie in place of blueberries (I don't really like blueberries, anyway). The blackberries are tart so I had to add a good amount of honey. This smoothie is good -- what you'd expect from a homemade smoothie. Good, good for you, a little bland ... The blackberries also have a zillion seeds which are a little annoying. But -- good smoothie.

Total number of jars: 14.5!

After having the jars sit in the fridge overnight, they will be stacked neatly into our freezer for breakfast next week :)

Top left: apricot orange, Top right and bottom right: strawberry banana
Bottom left: blackberry pomegranate, Bottom centre: apple peanut butter cinnamon