Pin this to your Smoothies or Healthy Breakfast Pinterest board! We came up with the idea for these easy make-ahead smoothies this year when my son started school and our mornings got crazy. My husband is gone before anybody wakes up which leaves me one hour to get myself and three kids five and under fed, dressed, packed up for the day and out the door. I found myself falling in to the temptation of offering cereal and a banana every morning often enough that we wanted to have some healthier options for a quick breakfast. Inspired by an expensive, sugar-filled smoothie kit I saw in the freezer section at the grocery store, we created our own smoothie kits. Basically, I put all the smoothie ingredients ahead of time in quart size freezer Ziploc bags and then throw it in the blender, add milk and yogurt and voila, a one minute healthy breakfast option. The recipe below is basically what I’ve been using as a base.  You can change it anyway you want for your family.  Get creative and experiment to see what is yummy. 

Add or omit ingredients based on what you like or have in your  kitchen. 1/2 Cup Frozen Blueberries 1 Cup Frozen Strawberries 4 Green Ice Cubes (see below) or 1-2 cup Greens (Spinach, Kale, Chard)ninja bl771 mega blender with single serve reviews 2 Tbsp Flax Seedmudslide recipe for margaritaville blender Combine all above ingredients in freezer bags, seal and freeze. kenwood blender bl380 priceWhen ready to use, pull out bag, put in blender and add 1 – 1.5 cups of liquid.  kenwood blender bl710 reviewI use homemade almond milk and when we have it, I add 1/2 a cup of homemade yogurt. oster classic beehive blender uk

Makes 4-5 smoothies (approximately 8 ounces). If smoothie is too thick, add more liquid. Start with frozen ingredients –  If everything is thrown in the bag before being frozen, it will all clump together and is hard to get out of the bag and can jam up your blender.  kitchenaid 5 speed blender ksb580I find that if 1/2 of my ingredients have already been flash frozen, I can throw the others in and it still separates easily when I put it in the blender. kitchenaid - artisan ksm150 mixer boysenberryI’d suggest you flash freeze some of your ingredients before putting them in the kits if you don’t have a powerful blender like a Blendtec or Vitamix. Feel free to experiment and add anything you like in smoothies! These are a few items I’ve added in the past. Any fruit (pineapple core is yummy!)

Raw Steel Cut Oats Barlean’s fish oil (also found at Costco) Good quality whey protein (this is what we use) Leave a comment below if you have any additional smoothie add-in ideas! If you’re like me and don’t adore cleaning green mustache faces every morning, we use these Stainless Steel Drinking Straws for our smoothies.  This pack of 6 straws are 100% stainless steel and are rust and scratch proof AND it comes with two cleaning brushes.  Makes clean up so much easier in the morning! If mornings are hard in your house and you’re looking for a way to streamline school lunches, check out my tips and tricks to help your child pack their lunch and not die of frustration.  We have been going strong with this method since September, so I’m calling it a massive success. If you’re looking for more breakfast ideas, check out my Recipe Box.  Some of my most popular recipes include: No-Cook Overnight Steel Cut Oats with Banana, Peanut Butter & Coconut

Homemade Yogurt in the Crockpot Homemade Date Caramel and Vanilla Coffee Creamer Homemade Chocolate Almond Coffee Creamer Make sure to sign up for email updates from This Beautiful Frugal Life so you don’t miss any future awesomeness. Enter your email address in the box below and verify your subscription. Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. When you click on these links, you are supporting this blog. It can knead, mince, grind, steam, chop, pound, and beat, and at £179 is five times cheaper than its closest rival, the Thermomix TM5.Lidl’s Monsieur Cuisine has been flying off the shelves since its launched last month, selling out across Europe as home cooks scramble to get their hands on the inexpensive kitchen gadget.But can the cut-price alternative really match the £925 TM5 when it comes to the crunch?FEMAIL's Sheyna Zaid Lam puts them both through their paces. The writer with the £179 Monsieur Cuisine from Lidl (left)  and the £925 TM5 Thermomix (right)

Butter: The result from Monsieur Cuisine (left) came out creamier and smoother than the butter made in the TM5 (right), which had the consistency of cheese and was crumblyI had known about Thermomix for a while now from friends who swear by it. In France and Spain, it is considered so essential that it is de rigueur for most newly-weds to receive it as a wedding present.I was very curious to see if the Monsieur Cuisine could keep up with the Thermomix, or whether there would be justification for that hefty £746 price difference.I pitted the TM5, Thermomix's latest incarnation, against the Monsieur Cuisine in a series of challenges specifically designed to compare the two appliances. The first challenge was to grind down nutmeg. Sounds simple, but nutmeg is one of the hardest spices around, so this would really test the blade capability in both machines. I put a few nutmeg seeds (from the same pack) into the respective machines and in under a minute, the TM5 had produced a fine, evenly ground nutmeg powder. 

