Food Friday – Apple Berry Snacks

Today’s post is going to be a quicky because there is a lot going on here (work, school, yoga retreat, meal planning) basically it is bananas but I didn’t want to leave you all hanging over the weekend. So I whipped up these delicious treats that will help to curb your sweet tooth, fill you up and provide you with loads of vitamins, antioxidants and other feel good stuff for your body.

So without further delay the recipe:

Apple Berry Oatmeal Snacks:

2 cups homemade apple sauce (organic no sugar added store bought is fine too)
1/4 cup blackberry purée
2 1/4 cups organic old fashioned oats
2 tbsp chia seeds

1. Preheat oven to 350
2.Combine everything in one large bowl. There is no real science to this so just toss it all in and stir it up.
3. Grease a mini muffin tray with coconut oil. These little guys will stick if the pan isn’t greased.
4. Scoop about one TBSP into each of the little muffin spaces. It should make between 22-24 snacks.
5. Place tin in preheated oven and cook for 25minutes. The centers should be spongy but not oozing.
6. Allow them to cool and the. Serve.

I hope you all enjoy this one.

Have a great Friday!

Food Friday – Maple Punkin Muffins

So it has been some time since I have shared a recipe and today as I was doing some baking to get myself ready for the up coming week I extreme amounts of pumpkin puree left over so I decided to start experimenting and to see if I could come up with something.

This is the time of the year of pumpkin EVERYTHING so I figured why not join the bandwagon and see if I could come up with a healthy protein filled snack that would be great for on the go.  Seeing how my husband is normally my test subject I figured I would play up a flavour that he loves.  So I went with maple.

I do what I can to sub out cane sugar, brown sugar, stevia and the like when I can and I try to go for things like pure maple syrup or organic honey they just feel more natural to me and well it worked out for this experiment.

So without further ado here’s the recipe….

Maple Punkin Muffins

Dry Ingredients:

2 cups organic gluten free rolled oats
2 scoops natural protein powder
2 Tbsp chia seeds
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 tsp sea salt
1.5 tsp baking powder

Wet Ingredients:

1 mashed banana
1/2 cup pumpkin puree
2 Tbsp pure maple syrup or organic honey
2 tsp maple extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350.

2. Mix all dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside.  In a small bowl combine wet ingredients and be sure to really mash the banana.

3. Pour wet ingredients into bowl of dry ingredients and mix until everything is completely combined.

4. Line a muffin tray with muffin liners and fill them.  The muffins don’t rise much they are fairly dense so don’t be worried about over filling them.  There is enough batter for 12 muffins.

5. Place in pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes.  Remove allow them to cool and enjoy.

Food Friday – Breakfast Muffins

The other week I was having a conversation with a friend of mine about her breakfast. She was not getting full off of her smoothies and cooking eggs every morning with a 15 month old child was kind of out the question for her. So it got me to thinking about what could be made ahead to grab and go on a hectic morning to help encourage serial breakfast skippers from missing their first meal of the day.

I mean there is granola, pre-packaged homemade oatmeal, hard boiled eggs, protein shakes and the list goes on but sometimes these items don’t hit the spot. So I figured I would take a crack at making a muffin. Now before I dive in here I feel like I need to share my opinion of muffins in general. I personally feel that muffins are just miniature cakes that people forgot to put icing on because the icing would well make it a cupcake.

Sure yes there are healthy muffins out there but I am talking about the ones you are buying at Starbucks and Tim Hortons and basically any other prepared muffin, they aren’t great for you. So anyways I decided I would try and make a gluten free, refined sugar free, and oil free muffin. The first one turned out alright but I didn’t find it to be sweet or moist enough, luckily with just a couple tweaks I was able to find something that worked, was delicious and good for you.

Sweet Potato Breakfast Muffins

Makes 12 muffins – 1 muffin per serving
Nutritional Information: 110.2 calories – 3.9g fat – 15.1g carbs – 3.6g fiber – 4.3g protein

1 cup Mashed Sweet Potato/ Yam (no butter or milk just the potato)
2 Bananas mashed
3 Eggs
1 tsp Vanilla
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/4 tsp Baking Soda
Pinch of Salt
1 cup oat flour
2 tbsp ground Chia Seeds
1/3 cup ground Flax Seed
1/3 cup Pumpkin Seed

1. Preheat oven to 375.
2. In a large mixing bowl, mix all wet ingredients together until smooth.
3. In a separate bowl combine dry ingredients until combined, and then mix dry ingredients into the large mixing bowl with wet ingredients. Stir until well combined, about 2 minutes with an electric mixer.
4. Line muffin tin with muffin liners. Fill muffin cups up about 3/4th of the way and pop them into the oven. They will cook for 25-30 minutes. Remove when a toothpick can be inserted into the middle and comes out clean.

