Oh yes we did. Since we have officially closed out one full month of homeschool, the girls and I felt it was absolutely appropriate to treat ourselves to chocolate for breakfast. And this was some serious deliciousness, which was much needed after a few weeks of microwaved pancakes and dried fruit granola bars. Not that I want to ruin the fun of chocolate, but the unsweetened cocoa powder in this smoothie is actually full of all the benefits of chocolate (antioxidants and flavonoids being higher than those found in blueberries, which are one of our favorite superfoods!) without the sugary, fatty nonsense that is typically associated with chocolate. (But be sure you’re not buying dutch-processed cocoa, which has all the nutrition stripped as part of the process.) This batch made enough for all 3 of us to have a smoothie, which is essentially 2 adult servings or 1 adult and 2 kid servings. Here’s the skinny:

• 2 frozen bananas
• 1 cup vanilla greek yogurt (a MUST for protein in a vegetarian household)
• 10 fresh organic strawberries (these are one of the dirty dozen foods you should ALWAYS buy organic- this link gives an awesome explanation for why)
• 2 teaspoons UNSWEETENED cocoa powder (I LOVE the Whole Foods cocoa powder, and I just buy a ton of it when it goes on sale. You can also find it in large containers at Trader Joe’s, but my TJ’s only has it seasonally)
• 2 tsp organic ground flaxseed meal
• 2 tablespoons local organic honey (which will help with allergies too) or maple syrup
• 1 cup milk

Put it all together in the blender and blend until smooth. Easy peasy 🙂

This is a go-to breakfast at our house, and that 2 tsp of cocoa powder goes a long way in convincing the monkeys that they are getting a special treat for breakfast. You can change up what’s in here too, so trade out the strawberries for extra banana, add in 1/4 cup of nutella (just omit the cocoa powder) or peanut butter, or to make it black forest just trade the strawberries for cherries. The possibilities are endless, which for us means I have instant variety while still sticking to an easy basic plan.

Here’s to morning routines that involve a little more celebrating and a little less chaos!

xoxo~ LWH