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Ask Maxwell: What’s Your Quickest Go To Dinner for Kids?

Maxwell Ryan
Maxwell RyanCEO
Maxwell left teaching in 2001 to start Apartment Therapy as a design business helping people to make their homes more beautiful, organized AND healthy. The website started up in 2004 with the help of his brother, Oliver. Since then he has grown ApartmentTherapy.com, added TheKitchn.com, our home cooking site, and has authored four books on design. He now lives with his daughter in a lovely apartment in Brooklyn.
published Jul 18, 2022
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Credit: Maxwell Ryan
Our smoothie kit ready to fly into action...

I want my kids to eat healthy, but sometimes time is so short. What’s your go-to weeknight meal when you’re really busy?

Alison

Dear Alison,

I have to admit that there are some nights in the month when I don’t cook at all, when we get home late or want to make dinner quickly so we can do other things, and that’s when we reach for the smoothie. We have a Nutribullet to make it really easy, and I do believe it’s probably healthier than some of the other things I cook, because I love butter, meat and other juicy fatty things.

Smoothie night is super popular with Ursula as well, and now she will lead the charge and make them. This is her favorite recipe:

1 frozen banana
1/2 cup frozen berries
1/2 cup frozen cherries
“handfuls” spinach or kale
spoonful almond butter
1 scoop unflavored protein powder
1/4 cup rolled oats
(optional) 1/2 cup greek yogurt
1 cup oat milk

To which she added, when she texted this to me, “idk about the measurements though i just guessed.” 🙂

The other nice thing about smoothies, is that we keep all the frozen stuff in the freezer all the time and the rest is easy to stock or swap for some other green if you don’t have kale or spinach, so it’s easy to pivot to this without any planning.

Give it a try if you haven’t yet. It’s a nice extra tool to have in your meal toolkit.

Best, M

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Maxwell Ryan is a father and was an elementary school teacher in NYC before founding Apartment Therapy. He’d love to answer your question: askmaxwell@cubbyathome.com. This piece was created for Cubby, our weekly newsletter for families at home. Want more? Sign up here for a weekly splash of fun and good ideas for families with kids.

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