I hope you enjoy these muffins  and they help to make your breakfasts and snacks a bit easier.  Pair them up with some protein and vola!

Happy Friday! I hope everyone enjoys the heat, and the weekend!

Food Friday – PB Banana Oat “Cookies”

So today is Day 3 in our Gingersneezes Eats Clean challenge and I hope it is going well for everyone. Depending on what your eating habits were prior to starting this challenge you might be feeling some sugar withdraws which probably aren’t super fun, but stick with it and soon they will pass I promise.

Personally I find the first 4-7 days the most difficult during of a challenge or a cleanse or a new way of eating. I always find it is during those days that I just want to call it what it is and maybe you know “start again next Monday”. Part of what I find so amazing about clean eating is that I rarely get this feeling, because I am not being deprived of anything. So if you are feeling deprived what I recommend is writing out what you are really missing, and then just doing some quick research to see how you could make yourself a clean version of that. There are options out there for everything, so if you want something sweet, salty, crunchy, warm, filling there is a clean eating option out there for you. It might take a bit more work than opening a box but just think how much more delicious it will be if you make it with your own hands.

For the past week, I have been dealing with some stomach/abdominal issues so I haven’t been able to eat much but yesterday I started feeling like I wanted something sweet and not just another apple, so instead of breaking and getting a chocolate bar I made some delicious PB Banana Oat cookies. I had been seeing banana oat cookies floating around the blogosphere for a while and I decided to give them ago seeing my stomach had been handling bananas pretty well. These are so easy and naturally flavoured.

PB Banana Oat Cookies
Makes 15-20 cookies

3 Ripe Bananas mashed
2 cups rolled oats
2 tbsp Natural Peanut Butter

1. Preheat oven to 350 degree.
2. In a large bowl mash bananas until smooth, add in 2 cups of rolled oats and stir until mixed. Add in peanut butter and stir until combined.
3. Using two spoons scoop mixture and fold into balls. Place on sheet about 1/2 inch apart, the cookies won’t grow. If you are worried about sticking spray the pan with some olive oil or use coconut oil to coat the bottom. I didn’t use any oil and the cookies came off the baking sheet just fine.
4. Place in pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes until they firm up.

I hope these help to satisfy your sweet tooth if you are having a bit of a snack attack. Let me know what your cravings are, and how you are coping with them. If you need ideas I am always here to help.

Happy Friday everyone!

Grab and Go Breakfast

After a short, okay okay LONG hiatus from providing you guys and gals with delicious healthy recipes I am back, and I am back with what my husband called my “winning” granola bar recipe.  And if I do say so myself they are delicious. So I know I have shared a couple granola bar or protein bar recipes but this one is a little different. Why is it different you ask, well I recently found these shelled pumpkin and sunflower seeds online by GoRaw, they were gluten and most importantly NUT FREE!  For those of you out there with tree nut or peanut allergies you will understand how difficult it is to find a seed without the dread “processed in a plant that also processes tree nuts and peanuts” warning at the bottom of the ingredients list.

So having found these glorious seeds I went to work right away filling up my online shopping cart with as many bags as I could afford, only to find out for whatever reason they don’t distribute in Canada. I can’t get local stores to put them on their shelves, I can’t get them shipped from amazon.com and they wont send them over from their direct webpage. So Go Raw if you are out there in cyber space this is my plea to you, please do what you can so that us allergic folk can get in on your products in Canada!

Luckily for me my soul mate, sister, and forever friend lives in the states, so she just went on down to her local Whole Foods and scooped me up a couple bags of their seeds and their granola  for me…all of which is completely delicious by the way.

So all of this to say, my granola bar recipe this time around is more “well rounded” getting some of its protein from seeds instead of protein powder and I did everything I could to keep it as natural and delicious as possible. Also for this recipe I am going to do something I haven’t done in a while, I am going to post the nutritional information, mainly because they are super tasty and therefore they are easy to over indulge on them.   These little guys are packed with protein and flavour so I really hope you all enjoy them.