The Monsieur Cuisine's product, however, was more grainy and uneven and also seemed slightly damp. Nutmeg: Monsieur Cuisine produced a slightly damp result (left) whilst TM5's was evenly ground and fineI placed 350g of feather blade steak into each machine and in under 20 seconds, both gave me mince. I was not a fan of the consistency of the mince achieved in both, which was slightly mushy, almost paste-like.It would be fine for burgers and meatballs, but I wasn't so sure about making Bolognese with it.Also, it has to be mentioned that the TM5 did a slightly better job at this as there were still one or two slightly larger chunks in the Monsieur Cuisine and the tendon and sinew were not quite cut up in it. Grinding meat: Both the Monsieur Cuisine (left) and the TM5 (right) produced mushy, paste-like minceMaking mayonnaise in the TM5 was a straightforward task. I used the Recipe Chip provided (a magnetic, electronic chip that gives step-by-step instructions on the touch screen), and within 10 minutes, had creamy, delicious mayo.

The Monsieur Cuisine took me two attempts to get right. The first try, using the recipe from their complimentary cookbook, failed (the oil and egg yolk did not emulsify) and I ended up with a runny, vinegary mess in the blending jug that also leaked out unto the base.Not to be defeated, I tried again with the Monsieur Cuisine, using the recipe from the Thermomix cookbook, and voila... mayonnaise. Despite using the exact same recipe, the end product by the Monsieur Cuisine was slightly runnier and did not hold as well. Mayonnaise: Monsieur Cuisine's mayo (left) was slighly runnier and took the writer two attempts to make. When she used the TM5  she had creamy mayo (right) in ten minutesThis was the perfect test for the whisk attachments that accompany both the Thermomix and Monsieur Cuisine. They are slightly different by design and I was interested to see if this would make a significant difference in the end product. The butter made with the TM5 was delicious, but was slightly more crumbly, more similar in texture to cheese than butter.

However, the butter churned in the Monsieur Cuisine came out creamier, smoother and softer. A clear win for the Monsieur Cuisine here.Both made very similar, gluey mash, with some residual small lumps in them. This wasn't really a surprise as both machines use a blending motion to puree the potato. This releases copious amounts of starch into the mixture, inevitably resulting in that glue-like concoction. Fine, if you don't mind it that way, but not great if you prefer your potato mash to be light and fluffy. I,personally, will stick to manually pushing it through a ricer. Pizza dough: Making pizza dough using TM5 (left) was an easier process compared to the Monsieur Cuisine (right) The writer made a strawberry tart with shortcrust pastry as the base The Thermomix comes with a 'dough' function that removes the need to knead any dough mixtures by hand. This is something that the Monsieur Cuisine lacks and I was interested to see if it did indeed make a difference. As was now the norm, using the TM5 was super simple and fuss free, especially with the help of the ingenious Recipe Chip.

In the Monsieur Cuisine, it was more complicated. I had to weigh in all the ingredients on a separate scale (the Thermomix has a built in scale which makes a noticeable difference when washing up).I also found that I had to scrape down the sides manually a few more times with the spatula and fiddle with the controls to make sure that the dough was mixed thoroughly as the Monsieur Cuisine lacks the ‘dough’ function. Having said that, my husband could not tell the difference between the two products in a blind taste test, as both pizza bases were crisp and tasty. Piz-za pie: The writer's husband could not tell the difference between the pizzas (pictured) when he tried them in a blind tasting I had never made a tart case before, so was slightly nervous about this challenge. But one thing I've discovered is that the Thermomix is perfect for these first-time attempts as the recipes provided work well with very little hassle and anxiety.Once again, the process was much simpler with the TM5 compared to the Monsieur Cuisine. 

As for the end product, both pastries turned out to be absolutely lovely. Although I preferred the one made in the Thermomix, the difference was almost imperceptible and only, I believe, down to a difference in recipe (I used ones given in the respective cookbooks provided) and nothing to do with the machine's work capabilities. Seabass with ginger, spring onions and baby fennel before being steamed (left) and after cooking (right)  This last challenge is something that I make all the time using my traditional Chinese steamer. I wanted to see if the TM5 and Monsieur Cuisine could produce similarly good results and how much they would (if they could), simplify the procedure. Both machines worked equally well. However, I am deducting points off the overall result for the amount of time needed in both. In my traditional steamer, the dish takes all of eight mins as I can simply pour boiling water into the bottom of the steamer. I also found that neither was easier to use than my traditional steamer.     

5/5 3/5 5/5 3.5/5 2.5/5 4/54.5/5  3/54/5 5/5 4.5/5     1/5 2.5/5 3/5 5/5 2.5/5 4/5 4/5 3/53/52/5 2.5/5   In conclusion, the TM5 is a beautiful machine that is clever, beautifully designed and very well made, making cooking truly a much simpler affair.The little touches such as the in-built-scale and the electronic Recipe Chip result in shorter cooking times and much less clearing up after, and all those recipes/ideas that initially may have seemed too scary and complicated, are now within easy reach.As for the Monsieur Cuisine, it can certainly do most of what the Thermomix is capable of. But not everything and more importantly, not quite as well.And the little functions that it lacks, such as the scale and the recipe chip, were keenly felt. It was also not as well designed and well-made as the TM5. Finally, the instructions and cookbook that accompanied the Monsieur Cuisine were inadequate.Recipes do not work properly, and the instructions given are insufficient to allow the user to use the machine easily and properly from the time of purchase.