Tag: healthyeating

Saintly Reese’s Shake

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Reese’s is my absolute favorite chocolate bar! Anytime there is a combo of chocolate and peanut butter, I’m there!

This Shake has quickly become my favorite post workout recovery. Frozen banana and cauliflower rice make for an extra creamy texture, and you’d think this a milkshake. Just slice up a banana and freeze overnight. And for the caul rice, just blitz half of a head of cauliflower in a food processor until fine.

Full of nutrients to refuel, I will be drinking this a lot! You can purchase any IdealFit product on their site and be sure to use the discount code CARMEL10 for savings (who doesn’t love saving?!).

Saintly Reese’s Shake

Ingredients: unnamed-11.jpg

1 frozen banana

3 heaped tablespoons cauli rice

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon honey/agave nectar/maple syrup*

1 1/2 teaspoons cacao powder

1 scoop chocolate protein powder, I used IdealFit Chocolate Brownie

1 1/2  tablespoons IdealFit Peanut Butter Powder

1/2 cup vanilla almond/soy milk*

Method:

Put all ingredients in your blender and bitz, scraping down the sides, until smooth! Drizzle almond butter on the sides of a tall glass, and top with coconut cream, chia seeds, and nuts.

*If you like your Smoothies on the sweeter side add a teaspoon more of your sweetener

*If the frozen bananas aren’t breaking down, add a few tablespoons of water

 

 

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Fake Away: Mongolian Beef with Sesame Cauli Rice

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I made this Fake Away a couple of weeks ago, and after some tweaking it’s finally ready to share! I am quite obsessed with cauliflower, can you tell? I use it in everything, even in smoothies when I don’t have an avocado or banana on hand, it adds a thickness.

This is a quick and delicious alternative to the traditional take away.

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Mongolian Beef

Ingredients:

Serves 3

1 lb flank steak (buy in strips or slice; I bought in cubes), or replace with mushrooms or tofu

1/4 cup cornstarch or flour

1/3 cup of soy sauce or coconut aminos

2 tbsp coconut oil

1/2 white onion, diced

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1/2 cup water

6 tbsp honey

1/2 tsp grated ginger

mix of bell sliced bell peppers

Method:

In a measuring cup or small bowl, whisk the soy sauce, ginger, honey and water until well combined.

unnamed-9Heat the coconut oil in a large sauce pan over medium heat. Sautee the onion and garlic until soft.

Pour the soy sauce mixture into the sauce pan. Let it come to the boil, then add your cornstarch or flour. Continue to whisk until the mixture thickens, this should take about 2-3 minutes.

Add the meat, being aware not to overcrowd the pan and pieces of meat. Cook through. Then add your vegetables. Serve over Sesame Cauliflower Rice.

Sesame Cauli Rice

Ingredients:

1 head of cauliflower

1/2 of white onion, diced

1 clove of grlic minced

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 tablespoon vinegar

Method:

In a food processor, blitz a head of cauliflower until flour like consistency.

In a pan, sautee onion and garlic in a tablespoon of coconut oil. Add sesames seeds. Then add cauli rice and sautee until slightly golden. Pour in vinegar and stir. Top with Mongolian Beef.

Enjoy!

 

 

 

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Healthy No Bake Red Velvet Cookies

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Last week I gave a food demo, my second one, at the San Francisco Public Library. It was a Valentine’s Day themed demo, with “Heart Smart Treats”.  I took classic desserts and put a healthy spin on them. Each dessert is packed with nutritional value including protein, antioxidants, and vitamins. You could pretty much eat each for breakfast, lunch, and dinner!

The first dessert was a tofu based Cheesecake. Dish number two was a beet based No Bake Red Velvet Cookie Dough. And lastly, an avocado based Chocolate Mousse. I am going to split the desserts up into three blog posts.

The first one I’m sharing is No Bake Healthy Red Velvet Cookie Dough! I ditched process sugar, flour and food coloring to give you this good for you doughp dough! Beets are a great source of antioxidants, potassium(essential for nerve and muscle function), an anti-inflammatory, and so much more.

