Healthy Strawberry Banana Chocolate Frosty

It is that wonderful time of year when everything is turning green. Yeah! I love being outside in the wonderful sunshine and soaking it in this time of year. This is a wonderful frosty treat that you can enjoy as the weather starts warming up.  I think it could taste great anytime of year

Ingredients:

2 C  unsweetened Almond milk (I used 3/4 C of kefir to replace 3/4 of almond milk)
30 Ice cubes
1/2  tsp vanilla
2 frozen bananas chopped up
5  frozen strawberries
*1 T unsweentened cocoa  (You could not use the cocoa and make it vanilla instead)
* 1 T honey If you want it sweeter.  I did not add this to mine.

Directions: Makes 3-4 servings
1. Pour in the liquid first. (You may have to make 1/2 the recipe at a time depending on your blender. I did it all at once with my Blendtec. ) Then add the rest of the ingredients. Blend until all combined. Enjoy a wonderful frosty treat.

Chocolate Banana Parfaits

May's Recipe Redux Theme is all about May's Showers. Not the rain kind, but the wedding and baby kind. I (Britney) recently threw a baby shower for a friend and we had all sorts of sweet goodies for people to eat, and a couple of healthy ones too. Sometimes I'm nervous about giving all my healthy goodies to my friends, you know? What if they think that you need sugary cookies/cake/candy buffets to make a party a party? I must admit that I sometimes worry about what they would think. But there really are plenty of delicious, healthy options out there.

Today's treat is definitely a treat, but it is a healthy treat. (I promise!) Chocolate doesn't have to be high in fat. The chocolate granola helps you eat some whole grains, the chocolate yogurt is flavored with cocoa and honey and has the tangy taste of wholesome yogurt, and then you add bananas. And aren't chocolate and bananas just made for each other?

All of your friends should love this treat.

As usual, check out some of the other delicious shower foods shared by our other Recipe Redux partners. They always come up with some great ideas!

Ingredients

Granola

1 C unsweetened flaked coconut

3 C old-fashioned oats

4 T cocoa

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 C honey

1/2 C coconut oil

2 tsp vanilla

* Optional you could add 1 T. peanut butter for a chocolate peanut butter variation.The granola would be great to eat alone too. :)

Yogurt

2 C plain yogurt or greek (you could also use vanilla and leave out honey and vanilla extract)

2 T honey

1 T cocoa

1/2 tsp almond extract

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

and sliced bananas (fresh berries would be a delicious substitution!)

*You could garnish with chopped almonds, whipping cream, and or chocolate chips

 
Directions

1. Start with the granola. Preheat oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Mix together coconut and oats in a bowl.

2. Add cocoa, salt, honey, coconut oil, and vanilla to a sauce pan. Heat, stirring, until just combined. Take off heat and pour over oat mixture. Stir until all combined.

3. Place parchment paper on a cookie sheet. Pour over granola in a thin layer. Bake for 30 minutes. You could stir once during the baking.

4. Mix together yogurt ingredients.

5. Layer the ingredients in a glass just before serving.

Mint and Chip Green Smoothie

I guess it smoothie week at our house. Britney gave me this idea. She had tried a version of this the other night. We both LOVE mint and chocolate. How about a healthy version of it? Yes! This really tasted great.. My family liked it. I hope you do too. :)

Ingredients:
1 C almond milk
1 1/2 frozen chopped banana
2 C fresh spinach
2 C ice cubes
1/2 tsp peppermint extract
1 T honey
1/4 C dark chocolate chips

Directions:
1. Pour in the milk first and then the other ingredients except chocolate chips on top. Blend until nice and creamy. Add the chips and just pulse a couple times to keep the chips in pieces.  Enjoy!

Green Strawberry Banana Smoothie

I have loved having fresh flowers from Mothers Day! We had a really nice Mothers Day. My husband goes all out on Mothers Day, making wonderful food with my children. It is a day we all love, and look forward to. I love being a mother. It is a gift that blesses my life everyday. They are the jewels along with my husband that fill my jewel box.

It was a really warm day yesterday. I am not complaining. I love sunshine. I thought it would be fun to whip up a smoothie to  refresh with. That could go with our dinner. ( I usually have a smoothie in the morning this was a nice change.)  This is what I came up with. It was a great way to eat some of our greens for the day.

Ingredients: Serves 3
12 strawberries
5 basil leaves *optional
1 C spinach
1 frozen banana
1 C plain yogurt
2  C ice cubes
1 tsp vanilla optional

Directions:
1. Blend all together putting in the yogurt and ice first. Blend until all combined and smooth. Enjoy today!.   

Lettuce Chicken Wraps

Good Morning !

Chicken wraps

Good Morning! I was looking out the window this morning, and had to take a picture of it. I love mornings. It is such a peaceful time of day. It is a new beginning too. It is so wonderful to watch the sun come over the mountain. It is a perfect time of day to go on a walk.  My daughter and I planted our garden yesterday. We will proabablly add some more along the way. We got it all planted and it started to rain. It was perfect. It was nice spending time out in the sunshine.

