These lovely colourful smoothie recipes have been provided by super Slimpodder and mum of 2 Debbie O’Connor.

There’s a lot for mums to dislike about Halloween, when most children get more sweets and junk food in a day than we would normally give them in a month. But one thing I really like, is that Halloween is a time when picky eaters might be just that little bit more adventurous.  At a Halloween feast, you can serve drinks that are brightly coloured and thick, give them exotic and scary sounding names  – pumpkin squash, zombie blood, slime – and you may find that the little monsters will happily quaff several cupfuls of squished up vegetables that normally they wouldn’t touch with a bargepole.

Here are three of my favourite Halloween smoothie recipes.  They are sweet enough to be delicious for the children, but still contain enough good stuff to make most mums smile. You may even find that the children want to carry on drinking them after Halloween, and they will give your healthy eating regime a boost too!.

For me the main colours of Halloween are red/purple, orange and green, so my smoothie recipes are one of each.

Halloween Smoothie Recipe 1: The Red One  (call it blood or whatever you like)

The main ingredient for a blood red smoothie would be beetroot. Some people find the taste of beetroot to be a bit earthy but you don’t need too much for a really deep coloured smoothie.

I mixed half a peeled beetroot with blood oranges, a carrot and some mint. If you can’t find a blood orange at this time of year, an ordinary one will do, or use some orange juice instead of water.

Because there is a lot of root vegetable in this smoothie, it should definitely be mixed with water or thin juice – you don’t need anything else to make it thick.  Blend for a long time to reduce the number of chewy bits.

Halloween Smoothie Recipe 2: The Green One – Slime

There are lots of healthy green smoothie recipes out there for adults, which taste more virtuous than delicious, but if you are mixing for children you might want a slightly sweeter one.  This one goes down really well with my children.

Mix up a banana, half an avocado, a handful of spinach leaves and some melon (I use frozen melon chunks, as you can use a small handful without ruining a whole melon).  Once again the thickness of this smoothie is provided by the avocado and banana, so water is perfectly fine to mix it with.  The avocado gives this smoothie a really rich, creamy texture – it is easy to pass it off as slimy to the children, but the melon and banana impart a sweet tropical taste which they will hopefully enjoy.

Halloween Smoothie recipe 3: The Orange One

I must admit I cheated a bit on this one, as I found a lovely pre-prepared frozen smoothie mix in Waitrose, consisiting of carrot, mango, kiwi and butternut squash. If you wanted to make this from scratch at Halloween it would be great to use the eyes, nose and mouth of the pumpkin you just carved (you did just carve a pumpkin for your children didn’t you?) instead of the butternut squash.

So anyway, I took the frozen mix and beefed it up with a fresh banana, some fresh orange juice and a little bit of almond milk to make it thicker and a bit more creamy.

So there you have it – three super-spooky smoothie recipes for Halloween.  What will your children be drinking next week, and more to the point will they continue to drink it afterwards?