Sunshine Immunity Defense Smoothie with Blendtec

Nothing says happy spring break like a walloping spring flu, am I right? Iley went down the first 3 days before his school break started last week, then it hit dad on Easter, and now I'm feeling a scratchy throat coming on. Ugh. Well, at least this delicious wellness smoothie came to fruition because of it. It feels like you're drinking liquid sunshine, and is so refreshing and revitalizing when your immune system is not at its best.

You'll notice a shiny new blender in this post by Blendtec. It's a dream! And it couldn't have come at a better time as our old blender puttered out recently. The model shown here is their stainless Designer 725 model which comes with their Wildside+ Jar. It features a super easy-to-use touch screen panel with six preprogrammed custom cycles: Smoothie, Salsa, Ice Cream, Whole Juice, Hot Soup, and Clean. I used the Smoothie cycle for this recipe. I use the 100-speed touch slider feature most often though, which allows you to control the blend speed as you slide your finger across the slider from stirring, chopping, mixing, blending, or pureeing. The Clean setting makes cleaning the jar a snap, just add hot water and a tiny bit of dish soap and it will clean itself. I was surprised to find that the blades are not sharp, but it doesn't seem to matter, this powerful machine blends up coconut meat in a snap. It also came with Blendtec's new Twister Jar, which is perfect for thicker purees like nut butter and hummus. Excited to create some new recipes with that soon.

This smoothie is packed with vitamin C from mango, strawberries, citrus, and rosehips and I even threw in a 1000mg vitamin C supplement to ensure maximum results. Looking through the pantry for other immune boosters to add, I pulled out turmeric for its strong antioxidant and powerful anti-inflammatory effects. I also happened to have rosehip powder on hand so I added some of that because rosehips are loaded with Vitamin C. Although this smoothie would taste fine without a sweetener, I wanted to add a bit of our raw backyard honey because it contains anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties and is a powerful sore throat soother. A bit of extra-sweetness will make this blend more enticing to kids' palettes too. Lastly, I added a little bit of super nutritious bee pollen which contains nearly all nutrients required by humans, including proteins, free amino acids, and vitamins, including the B-complex, and folic acid. If you'd like to make this vegan-friendly then simply omit the honey and bee pollen.