Chocolate Cream Pie w/ a Hint of Coconut

Ohmygosh! This is probably my best recipe to date. If you're trying to introduce "regular" people to healthy desserts, make this. Now. Seriously. Oh, what's that? You need a recipe. Here you go...

Ingredients 
Pie Filling
1 can full fat coconut milk (leave in the fridge overnight to harden & pour out excess coconut liquid next day)
1/4 package silken tofu 
1/4 cup cocoa powder (unsweetened)
1/2 cup sweetener (I used raw coconut sugar)
1 tablespoon cashew butter

Almond Crust
3 cups almond meal
Enough water to make a cookie dough type texture

In a food processor, combine all pie ingredients. If it is quite thick, add a touch of water. Next combine almond meal and water to form pie crust. Press crust into pie pan. Pour pie mixture onto crust and freeze until texture is firm, but not frozen. Time will vary, depending on your freezer. Once firm, remove from freezer and cut into 10 equal slices.

That's all for this delicious recipe! All you have to do now, is enjoy the pie. I don't really need to say anything in this post, because the pie really speaks for itself. Yes, it's that good. I, unfortunately, don't have any pictures to share, as it was gone too fast! Let me know what you think in the comments below. Until next time!

Foods We Avoid That Are Good for Us

Today, I wanted to discuss some foods that we are taught to avoid, but that are actually good for us. The media has given so many nutritious foods a bad rap! We are so influenced by the media, that one does not stop to think if the information it is giving is true or false. 

#1: Eggs- Yes, they have cholesterol, but that doesn't make them bad! There are 2 types of cholesterol. LDL (Low density lipoprotein), which is the bad guy, and HDL (high density lipoprotein), which is the good guy. Eggs happen to contain HDL cholesterol, protein, omega 3's and healthy fats, making them an awesome meal choice.

#2: Peanut butter- Food is going to have fats, that's just how it works! What matters, though, is the type of fat in the food. Peanut butter contains mono-unsaturated and poly-unsaturated fats (aka "healthy" fats). Besides healthy fats, peanut butter also contains protein. So, put down the magazine and pick up the peanut butter!

#3: Pasta- It's okay to have carbs. There is no need to completely cut carbs out from your diet! Pasta (as long as it's whole wheat) is an awesome choice. It's filling and will give you quick energy. Not only will it provide you with energy, it also contains fiber, protein, and a multitude of vitamins. 

#4: Chocolate- Chocolate is not bad for you! As long as it is high quality and low or no sugar. It contains healthy fats, antioxidants and can help to improve heart health. And no, teens, chocolate will not give you acne. Sugar will. If you cannot find low sugar chocolate bars/chips, simply make your own. Chocolate Covered Katie has an awesome, super easy recipe here.

Question of the day: What's you favourite "unhealthy" food?
Mine has to be the warm gingerbread cake with gingerbread glaze that my grandma makes at Christmas time. Omygosh, it's seriously like the best stuff in the entire world. Words cannot even describe how good the cake and glaze are. Maybe I'll try to healthify it one day...

That's it for today! If you have anything to add, please feel free to comment down below. 

Buttery Mango, Coconut & Banana Muffins

First of all, sorry for the lack of posts this week. School starts tomorrow, so life has been enormously busy! Hopefully, I will try to post every 2nd day. Anyways, on to the muffins! Super moist and buttery tropical muffins. Like a smoothie, but better. Yes, I said it. Better than a smoothie. Forgive me :) The mango, banana and coconut flavors really compliment each other. The sweetness of mango and banana balance out undertones of coconut. Gosh, it sounds like I'm talking about a Slatkin & Co. candle! Moving on. Perhaps you could substitute the mango for papaya? Or the ever-classic strawberry banana combo. These are just suggestions, which I haven't personally tried, but if you do, let me know how they turn out! On to the recipe...

