frozen banana and berry smoothies

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I often get asked what I put in my morning smoothies. Here's what I'm doing this summer: - 1 banana (a good use of overripe bananas is to peel them and freeze them in between baking sheets in a container. Pop one out whenever you need) - a handful of frozen berries or 1/2 tablespoon of raw cacao powder and 1/2 tsp vanilla bean powder - 1 cup home made kefir (Turkish yogurt) (or full fat yogurt if you have no kefir) - 1 tablespoon cold /frozen beef stock - yes I try to incorporate gelatinous bone broth into as many things as I can...click here to read more about that  (trust me, you won't taste it at all...) - 1/2 tablespoon of coconut oil (I like Aclara Health or Nuis) (optional)

Blend with hand held blender until smooth. A winner with kids (big ones too!).

I team this with pastured eggs on steamed buttered greens with sides of avocado and sauerkraut (and my obligatory macchiato).  If in a rush, make the smoothie a complete meal by adding a couple of raw egg yolks (do not add raw the whites- to find out why click here). If you need to be out the door super early, throw the smoothie ingredients altogether the night before and just blend in the morning. No excuses for leaving the house on an empty stomach!

Variations: add coconut water instead of milk, try fresh mango instead of berries or banana.

my morning macchiato

Plan for Breakfast!

Breakfasts in our house revolves around eggs - cooked any way, sometimes with bacon or sausages, or sometimes teamed with steamed or sauteed greens lathered in butter and served with yoghurt with fruit and a smoothie. What a way to start the day! Sure beats cardboard (a.k.a boxed breakfast cereals) in terms of both nutrition and taste. Does it sound like a lot of effort? It's not really. Practice makes perfect and over the years the whole breakfast preparation is done and dusted within 10 minutes (door to door, or more accurately, fridge to table). Its a small price to pay for setting yourself and your kids up to the best start to the day- physically, emotionally and intellectually. This brekky gets me through from 7am until at least 1pm. 6+ hours! I was lucky to make it to 10am without clawing the walls when I was eating grains for breakfast many moons ago. The high saturated fat content is akin to throwing a log on the fire- it keeps the fire going for a long time before you need to refuel it. A high carbohydrate meal (grains, breakfast cereals, toast etc), is akin to throwing kindling on a fire - you need to replenish it more or less constantly to keep the fire going. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got better things to do than eat all day long.   Lately I've been adding 1-2 tablespoons of very gelatinous home-made beef bone broth to our milk smoothies (sounds weird I know but bare with me on this one) and no one at all has tasted the new addition (quite surprising as beef broth has a quite strong taste when heated but in jelly form straight out of fridge its quite tasteless). So if you're having a tough time getting your kids (or other half!) to consume bone broths or eggs then try popping them into a smoothie made with whole milk, coconut water, yoghurt, cinnamon powder, vanilla powder and fresh fruit (eg 1/2 mango, banana or a date) and I bet you your kids will be none the wiser (...well they WILL be wiser with all that healthy saturated fat and quality protein needed for healthy brain function but they'll be largely oblivious to the reason why!).