VEGVACIOUS: Cure All Creamsicle Smoothie

Good Morning!

How was your weekend? If you follow me on Twitter, you know that last week was a rough one in our house. Derek came down with a stomach flu, which turned into a really bad chest cold, which turned into the sorest throat ever. He was definitely the sickest I have ever seen and he was pretty much down for the count from Monday night until Saturday. He missed time off work and there were a couple of days, when things went a little like this:

Ok, well it went something like the first 10 seconds of that clip. No. Joke.

Even though there were moments when I wanted to ~~lock him in a room and throw away the key~~ pull my hair out, I tried to help out as much as I could. We loaded up on lots of meds, OJ, gingerale, popsicles, soup, ice cream and vitamin waters.

I think the worst part of the week was when his throat flared up. He said that it felt like razor blades - when I was a kid, I used to get strep throat, bronchitis and sore throats alot. One year, I think when I was in about grade 7, I missed almost 40 days of school, so even though I joke about this big sicko of mine, I really did sympathize with the way he was feeling. It got so bad that everytime he tried to fall asleep he would wake himself up as soon as he tried to swallow.

None of the meds we had seemed to help with his throat, and being the stubborn soul that he is, Derek refused to go see a doctor. So, it was up to Nurse Andrea :) to come to the rescue.

Since it hurt to eat anything, I thought that maybe an ice cold smoothie would help - I wanted to get some healthy food into him and I figured it would help put the boots to those razorblades and give him some temporary relief.

Do you remember the orange drink that McDonalds use to serve? School functions and family reunions always had a big jug of the syrupy orange liquid that was free for all who wanted it. {looking back, I think it might have been free for a reason} Derek and his friends used to call it their "cure all" - it would give quick relief to even the worst hangover. But let's be honest, that orange drink was nasty! It was a thick syrupy mess, but a cure all is what we needed last week, so that's why it was my inspiration for this orange smoothie creation.

I think we made our first creamsicle smoothie on Wednesday and we've had one almost everyday since. They are soooo tasty and they're packed full of Vitamin C - great for getting some good stuff back into my man and for giving my germ-fighters a little extra muscle!

Cure All Creamsicle Smoothie

Serves 2

3 small navel oranges, peeled and sectioned

1 large banana - frozen into chunks

1 1/4 c vanilla unsweetened almond milk (your fave milk would work)

1 c frozen vanilla yogourt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract (do not skip this - it makes the smoothie!)

Place all the ingredients into your blender and blend until smooth.