Ingredients
3/4 cup fresh or frozen mango, pureed (I used frozen, and found that adding a bit of water really helped to pulverize it better)
3/4 cup mango, chopped (again, I used frozen)
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp honey
1 cup oat bran
1 cup flour
1 banana, chopped into fourths (chop banana in half, then in half again. Next, cut small chunks and voila!)
1 cup liquid (I used 1/2 cup almond milk, 1/2 cup water)
2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp earth balance "butter"
1/2 cup flaked coconut 

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Puree mango in a food processor or high powder blender. Pour puree into mixing bowl and add in the brown sugar. Chop up the other mango into small chunks. Slowly stir in the rest of the ingredients. Disperse batter evenly amongst 12 greased muffin tins. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until edges or golden. 

Question of the day: Are you excited to go back to school? (And if you're not in school, how about work?)
To be completely honest with you, I'm excited to get back to school. Mostly to see and hang-out with friends (duh!). I'm also excited to get my class schedule. I'm sure a few weeks from now, when I'm bogged down with homework, I'll be saying "Get me outta here!"

On another note, hope you like this recipe. Let me know your opinions, thoughts or requests!  

Banana Almond Muffins

Clearly there's too many bananas in my house... I think I need a banana intervention. But they make everything taste so good! Today I have an awesome banana honey almond muffin recipe. These are healthy, yummy, and perfect for an on-the-go snack. For an autumn twist, you could probably add pumpkin puree instead of banana and pecans instead of almonds. Obviously, I can't vouch for this flavor, as I haven't tried it. Next time I'm at the grocery store, I'll pick up some pumpkin and try it out! On to the recipe...

Ingredients
3/4 cup wheat bran
2 scoops your choice of protein powder
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup water
1 tbsp honey (or more, depending on your sweet tooth, or in my case, lack thereof!)
2 tbsp chopped almonds
2 tbsp almond meal/flour
1 packet stevia
1/2 dropper liquid vanilla flavored stevia
1/2 tsp baking powder
3 bananas, lightly mashed (about 1.5 cups)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Lightly mix all ingredients together. Muffins tend to get gummy, or dense if the batter is over-mixed, so make sure not to. Disperse evenly amongst 12 greased or lined muffin tins. Bake for around 25-30 minutes.

Question of the day: What's your favourite flavor?
I would have to say cake batter! I cannot get enough. 2 of my favourite cake batter recipes are Chocolate Covered Katie's "Cake Batter Energy Bars" and her "Cake Batter Milkshake". They are so yummy! 

Picture Courtesy of Chocolate Covered Katie

That's all for today! Hope you guys like this recipe. Let me know in the comments what you think. Also, if you have any questions, shoot them my way! Enjoy your long weekend :)

Grandma's Banana Bread: Healthified

Warm banana bread, fresh out of the oven. Soft centre, crispy outside... Could it get any better? Oh yes it can! This is my version of Grandma's banana bread & it's completely guilt-free. Not to mention delicious! The resident banana bread monster My little brother ate six pieces. Yes, the same brother mentioned here. Again, I conveniently forgot to mention this was healthy... Until he scarfed down the aforementioned 6 pieces. He didn't believe me. Neither did my mum. Nor my dad. I really want to curl up with tea and this banana bread in front of the fireplace. Unfortunately, I can't do that. Because there is no more banana bread left. I guess I'll just have to make some more. Oh, and yes, I just started a sentence with "because". See what two and a half months away from school does to me?

Ingredients 

2 1/4 cups flour (I used whole wheat)

2 tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup coconut sugar 

1/3 cup maple syrup

2 flax eggs (soak 2 tbsp flax in 6 tbsp water for 2 minutes. Equivalent to 2 eggs)

1/2 cup Earth Balance or similar "butter"

1 tsp vanilla

3 bananas, mashed

2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cream together "butter", sugar, maple syrup & flax eggs. Slowly add dry ingredients to mixture & stir to incorporate. Pour into a loaf pan (or you can do muffins) and place in the oven for 45-60 minutes (if making muffins, decrease bake time to around 18-20 minutes). Enjoy!

