It's A Smoothie Day...

As I posted yesterday, I had a bad smoothie experience earlier in the week, which gave me the final shove to buy myself a blender! :) I got it out of the Amazon box this morning...

After much comparing and reading of reviews, I settled on this Philips blender, I love the look of it, and the glass jar is heavy but reassuringly sturdy and easy to clean...so far so good! :) It's certainly been put to use today - back in January I had a day full of porridge, and today I decided to have a day of just smoothies...yum yum! :)

Luckily I'd been so distraught (!!) by my banana-less (and overly chunky!) smoothie earlier in the week, that I'd rushed out to Lidl to stock up on fresh fruit and veggies, so I had plenty of ingredients for these smoothies. I picked up bananas, a huge pineapple, a large cantaloupe melon, a mango, limes, pitted dates...

...and baby spinach, 2 avocadoes, a butternut squash, cherry tomatoes and a cucumber (the last 2 are more for packed lunches than smoothies!)...

...all for £10.71...I think that was pretty good value! :) as well as Lidl, we also have a Waitrose near to us, which I shop at for a lot of our chilled foods etc, but for quality of fruit & veg, Lidl easily wins...and it's a nice bonus that it tends to be a lot cheaper too!

Anyway, back to today...I started this morning with a simple smoothie I'd been wanting to try for a while, but had been waiting for my avocadoes to ripen...

Perfectly ripe! :)

and my blender to arrive...

In the mix...

Tropical Avocado Smoothie

• 1 ripe avocado
• half a mango
• approx 75ml milk
• agave nectar, to taste (I used 20g but have quite a sweet tooth!)

This was so creamy and thick, but smooth too, yey for my new blender! I topped this with a little desiccated coconut to continue the tropical flavour...

I loved the taste of this smoothie, sweet and creamy, yum :) it was slightly reminiscent of sweet guacamole...perhaps I should've saved it for my lunch or dinner smoothie, but whatever time of day it was delicious... I will definitely be featuring avocadoes in my smoothies again! :)

I then spent the morning completing most of my to-do list (Liam took baby out so I could have some time to make phone calls)...it is such a weight off my shoulders to have most of that done, just one or two more phone calls to make on Monday then I'm up to date (for now!). My morning ended with a trip to the post office to drop off a few parcels. This wasn't really a chore though as the weather was so lovely - I decided to walk the long way back from town...

I love this walk, especially when it's sunny...

blue sky...have to make the most of it while it lasts!

By the time I made it back home it was nearly time for my lunchtime smoothie. I wanted to try out my blenders abilities with spinach this time...

This one contained...

• 1 banana
• a couple of handfuls baby spinach
• last of my frozen exotic fruits (melon, mango, papaya, pineapple)
• 110ml milk (the frozen fruits made this thick and I wanted to drink it!)
• tbsp peanut butter

This smoothie was super green!

I didn't add any toppings to this one, just enjoyed it in a glass in the sunshine :)

this was really nice - a salty (from the pb) sweet combo. I tried it before adding the peanut butter and I could taste the spinach a bit too much for my liking (the first green smoothie I've even been able to taste the spinach in actually) but once the peanut butter was added it was delicious, and gave it a bit more substance too in terms of acting as a meal, yum :) I was also so pleased to see a pure green colour - no more spinach stems in smoothies for me!!

This afternoon (the last day of term - yey for all you teachers out there!) we went to see my daughter in her Easter parade. There was major panic last night when we realised she needed to take in a decorated Easter bonnet/egg this morning! Last night Liam and daughter papier mache'd a balloon to make an "egg", but when we went to decorate it this morning we discovered it was still soft, and even after a stint with a hairdryer it was not sturdy at all...fail. We then rushed round to my Mum's as she had a pink straw hat we could decorate...but after stapling many decorations to it, daughter decided it was too embarrassing to take in...aaaagh!! In the end, Mum drew a big egg shape on a piece of card and cut it out, which daughter decorated with a face and we stuck 'hair' and 'legs' to it...sorted! Of course, a lot of the children had bonnets but some just had painted hard boiled eggs so she didn't stick out too much...next time we will be more organised and not just skim-read the newsletters!

Once we got home, the children had a nap and then, after a quick dinner, daughter went off to her dance show and baby went to bed. Time for my final smoothie of the day! :) This time I fancied something chocolatey...

Carob powder and cacao brazil nut butter went into this, alongside spinach, banana and milk...

I added the brazil nut butter in last so it still had a bit of texture. This was a very sludgy colour...

Yummy though, I only wish there had been more of it!

I loved the texture of this - thick and creamy but with a slight crunch from the nut butter. Yummy tasting - 3/3 smoothie successes today!

Right, that's about it for today, time to get to bed! I've been really surprised today how I haven't felt hungry, and haven't had my usual cravings for multiple snacks mid-afternoon, I've even had a bit more energy than usual too, although that may be psychological! The smoothies filled me up and satisfied me, and were tasty and good for me too :) I will be back to solids tomorrow though - it's my Mum's birthday so my Mum, Grandma, sisters and I are going out for a girly lunch, really looking forward to it :)