Ingredients:unnamed-8

1 beet (*see below)

1/4 cup maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups oat flour (*see below)

3 tbsp coconut/almond flour

Method:

  1. Roast the beets, no oil, no seasoning. (So there is a little oven use, but if you do this on a meal prep day, you can roast a couple of beets and use throughout the week in salads/other main dishes!)
  2. In a mixing bowl, combine dry ingredients. When the beet is done, let cool. Add to the food processor with about 2-3 tablespoons of water, and puree until smooth.
  3. In a smaller mixing bowl, combine wet ingredients and ONLY HAlF A CUP of the beet puree!
  4. Add the wet ingredients to dry and mix with a wooden spoon(or use your hands and get a bit dirty!) until throughly mixed until it is the consistency of cookie dough. You can also do this step in the food processor!
  5. On a sheet of parchment, roll dough out to 1/4 inch. Using cookie cutters, make different shapes!

*Slowly add more than the half of a cup of beet puree for a raw cookie dough texture

** Slowly add more than the 2 cups of oat flour for more of a shortbread texture

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Spinach Arugula Walnut Pesto

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I’m a sucker for bowls of pasta! When I first started working out and resetting my body, I thought I had to give up my favorite foods. And I sort of do, as processed foods no longer agree with my stomach. So, I experiment and turn my favorite foods into nourishing dishes, that help fuel my workouts and keep me feeling great.  Instead of traditional flour spaghetti noodles, I like to spiralize veggies into pasta noodles! Recently, I purchased a box of Edamame Noodles and LOVE them! The noodles are just made from Edamame, which hold so many benefits, and big bonus, they only take four minutes to cook!

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I’ve been using these noodles with some of my favorite sauces. Last week I made a Lentil Bolognese, and honestly as a meat eater I didn’t even notice a lack of ground beef! I’ll share that Lentil Bolognese later this week, right now I want to share a quick pesto that has some pretty big benefits. A typical pesto usually calls for parmigiano cheese, but I ditched that and used NUTRITIONAL YEAST; and I went with avocado oil instead of olive oil.

Spinach Arugula Walnut Pesto

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups of washed spinach and arugula

1/2 cup of walnuts

2  cloves of garlic

1/4 cup of nutritional yeast

Big pinch of Himalayan salt

Roughly 1/3 cup of avocado oil

Method

In a food processor, blend all the ingredients EXCEPT  the oil until it’s a paste. Then slowly add the oil.

Enjoy tossed in your favorite pasta or salad!

 

Saintly Layered Reese’s Tart

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A year ago you would have found me eating bars of chocolate like Cadbury’s or Hershey’s  was going out of business! I ate out of stress, boredom, and portion control didn’t even cross my mind. My weakness was a big bag of Galaxy Minstrels(yikes!) or a tray of three Reese’s(yikes, again!) and Barry’s Tea at the end of the day. While I still have a sweet tooth, I like to experiment with ways chocolates and sweets can BENEFIT you. And making sweet treats at home allows me to omit sugars and use raw/all natural ingredients.

This Reese’s Tart came A LOT of Date Caramel that I used in a quick snack: Date Caramel Apple Nachos.

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Ingredients

1 cup mixed almonds and cashews

1 cup Date Caramel

1/2 cup mixed walnuts and almonds, roughly chopped

1 cup dark chocolate

Method

Line an 8 inch round baking tin with parchment paper or plastic wrap(the paper or plastic wrap just makes it easier to remove and slice).

In a food processor, add the one cup of almonds and cashews. Pulse until VERY fine. Press into the bottom of the tin. Pop it into the freezer to set for about 7-10 minutes.

Pour Date Caramel evenly over the base, and smooth out. Sprinkle on the roughly chopped walnuts and almonds. Pop it into the freezer for a second time. for a couple of minutes

While the tart is setting, melt the chocolate! You can do whatever is easier: microwave or stovetop. Make sure it totally melted and smooth. Pour the chocolate over the tart, and yep, pop it back into the freezer for about 12-15 minutes or until chocolate is just a little hard.

Slice it up and serve it!