These one-bowl healthy chunky monkey muffins are packed with oats and omega-3 rich ingredients such as flaxseeds, walnuts, and hemp seeds - making for a nutritious, chocolatey snack or dessert. I promise you friends, today's recipe is big on flavor and nutrition! I've been making healthy chunky monkey muffins for awhile now, and I realized that I hadn't shared it with you before.. so here we are! I make it a habit to have nutritious, yummy homemade snacks on hand for the week, and these muffins definitely fall into that category. Omega-3 Rich, Healthy Chunky Monkey Muffins These healthy chunky monkey muffins are vegan and gluten free, and they feature an oat base and are packed with omega-3 fatty acids - an important fat that many people do not eat enough of. In fact, a recent ... [Read More]
banana muffins
Strawberry Banana Muffins with a Cashew Crumble {dairy free + gluten free}
Day-to-day eating habits can be very individualistic. For instance, some people stick to three square meals a day, while others prefer smaller meals and a few snacks throughout the day. Though I have a set of general eating "rules" that I recommend for everyone, when I get asked what's best in terms of frequency of meals, my answer is whatever really feels best for your body. Personally, I'm a smaller meals and snacks kind of girl. I feel best eating something every 3-4 hours, rather than having big meals. The latter leaves me feeling like I can't digest my food easily. I've definitely mentioned this before on the blog, and it's the reason why I've shared so many snack recipes! As for my go-to snacks, I like whipping up a smoothie, or eating a yogurt or fruit with nut butter. I also have ... [Read More]
PB & J Banana Muffins {vegan + gf}
As with most food bloggers & writers, I love to bake and cook for loved ones. Whenever we have guests in town, I enjoy feeding them well. A lot of the time when I meet up with girlfriends, I'll bring them some of my latest kitchen creations to try. I show my love for people by making them nutritious, delicious food. When I stay at my parents' house in Jersey, it's fun to make snacks, dinners, and desserts for everyone to enjoy. A few weeks ago when I was there, I was a little off of my Chef Nicole game because I was under the weather, but I still whipped up some yummy recipes for them. One night I made creamy spring veggie & asparagus puree soup for dinner, because I knew my mom would dig it (She did!). I also made my most recently published Shape recipe, blueberry banana Greek ... [Read More]
Healthy Chocolate Chip Matcha Banana Muffins [vegan + gluten free]
This is the story about how I tried three times to create a naturally green recipe and totally failed... but came up with two yummy recipes in the process! St. Paddy's Day is coming up this Friday, and I was actually thinking ahead a few weeks ago when I decided I wanted to come up with a sweet recipe that had a green hue, sans food coloring. I first heard that the chlorophyll in sunflower butter can turn baked goods green when it interacts with baking soda/powder when a friend of mine accidentally wound up with a green colored sunflower butter recipe, so my original idea was to make sunflower butter banana muffins. The result? They did not turn green, and they also turned out a bit dry, so it was a no go. I decided it was possible that because I mixed all of my muffin ... [Read More]
Chocolate Chip Banana Bread Muffins [vegan]
In my household, we eat a lot of bananas. We're not quite up to par with some plant-based eaters that I've come across who routinely eat 10 bananas in a day (whoa right?), but my hubby and I go through around a dozen bananas a week together. I primarily eat them in smoothies, with nut butter, or atop yogurt and smoothie bowls. My hubby usually eats them in his protein shakes or on their own, especially to refuel after he's gone for a run or bike ride. Since we love our naners, it only makes sense that we both dig banana bread! Last weekend I wanted to make a chocolate chip banana bread as part of a gift for our friends' birthday party for their 2-year old - who I remembered loved my banana bread the last time I shared one with them. I have a go-to vegan banana bread recipe that I've made ... [Read More]
Maple Cashew Butter Stuffed Banana Muffins [vegan + gluten free]
Hey friends! Shall we start the week off on a yummy note? More specifically, let's chat about these maple cashew butter stuffed banana muffins - which are all decked out for the holidays because I simply couldn't help myself from nabbing candy cane muffin decor. Between having a very Christmas-y weekend watching both Home Alone and Elf, plus going ice skating (more on that later this week!), along with lighting up my living room with my Christmas tree and fireplace decorations every night and playing nonstop Christmas music as of late, I'm full blown in holiday mode. I can't get enough of it! But back to food. For this recipe, I played around with coconut sugar for the first time with muffins. I was pleased with the result, and will be experimenting with coconut sugar more often moving ... [Read More]