Serving 20 – (Breakdown Per Serving: 331.2 calories – 17g total fat (5.3g Saturated Fat) – 36.3g carbs – 6.5g fiber – 11.6g sugar – 10.8g protein 

Dry Ingredients:

3 cups Old Fashioned Large Oats
1/4 cup Sunflower Seeds
1/4 cup Pumpkin Seeds
1/4 cup Ground Flax Seed
1/4 cup Chia Seeds (whole)
1/2 cup Raisins or Craisins (just make sure no extra sugar was added)
1/2 cup Unsweetened Coconut

Wet Ingredients:

1/2 cup Natural Chunky Peanut Butter
1/4 cup Organic Maple Syrup
1/4 cup Organic Unsweetened Apple Sauce
1 cup Soy Milk
2 eggs
1 tsp Vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl mix together all dry ingredients in a large bowl.
3. In a medium sized bowl whisk together all wet ingredients, once combined fold wet ingredients into the try and thoroughly mix together.
4. Line a large glass casserole dish with parchment/wax paper (don’t make the mistake I did and under estimate the size of the pan required, you will probably need at least an 12×8 or 3L dish).
5. Press the granola bar mixture into the lined dish, the granola bars should be about 1 inch thick.  Place in oven and cook for 25 to 30 minutes.
6. Once cooked (should be a bit of a spongy texture when you press on them), allow to cool before cutting (at least 15 minutes of cooling before taking a knife to them).  Great for eating right away, or storing in the fridge for breakfast all week.   They will also freeze well for consumption later on.

Gingerbread Protein Bars

Earlier this week I tried to make some Gingersneezes gluten free, refined sugar free cookies, after them turning into more of a holiday fail cookie and being thoroughly disappointed in my attempt I decided that I would try my hand at another protein bar recipe with a holiday twist. They unlike the holiday Gingersneezes cookie turn out fabulous!

Gingerbread Protein Bars

Serves: 9

2 cups Old Fashioned Oats
2 scoops Chocolate Protein Powder
2 tsp Cinnamon
3 tsp Ginger
½ tsp Nutmeg
¼ cup ground chia seed.
1 egg
½ cup unsweetened Organic Apple Sauce
¼ cup Dark Old Fashioned Molasses
1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line an 11×7 casserole dish with parchment paper.
2. In a large bowl combine oats, protein, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and chia seeds.
3. In a medium bowl combine egg, apple sauce, molasses and vanilla, stir together.
4. Fold liquid mixture into the oats. Stir until all the oats are completely covered in the molasses mixture.
5. Transfer mixture into the casserole dish; ensure oats are spread evenly in the dish.
6. Place in oven for 25-30minutes until they begin to harden, be careful not to overcook or the bars will become very hard.
7. Remove from oven and allow to cool for 10-15minutes, cut into bars before the dish has completely cooled, and ENJOY.

This snack is perfect to take with you as a post gym snack especially if you are pumping some iron these little guys are packed with protein. They are also great as a grab and go breakfast.

Hope everyone is having a great Friday!

Friday Food Time

Let’s get into it, the most important meal of the day, BREAKFAST!  Now I am a huge fan of breakfast, mostly because if I don’t eat it I feel like throwing up and passing out, but also because there are so many delicious options out there to choose from.  From a quick protein shake in the morning because I am running out of time to get ready, to an egg sandwich and oatmeal when I have a bit more time.   With the winter months coming (they have already arrived for some) I wanted to make a nice hardy style meal that would be easy to grab and go when you are in a hurry.

So here it is:

Peanut Butter Blueberry Protein Oat Bars
Makes 6 servings

Ingredients:

3 cups Old-Fashioned Oats
2 tsp Cinnamon
2 Eggs
2 cups Plain Rice or Soy Milk
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbsp Natural Peanut Butter
2 Scoop Chocolate Protein Powder
1 tsp Chia Seeds
1/2 cup Blue Berries
2 tbsp Organic Maple Syrup or agave

1. Preheat oven to 375°F.
2. Coat an 8×8-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
3. In a large bowl, combine old-fashioned oats, cinnamon  and gluten free flour.
4. In a medium bowl, beat eggs and add plain rice milk, vanilla, natural peanut butter, chocolate protein powder, chia seeds, blue berries.
5. Add to the oats, pour mixture into dish, and bake for 30 minutes.
6. Drizzle with maple syrup or agave.

Happy Friday Everyone!!! Have a wonderful weekend.