Hello, hello! How was your weekend? With temperatures in the 80s, mine was a summery few days! My outdoorsy weekend activities included a few hours relaxing at the beach, tennis workout with my hubs, long walk at the park with my pup and gardening work. Indoors, I did some blog and photography work, and the hubs and I watched a movie and a few episodes of our current TV obsessions, House of Cards and Westworld. Who else is into those? We just recently started watching both, so we have a lot of episodes to keep us entertained during low-key nights for awhile! I also got some baking and recipe creation experimenting in, including the recipe I'm sharing today: chocolate chip cherry almond muffins. Actually, over the past week I've been a recipe creatin' machine! It seems like I tend to ... [Read More]
cherries
Cherry Pistachio Energy Balls [vegan, gf]
Hi friends! Today we're talking about nuts and balls! ;-) Everyone has their go-to favorite foods that they're constantly eating, and for me, one of those categories is nuts + nut butters. I usually eat a serving of one on the daily. Healthy fats like nuts keep my belly happy & satisfied. Almond butter and peanut butter are my all-time favorites, and I was pretty into cashews & cashew butter for awhile there. Somehow I tend to forget that I like pistachios too. Recently I was about to whip up a batch of energy balls, and instead of using my go-to nuts of choice, I decided to switch it up and break open a bag of pistachios. ... [Read More]
Cherry Coconut Chocolate Chunk Hemp Granola [gf, vegan]
Happy Hump Day! How's your week going? I've gotten back into the swing of things in SoCal since getting back from vacation. While Mexico was a dream, it's not too shabby coming home when you love where you live, so I can't complain! My work week is a bit more exciting than usual because an East coast friend of mine is in town and will be staying with me for a few days. I love when friends from out of town visit! But I digress, onto food... Question of the day: Coconut - do you love it, hate it, or feel indifferent to it? I used to not like coconut at all, and then all of a sudden last year, I developed a thing for shredded coconut. While I still don't love most coconut flavored things, coconut shreds are now routinely sprinkled on top of my smoothie bowls - hence why I've shared two ... [Read More]
Cocoa Cherry Watermelon Smoothie
Sweet ripe cherries, how I love you so. The same goes for smoothies. While I drink them year-round since I live in SoCal where it never gets really cold, my smoothie habit has been in serious full swing since summer started. I usually drink one a day, and lately my smoothies have been extra summery. A week or two ago I bought a huge watermelon. I was eating a lot of it on its own when I was hot and sweaty from working out or being outside in the hot sun or in my simple and favorite (and super refreshing!) strawberry watermelon smoothie. But I wanted to come up a new way to enjoy watermelon. And sweet cherries. And smoothies... which led to today's recipe! A couple of months ago I went to a fitness event and ZICO was there giving out coconut water samples. In all honesty, I've never been ... [Read More]
Cherry Almond Smoothie
In the minds of many Americans, Memorial Day weekend marks the start of summer, even though summer doesn't technically start for around another month. It feels like summer to me because last weekend marked the first sunburn of the year for my light skin (with very odd tan lines might I add - I think I have streaks of lines on my arm where my headphone cord was hanging down!) despite putting on suntan lotion multiple times. Meanwhile my hubby got nicely bronzed, because sometimes life just isn't fair my friends. When I think of summer, I think of things like the beach, sangria, backyard BBQs, and sundresses - my favorite attire ever. Of course there's the summery food that comes to mind, which includes lots of seasonal fruit, corn on the cob, bright salads, and of course, refreshing ... [Read More]
Dark Chocolate Cherry Almond Butter Granola
Lately I've been obsessed with cherries. It all started a couple of weeks ago when I stopped at a local farm stand and nabbed some dark sweet cherries. I've always liked cherries, but it seems my love for them has been on a whole new level since that purchase. Fresh cherries by themselves, frozen cherries in smoothies, cherry frozen yogurt (ate some last night!), cherries in my salads - I've been finding endless ways to incorporate cherries into my diet pretty much everyday. One day last week, I whipped up a new recipe and found yet another way to eat (dried) cherries: dark chocolate cherry almond butter granola! This granola will add some pizazz to yogurt or cottage cheese, and is a nice sweet treat all on its own. The only downside to this recipe, and to pretty much all kinds of ... [Read More]