Brownies - Healthy Heart

Tonight was Brownie night. I had a problem this week thinking of ideas as I had marked this down as launch fundraiser but then decided to go for the easy option of selling a cryptic music quiz instead of making things to sell or doing a sponsored anything. (p.s. if you want a quiz give me a shout and I'll e-mail you one.. might be a bit British though)

So I sat in the office checking statements pondering what we would actually do with so little time for preparation!?

I did what any intelligent blogging guider would do... and looked to the Internet for inspiration! On a guiders forum there were suggestions for Healthy Heart/Healthy Eating. One suggestion was to make smoothies.

So I legged it over the road from the office to Sainsbury's supermarket to buy fruit. They had kiwi fruit, bananas, nectarines, grapes, canned pineapple, apple juice, honey and yoghurt.

After a pow-wow where I explained the fundraiser to some pretty excited enthusiastic girls we launched straight into the messy stuff. It turns out that the local school is doing a push on health and healthy eating at the moment so they all know about their 5 a day fruit/veg and the other parts of the badge.

The girls passed out the fruit (2 bananas per six and then one of each other item) and they were to go into their groups and decide amongst themselves which fruits to use. They had to make sure they listened to each other and if there was a Brownie who did not like one of the fruits then they should avoid using that one. They chopped the fruits up (with a butter knife... ).

All the groups came up with a different recipe and with supervision (which slowed it down as I was on my own) whizzed it all up into a smoothie.

We had:
Nectarine, pineapple, yoghurt, honey and banana. This one was the least nice because they went NUTS with the honey while I was helping another six to blend up their recipe. They used too much and then later on I came round and caught one of them pouring extra honey in her cup. She was told immediately to go and wash it down the sink! (I tasted it for proof - it was like syrup and GROSS). When they added a bit of apple juice it was much nicer.

Grape, banana, pineapple and apple juice... .possibly kiwi too (can't really remember). This was pretty nice but mainly tasted like slightly lumpy apple juice.

Nectarine, pineapple, kiwi, banana, grape and apple juice. This was the clear winner. I think the kiwi did it - it was zingy and delicious. It was lucky that sticking EVERYTHING they had been given into a smoothie tasted good. It came from the slowest most giggly group of girls.

And as we finished and I was turning round to shout at the kids to help clear up now I noticed a big group of parents in the doorway! Home time so soon (not a moment too soon?).

It took me a good half hour to wash up and pack away but it was fun and hopefully if I do it again it'll go more smooth-l-ie with more grown up hands on deck.