These are honestly really loved in my house and I make them every day the kids get fruit cups or juice in their lunch/breakfast bags. They were kind of bummed about the assortment until I started doing this. One kid likes the peaches, the other only the berries. By putting them in smoothies they are happy with whatever kind of fruit it is and even if it’s the same every day. When they get Orange Juice it just makes their day.

Let me give a huge thanks to the schools and the workers around the country doing this for the families. (If they aren’t offering school lunches in your district please call somebody in your state) This is a huge, really huge help. On top of the money savings for those of us who lost jobs and now have kids that want to eat 10 times a day at home, it’s also a special thing for the kids to be able to have that routine. My daughter goes with me to pick up the lunch every day and it’s her pandemic chore. She’ll be telling her kids about this when they are her age.

I’ll keep this short and get right to it…

Whatever fruit cups or juice you get for the day…honestly doesn’t matter. I put them into the freezer and work from what we had yesterday. If you don’t want to wait a day, you can always use thawed and add in ice cubes instead of water. Comes out about the same.

I use 4 cups. I place them into a bowl of hot water to thaw enough to get out of the cup easily and chop up a bit. I have a Vitamix (thank you Mom), but if your blender isn’t as strong you might want to chop up a bit before mixing together or thaw a bit longer. My son has a small cup type blender and he just has to put in smaller chunks to make it work.

We love a milk in the mix to add calcium and D and for the creaminess. I usually add yogurt, but I’m been trying to use what we get and not run to the grocery store.

1 cup whole oats that I have in a big bin. (I buy bulk whole oats) You can leave these out, but if you have them, trust me, they take your smoothie up a notch. They add so much creaminess and these kids need fiber…am I right? 😉

1 cup of cold water (or if you are using thawed fruit/juice use ice cubes) We don’t like strong tastes or super sweet. My kids never had undiluted juice when they were little because of the sugar content.

I add in Zinc and Magnesium because the pills are too big for the kids to take and one thing we all have to take out of this mess is that there is nothing more important than a healthy immune system. I just toss the pills in and chop them up. This could be our secret.

That’s it. All I added were the oats and the supplements. Everything else came from school lunches. The kids really love these and of course you can add in anything else you have. I toss in a good handful of walnuts a lot of times for the Omega and I almost always have wild blueberries. Use what you have, try for zero waste, and keep knowing that this will end soon.

Sending smiles,

Julianne

Coming soon:

School lunch veggies and noodle soup kids love.

PB&J Smoothies from school lunches.