My daughter requested I make these last night. They were delicious. I love using the lettuce to wrap the chicken in. It is a nice way to get some greens into your meal. It is a complete meal you don't really need anything else. It is a fast meal to serve if your chicken and brown rice are already cooked.  

Ingredients: serves 4
1 1/2 C cooked shredded chicken
1 T oil
2 T chili garlic sauce
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 T lime zest
3 T Lime juice
7 T fish sauce
2 T honey
1 tsp salt
3 C cooked brown rice
1/4 C fresh basil chopped
4 green onions chopped
Romaine lettuce leaves washed

Directions:
1. Heat skillet to medium heat, add oil and chicken. Cook and stir a couple minutes.
2. Stir in the garlic sauce, garlic, zest, juice, fish sauce, honey, salt, and brown rice cook and stir about 5 minutes.
3. Stir in basil and green onions. Take off the heat and scoop on to lettuce leaves. Serve.   

Mango Salsa

Happy Graduation Kirsten!

Mango Salsa

It has been a busy and happy couple weeks. One of my daughters graduated from College. :) She is off to Peru for an internship. I don't like the goodbye part, but I am happy for her. My youngest son won region in tennis. :) I had a wonderful relaxing get away with my husband. We enjoyed soaking in the sun, and the warm water. :) My youngest daughter came home for a school break. She has been a wonderful help around the house. She has planted flowers outside. :) Life is very nice. I love my family.

I made this salsa the other day and really enjoyed it.  I loved the added mango. It is hard to go wrong when you use mangos. Yum! It was gobbled up by my family. My daughter took a picture of this. When I get it from her I will post the picture. 

 Ingredients:
4 Diced tomatoes 
2 mango diced
1/4 minced red onion
1 jalapeno pepper minced
3 garlic cloves minced
1/2 C chopped cilantro
juice from 3 limes
salt to taste

Directions: 
1. Combine all the ingredients except the salt.
2. Then stir in the salt a little bit at a time until the desired taste is reached. Serve

How to Make Cookies Healthier

This month for Recipe Redux, we're talking about the subject "To cupcake or not to cupcake." Some of the posts will be delicious cupcakes, and others will be offering other suggestions on handheld treats. We chose the Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie instead.

We don't hate cupcakes, but we don't think they are all they are cracked up to be. You don't get a lot for how much you pay for them, and they aren't that much better than other treats. Delicious treats? Yes. But worth the fad they've created? No.

We'd also like to announce to you our upcoming cook book! We've mentioned a little bit about this on Facebook, but not here. We've been working hard on getting the final edits done to get to the printer. Our publishing company, Familius, has been awesome, and we're so excited!

 

 

 

Isn't the cover so cute!!! You can already preorder the book on Amazon here.

 

One of the main pushes of our cook book is taking recipes that your family knows and loves and making changes that increase the healthiness of the recipe. It's what we do a lot with the recipes on our blog. That's also what we've chosen to do with this month's Recipe Redux.

This Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe is one that I got ages ago off a box of oatmeal. My husband loves Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies, and we've made these several times. But with the exception of the whole grain oatmeal, they're not particularly healthy. But how do you change a recipe?

Step 1: Change out 1 or 2 ingredients

We recommend starting the "healthifying" process slowly. In this case, we've chosen to change the all-purpose flour included in the orignally recipe and change it into whole grain flour. We chose to substitute all-purpose flour with a mixture of whole grain spelt and Kamut flours. Those are both varieties of wheat, so they substitute easily. We could go all crazy and switch out the oils for healthier ones, the sugar for honey, the chocolate chips for dried fruit, and lessen the amount of sugar, but we've chosen to start slow. It's no fun making all those changes and then discovering the whole batch you've just made didn't turn out.

Step 2: Record your Success

We like to do this right on the recipe or in the cook book. Or on the pin, if you've maybe pinned it on pinterest. Just record it somewhere where you'll remember what you've done.

Step 3: Continue with your change, and make new ones

Yay! Your experiment worked! Now continue forward. Don't give up on your healthy changes and find another way to make a change. Our Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies turned out AWESOME! The texture was fantastic. Unfortunately they're all gone. Writing this recipe is making me crave more.

See how simple? There will be more details in our book about how to make specific changes. Now here's the modified recipe:

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

1/2 pound butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups whole grain flour (we used equal parts spelt and Kamut)
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups old-fashioned oats
1 cup chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. Cream together butter and sugars.

3. Mix in eggs and vanilla.

4. Mix together dry ingredients, except oats. Add to wet mixture.

5. Stir in oats and chocolate chips.

6. Scoop 1-inch balls of dough onto cookie sheet.

7. Bake for 7 minutes or until golden brown.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies.