One of my favorite autumn annual traditions is going apple picking. This year, my husband and I have already gotten our apple picking on in CT - complete with a jug of apple cider and apple cider donuts. We swaddled our 1-month old baby girl up and brought her along for her first taste of our apple picking tradition, though she wouldn't know that she was quite the popular girl at the orchard because she snoozed the entire time. After I go apple picking, I always love to bake up a storm. I'll whip up some of my favorite recipes with apples, and then I always play around with new ones as well. Since I currently have quite the job of breastfeeding my milk monster (for real, she went from 5 pounds to 8 pounds seemingly in the blink of my eyes!), my focus has been on creating recipes ... [Read More]
dairy free cookies
Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Protein Oat Cookies {vegan + gf}
These healthy cookies are made with oats, peanut butter, banana, and cocoa powder, sweetened with monk fruit, and include chocolate protein powder for a protein boost. Ideal for breakfast, dessert, or anything in between! Have you guys ever seen photos of people's meal prep for the week that includes 5 containers of the same bland thing for each meal? If you've worked your butt off for a bikini competition and ate that way to get there, good on ya, but that looks like a bit of a nightmare to me. I like food too much, and I like diversity in my eats too much. Sure, I have my favorite smoothies and my go-to dinner recipes, but I certainly don't eat them on the daily. In general, monotonous, robotic living scares the hell out of me. No thank you, I don't want to do the same thing every ... [Read More]
Chocolate Chip Butterscotch Cookies {vegan}
Hi friends! How was your weekend? Mine was super low-key - which worked out since it was my first weekend home in a month. The San Diego area got a rare weekend full of rain and stormy skies, so I spent a lot of my time taking care of housekeeping stuff for the blog and actually for my house - it's amazing how both my virtual mail and actual mail piles up when I'm out of town! - and in the kitchen baking and cooking. I even made homemade bread, which I haven't done in quite awhile. Making bread from scratch isn't hard, there's just a lot of time waiting for the dough to rise - but, being home doing about half a dozen loads of laundry, it fit in perfectly with my weekend. I decided to sprinkle some everything bagel seeds on top of the dough, and it came out like one giant everything ... [Read More]
Healthy Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup Cinnamon Cookies {vegan}
Does anyone else just all of a sudden get in the mood for baking sometimes? The measuring and mixing, pouring and stirring, baking and cooling. The smells of something delicious coming together and the anticipation of taste testing. It's therapeutic to me. Last week as I was jotting down a bunch of things to nab at the food store and planning out what healthy snacks I'd make this week, I got bitten by the baking bug. And I didn't feel like just following a recipe, I was in the mood for experimenting and getting creative. Today's recipe is a result of that baking bug. These cookies center around a few of my favorite things: the combination of chocolate + peanut butter & cinnamon. Cinnamon is without a doubt my favorite spice. I'm constantly sprinkling some on my fruit, in my smoothies, ... [Read More]
Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies {vegan}
Have you gotten bit by the holiday baking bug? I definitely have! Last weekend I baked up a storm making treats to give to my San Diego friends and neighbors this week to spread some holiday cheer. It was quite a festive weekend for me, because I also watched Elf and visited a neighborhood in a town called Poway nicknamed Candy Cane Lane. My friend Tiffany had told me about it, and while she probably knows about it because she's a mom, I'm a little kid myself when it comes to the holidays...so I was thoroughly intrigued! Naturally, my hubby and I headed to Candy Cane Lane on Saturday night to check it out. You guys, it was amazing - so many gorgeous houses decorated so beautifully for the holidays! Some houses even were showing movies on projector screens and giving out ... [Read More]