Food for My Family

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Green Monster Smoothies Fit for Freezing

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A recipe for a green mango monster smoothie that is fit for freezing and sending in the lunch box for school lunches or enjoying immediately. Plus, a Magimix by Robot-Coupe Food Processor is up for grabs!
Green Monster Freezer Smoothies #recipe via FoodforMyFamily.com

If I were to keep a list of things I am in continuous denial about you may find such entries as:
:: The number of hours of sleep I require per night.
:: The time it takes to get from here to there.
:: The existence of fairies that are surely coming to clean my house.
:: My children’s ability to transform into those same fairies.
:: That back-to-school shopping is inevitable.

It’s that last one that is currently causing heart palpitations. As an introvert, things like telephones and shopping malls terrify me. There is the search for shoes that fit small, dust-covered feet, scraped and swollen from days ran barefoot through the neighborhood, multicolored folders that will soon be filled with informational sheets addressed to me, and the ever-present room requests on the supply lists (read: tissues and glue sticks in bulk).

All of this occurs, of course, with packages of colored crayons in one hand and a tower of wide-ruled notebooks in the other, whilst looking down past your nose at the lists that are sticking out of your mouth and being bumped from behind by the other school shoppers with similar setups. Sometimes I wish supplies came in parcels with carefully collated contents: Grab-n-go, order online, delivered to desks.
Green Monster Freezer Smoothies #recipe via FoodforMyFamily.com
I am much better at packing lunches, dreaming up ideas, and exploring cool containers (watch for me to share my favorites soon!) for this year’s lunchtime tables. These green monster smoothies take on many forms throughout the year, changing their ingredients slightly to account for seasonal produce, but they are one of many we freeze to be ferried out the door in brightly colored sacks.

A variation of these green monster smoothies were featured, along with the ever popular pizza pinwheels in this month’s FamilyFun Magazine, which is all about back-to-school from supply shopping to lunch packing and more. You can read the article I’m in over on the Parents.com site and get the full print issue in stores.

For tips on how to freeze smoothies, head over to my tutorial and tips on how you can pack smoothies in the lunch box.

2 frozen bananas, cut into chunks
1 cup greens (spinach, baby kale, swiss chard, beet greens)
1 fresh mango, cut into chunks
1 cup milk (cow, almond, coconut, etc.)
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon honey

Place the banana, greens, mango, milk, lemon juice, and the honey into a blender. Pulse until the smoothie starts to come together, and then blend on high for 1 minute or until smooth.

Enjoy immediately or pour the smoothie mixture into your container of choice, filling 3/4 full to allow room for the smoothie to expand when it freezes. Freeze the container until solid. Pack frozen smoothies in lunches at the noon hour.


Makes 3-4 cups green smoothie.
Copyright © Food for My Family.

Green Monster Freezer Smoothies #recipe via FoodforMyFamily.com

We’re Giving it All Away! Well, some of it, anyway.

I’m gifting a Magimix by Robot-Coupe 16-cup Food Processor with the Juice Extractor and Smoothie Attachment for all your juicing, smoothie, and sorbet needs. I definitely have sorbet needs these last few weeks of summer.

The Magimix is a premium food processor that features several different blades and settings for all your chopping and processing needs, and the juicer and smoothie attachment really makes it an all-in-one appliance for the kitchen. I pull mine out for everything from smoothies to pesto to seasonal fruit sorbets. The food processor and attachment are available in 12-, 14-, and 16-cup sizes at Williams Sonoma, and you can also get the whole set together now in CHEFS Catalog!

For a chance to receive this food processor, just comment on this post between now and next Friday, August 23rd at 11:59 p.m. EDT.

For an extra entry, head over to the Magimix by Robot-Coupe Facebook page and like them. Then come back here and let me know that you did!


Robot-Coupe is kind enough to provide the food processor for me to gift to a reader, but I already own a Magimix Food Processor of my own and asked them if I could share the love because I adore mine so much.

Reader Interactions

Comments

    • Yep. If you click through to the guide on freezing, you’ll see that I fill them 3/4 full to allow for some expansion when freezing them. You can also leave the lids off until they are frozen for extra insurance.

  21. Mmm! That looks delicious. I have frozen green smoothies before, and they ended up brown by the time I thawed them. Any tips to prevent that? They still tasted good, but the green is much prettier. 🙂

    • The lemon juice helps stop the browning, as will any citrus juice in the recipe or produce list. In the recipe on the FamilyFun site, the pineapple does the same thing. The smoothies pictured at the top I took out of the freezer from April for that photo. You can see the color held up quite well!

  40. My oldest son won’t eat fruit unless I purée it in a smoothie, so we eat them almost every day. This machine sounds amazing! I would love one!

  41. I liked them on Facebook. By the way, what’s the easiest way to get the mango off the pit? I always have a difficult time and feel Ike I am going to cut myself. There’s got to be a better way.

  52. My kids are now out of college but you took me back to the part of the schoolyear I just hated…and I’m not an introvert. It always made me think that teachers could consider getting together and making sure their requirements all worked together. No backpack could fit all the notebooks and folders for all of the teachers and the size of my kids school made having a locker almost pointless so getting around between classes almost required a wheelbarrow!

