I need to learn to keep my mouth shut. I no sooner said that we hadn’t been super sick this winter (which is a miracle considering that it’s our first winter with freezing temps in forever), and both boys went down with the crud.

Not the flu, thankfully, but there were still headaches, fevers, and crankiness to deal with. There was also a refusal to drink water to stay hydrated. Now, I’m not completely opposed to coconut water or other super hydrating drinks, but the boys weren’t in the mood, which was a problem because they needed to drink something.

Since I know my kids, I decided to make a smoothie.

Now, because of their lack of water consumption, I wanted to get them to eat some cranberries to stave off a bladder infection or UTI (call me paranoid), but I knew that there was literally no way that they’d drink it straight.

And, I may have over-purchased cranberries at Thanksgiving (I have no less than 10 bags in my freezer-I have NO idea what I was thinking, y’all!).

At first, I tried just making the standard berry smoothie, but everyone (including me) agreed it tasted awful-bitter and just not what I was going for.

So I tried again. And this time, I dumped in whatever I thought would help the taste. I’m really, really glad I did (and I’m even more glad that I wrote it down!!) because this smoothie is awesome.

I’ve made it practically daily for the past week, at least twice a day until we ran out of cranberries.

It was that popular, y’all.

I’m headed to the store tomorrow to pick up more cranberries because this cranberry smoothie is going to be a staple!

Cranberry Smoothie

1/2 apple
1/2-2/3 cup frozen cranberries
1 date
1 tablespoon almond butter
1 tablespoon flax meal
1 tablespoon hemp hearts
3 ice cubes
2/3 cups almond milk
1/8 cup coconut milk or coconut water

Roughly chop the apple.

Add the first 6 ingredients to your high-speed blender (like a Vitamix).

Pour the milk over top of the ingredients.

Blend on high until smooth, about a minute.

Pour into a glass and enjoy!

This makes enough for a large glass for you or a serving for two littles. It’s a very easy recipe to double or even triple, though you may have to blend in batches.

Now that the boys are recovered, let’s hope I can keep this crud away!