Can you guys believe that we're in the last full week of August? I'm starting to get a twinge of excitement for all things autumn - including everything pumpkin, weather that's a bit cooler, and football season getting underway. I have my Fantasy Football draft in a couple weeks, and I just love spending weekend mornings at home watching games. And I miss going on longer hikes with my pup! In the summertime it's too toasty for my furry friend to go on any inland hikes, so I'll be happy to head back to our favorite spots and discover a few new ones in a month or two. BUT I also don't like to get ahead of myself and try to enjoy what's happening now, so I'm enjoying the summer summer summertimeeeee. I've been doing beach yoga, this weekend I'm going paddle boarding, and I've been noshing on ... [Read More]
healthy 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]
Chocolate Chip Cherry Almond Muffins {vegan + gf}
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]
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]
Pumpkin Apple Banana Muffins {vegan}
Packed with apple, pumpkin, banana and cinnamon, and free of refined sugar, these healthy vegan muffins make for a great autumn snack, small breakfast, or guilt-free dessert! One of my favorite September activities is apple picking. But since it's pretty warm and summery feeling in San Diego in September, sometimes I forget that the apple orchards are ready to be visited. A few years we've been too late in the apple picking game and either a.) go when the orchards are pretty picked over, or b.) miss apple picking all together (like last year!). BUT NOT THIS YEAR! Nope, in 2016 I was on high apple picking alert! In the San Diego area, the best area to visit for apple picking is Julian - a cute little town I've talked about before. It's about a 75-minute drive from my house, and it's like ... [Read More]