My son has liked cooking for a while now, although he is not always a fan of, let's say, traditional food.  His preschool offered cooking class when he was about three or four years old.  It was one of the teachers making things like ants on a stick with the kids.  My son was dying to participate, but it cost ten dollars per class, and there were eight classes.  I had already splurged to sign him up for an animal class, and I could barely afford that as the broke, young mom that I was.  Actually, I still am a broke, young mom, but I guess that's beside the point.

But, he was so excited about it, and back in the day, we were super healthy (once again, that's a term that's relative from one person to another).  That was when I had taken an environmental science class and I was in my environmentalist stage that was referenced to in the last post.  I devoted countless hours to reading about pesticides in our food and nutrition in general, and I started cooking every night and making delicious, healthy meals for my sweet little buttercup.  Along with those meals came an unwanted side dish of anxiety.  I started worrying about everything that went in our mouths, worries that were compounded by the fact that I couldn't afford organic food.  My son might have been getting his fruits and vegetables, but what did that matter, since the pesticides were going to kill him!  Eventually, I wound up going in the opposite direction, and deciding that if I couldn't do it right, I wouldn't bother at all, which led to my two month cycles of healthy/not healthy.  

Before all that on again, off again nonsense started, when my little guy was still little and yearning for cooking class, I decided to make our own cooking class so he wouldn't feel as left out.  It's funny how now, he wouldn't even remember that, but back then it was such a big deal that he couldn't go to cooking class.  I got him helping with dinner.  He would take his butter knife and slice up vegetables, dump parmesan cheese in to the meatball mix, and stir the batter for muffins.  

Now he is six years old, and he still does cooking class, although it's different now.  These days, it involves taking every liquid from the refrigerator and pouring some into a bowl to make one disgusting, inedible creation that I have to hold my nose to clean up.  Since he loves it, I let him do it. 

For the past few days, he has been involved more with cooking actual meals.  We went peach picking the other day, so we made peach pie last night, and he helped the whole time.  Usually he gets bored after a little while, but this time, he was a bit more invested in the peaches.  

The biggest surprise was when he drank- and liked- this morning's green smoothie.  I decided to make our regular smoothie but add in the spinach and kale...since it's a green smoothie.  And I put in a peach.  When you have six pounds of peaches, you sneak a peach in anywhere you can!

Raspberry Banana (And Peach) Green Smoothie

Ingredients

1/2 cup plain yogurt

1 cup kale

1 cup spinach

1 frozen banana, cut into small pieces

1/4 cup frozen raspberries

1 small peach, cut into one-inch pieces

1 tablespoon flax seeds

Just mix all the ingredients in the blender.  I use ice crush and then liquefy.

Notes

For recipes like this, I don't bother using measuring cups, I just eyeball it.  I really don't think it's necessary to add extra dishes for something like a smoothie.  Just grab a handful of kale and a handful of spinach, throw in a bunch of raspberries, and spoon out the amount of yogurt you think it needs!

Before I added the peach, it was a nasty brown color, thanks to the mix of kale, spinach, and raspberries.  It turned green once I put the peach in.  It really tasted just like the smoothies my son and I usually make, which is everything but the greens!