    I’ve been making green smoothies for my youngest daughter who has been going through chemo; this is a nice version I’ve not tried…thanks!

  54. After several surgeries my body lacks energy and umph to get going. I would love to try your recipes and would love to make them in this amazing machine!

  59. I was just telling my husband last night I need a new food processor. I never had a bridal shower so all of my appliances have been hand me downs or yard sale finds and they are all breaking at the same time! Would love to win this!!

  61. Liked on Facebook. Would love to win this food processor. My son starts kindergarten in a few days.
    I think smoothies would be a great way to get him to try new fruits/veggies.

  62. I don’t know why I never thought to freeze a smoothie and send it like I do yogurt tubes. We are just getting into making them so we’ll have to try it.

  81. We are starting Kindergarten NEXT WEEK! I just found your blog via Parents magazine and had to take a look, because last night I was LOSING sleep getting nervous for my little guy. Thinking about lunches, bus rides, friends… This week we are doing practice lunches. Your lunch ideas and this smoothie idea is definitely something we need to try. Thanks for sharing!

  84. That smoothie sounds delish….and I’ve never thought of freezing them! I’m new to the smoothie thing….yes, you can teach an old dogs new tricks. I have been diagnosed with an illness and am trying to approach it through diet instead of meds, meds and more meds. I never thought I would even like to drink something green much less want to! Just had my first green smoothie last week and LOVED IT! Thanks so much for sharing! Oh, and I would love to win that little beauty 🙂

  87. Wow! This smoothie recipe sounds amazing! We have a mango tree that produced a lot this season, can’t wait to this! Also, never thought to freeze them before, how efficient.

  93. I make an almost identical smoothie — but I use frozen mango chunks and add flaxseed, chia and protein powder. I’ve never thought to freeze them though!

  95. I have been making smoothies with frozen bananas every day or the past 3 weeks as part of a diet/effort to actually eat breakfast daily and I have to say that my little hand held immersion blender is showing this week that this is not what it was made for!

  103. What a GREAT idea for lunch boxes (my most dreaded part of going back to school)! With picky eaters as kids, it is always a challenge to come up with healthy and delicious food for them to eat at school. Thank you! And I would LOVE the Magimix…as a single mom of three, this would be a very welcomed, and amazing addition to my kitchen! 🙂

  104. I would LOVE to be blessed by winning the Magimix. I could truly use it. Only have a smaller capacity food processor that I got as a wedding gift 22 years ago. I usually have to process stuff in batches…so this would be a blessing to win.

  105. I have just started to make smoothies, this would be awesome to win. I never thought of freezing them to send to school for my kidoos. Also like facebook page.

  117. I feel your end-of-summer / back-to-school pains. Those requests for bulk supplies of items my kids readily admit to only using 1 or 2 of during the year…ugh. I’m sure these green monster smoothies could make up for some of my grief. Freezing them? That’s awesome!!

  119. Love green smoothies, great idea to freeze them. i have 4year old Twin girls who are pickey about anything green except pesto. Oh please pick me! My 15year old, well loved food Proccesser just died on me:(

    Also Liked the Magimix on Facebook

  128. I’m passing this green smoothie on to my 15 year old son to try. He’s on a smoothie kick this summer which is great for all of us! Thanks for your blog!

  130. I’ve been looking for a smoothie recipe that can be made in advance and saw this in the Family Fun magazine i just got in the mail. I love the idea of freezing the smoothie into ice cubes and putting in a lidded cup so that it melts just in time for lunch! Awesome idea!!!!

  132. I’m hoping to hook my son on green (and other nutritious) smoothies for breakfast or to bring to school. He often does not eat lunch at school, and as you can imagine, comes home grumpy and hungry!

  137. My friend recommended I could similar to this website. He / she had been totally suitable. This specific offered essentially created my own day time. You can’t visualize what amount time frame I had created expended just for this details! Thank you!

  139. Have you had any issues with ball jars cracking in the freezer? I have been making a freezing smoothies for only about a month and already lose 2 ball jars to cracks and it wasn’t to over filling as both had more space left at the top.

    • Hi, Janet. I’ve never had them crack in the freezer. There are a few reasons you might be seeing them crack. First, if the integrity of the jar is already compromised due to chips or hairline fractures, freezing a smoothie could press on those chips or fractures and might cause them to crack. Second, even when leaving headspace, there still might not be enough space for the air and smoothie expansion to occur. If you have a high efficiency freezer or one turned very cold, the top layer could be freezing before the bottom, and when the bottom goes to freeze, there’s nowhere to expand to. Try leaving slightly more headspace, freezing on its side, or freezing in the door if you have a HE freezer. Third, the type of jar you are using could also be a factor. You can read more about it on this post on LifeYourWay by my friend Katie, but essentially, if your jar has a shoulder rather than a straight entry to the mouth of the jar, it could be a problem.

      I hope this helps, and I’m sorry you have had issues with them cracking. Let me know if you have any other questions.

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