Question of the day: What's your favourite food?

Mine would probably be peanut butter or cashew butter. They are both addicting. And cashew butter makes stuff taste like cake batter. Yes, you heard me, cake batter. And you can't go wrong with peanut butter. But only the all natural kind. I really don't like the taste of Kraft. It tastes so fake! Peanut butter snob :)

  

YUM!

Hope you like this recipe as much as my family & I did! Let me know in the comments if you make the recipe or have any additions/changes.

Best Healthy/Vegan Peanut Butter Carob Chip Cookies

These. Are. Incredible... And I'm not just being bias. My little brother (who HATES healthy food) ate 4 of these. Four. I didn't tell him they were sugarless though. That's just between me and you :) When no one believed that these were healthy, I knew we had a game-winner on our hands. She shoots, she scores! For example: at 2pm, there were 20 of these. By 4pm that same day, there were 6. I'm gonna stop boasting now and just get to the recipe.

Ingredients

1 cup flour 

1 cup oats

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 cup agave syrup

2 tbsp milk of choice (I used almond)

1 tsp vanilla 

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/4 cup carob chips

Preheat oven to 400°F. Stir together all ingredients, starting with dry ingredients & ending with wet. Make sure to put in the carob chips very last. Take a few (or 10, in my case) nibbles, just to make sure it's safe. Form into ball-shapes & place onto cookie sheet. Flatten each cookie with a fork & bake for 8-10 minutes. Let cool for about 10 minutes. Most importantly, enjoy! 

Question of the day: What's your favourite kind of cookie dough? 

Mine was always the Pillsbury chocolate chip cookie dough. You know, the kind that comes already made and all you have to do is bake them? My parents always wondered where the cookie dough went. Upon finding out it was me, they always told me I was going to get worms in my belly, but somehow cookie dough still magically disappeared ;)

That's all for today. Hope you like this recipe, & let me know in the comments below if you have any recipe requests or changes you made to this recipe.  

Vegan Hot Chocolate Oatmeal

I know, I know; another oatmeal recipe. You'll forgive me once you try this one out... It takes exactly like hot chocolate. No joke! It gets better though. Not only are these oats completely guilt-free, but they are also vegan. I would recommend using a high quality cocoa powder, such as Hershey's or Ghirardelli. If you want an even greater resemblance to hot chocolate you could use whip cream (vegan or otherwise). Another recommendation, adding cocoa powder to the whip cream... Chocolate whip cream! I personally haven't tried the above variations, so I can't vouch for the flavor. I can, however, vouch for the flavor of the original oatmeal, which is yum-tastic! Let me know if you try any of the variations & how they taste.

Ingredients

1/3 cup oats

1 1/4 cup liquid (I used 1/2 cup almond milk, 3/4 cup water)

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp carob chips 

1 tbsp cocoa powder, unsweetened 

1.5 tbsp water

stevia, or other sweetener to taste (I used 5 packets Krisda stevia) 

In a small saucepan on high heat, combine the first 3 ingredients (oats, liquid & vanilla). While the oats are cooking, combine carob chips, cocoa powder & water in a small bowl. Stir until thick, saucey consistency is reached. Add in half of your chosen sweetener. When oats are cooked (almost all liquid absorbed) pour into a separate, larger bowl. Stir in the chocolate mixture from earlier, and the remaining half of sweetener. Enjoy! 

Variations:
Peanut butter hot chocolate: Add 1 tbsp of peanut butter

Coconut hot chocolate: Add 1-2 tbsp flaked or shredded coconut 

Strawberry hot chocolate: Add 1/2 cup chopped strawberries

Banana hot chocolate: Add 1/2 banana broken into 2 segments. Chop 1 segment into fourths and mash the other.