Merry Christmas to all of you who celebrate it! I hope that you're having a wonderful end to your year. I'm popping in to share an easy recipe that's perfect for wintertime - one that I've made at least half a dozen times in the past few months. Matcha green tea powder is packed with antioxidants, but it can be too green tasting for some people. Hell, I like matcha and I don't even like it strong! But what I love about this recipe is that it pairs matcha with peppermint extract, and the two blend so well together. Peppermint extract is strong and it kind of mellows out the matcha. In the end, what you'll taste is a chocolatey, pepperminty drink with a hint of matcha that's perfect for pepping you up on chilly days. Since I use unsweetened vanilla almond milk for this recipe, it's also a ... [Read More]
dessert
Pumpkin Apple Cider Bread {dairy free with gf option}
It seems like every year when autumn hits, I get a serious baking itch and I start baking like crazy. Anyone else do the same thing? I especially get into the quintessential fall baking ingredients - including pumpkin, apple, cinnamon and nutmeg. I feel like I can't get enough! I mean, is there anything that smells better than all of those delicious flavors baking in the kitchen? Playing around in the kitchen with my favorite sweet fall ingredients is precisely how this recipe was born. I'm not normally a juice drinker, but I bought apple cider a few times this season after trying some at a local orchard and remembering that apple cider is in fact delicious. This recipe puts a twist on pumpkin bread by including apple cider and diced apple in the batter. I also made ... [Read More]
Salted Cookie Dough Bites {vegan + gf}
Made with almond meal, cashew butter, dark chocolate chips, and fine sea salt, these cookie dough bites are a guilt-free treat that takes 5 minutes to whip up! Lately I've been craving cookie dough all the time. I've been wanting to bake cookies just so that I can eat the dough. Who can relate? I think it started a month or two ago when my husband and I had a date night in downtown San Diego. We grabbed a bite to eat in Little Italy, strolled around to check out the art walk that was going on, went to a Padres game, and capped off the night by stopping into the new Salt & Straw gourmet ice cream shop. Just like when we visited the Salt & Straw in Portland, the new shop here was packed, and we waited on a long line to get in. But we were determined to eat their ice cream... A 30 ... [Read More]
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]
Baked Strawberry Donuts with Strawberry Cream Cheese Frosting {vegan}
Healthier than your typical fried donuts, these vegan baked donuts use fresh strawberries, oats & cashew butter in the batter, & are topped with a strawberry cream cheese frosting! I haven't shared a sweet tooth recipe with you in a solid six weeks. The madness! Truth be told, I've been doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen with new snack & dessert recipes, but many of them have been freelance projects. But today I'm back with a very delicious donut recipe... my very first donut recipe on the blog! Over the holidays, my hubby's grandmom & mom gave us a gift card to Stonewall Kitchen, and I went ahead & purchased something I'd been meaning to nab for awhile... a donut pan! I've been playing around with my first batches of homemade donuts, & ... [Read More]
Dark Chocolate Cherry Sunflower Butter Cups [vegan + gf]
Hello, hello from the east coast! I flew in via a red eye this morning, and am looking forward to lots of holiday fun in Jersey. Bring on the relaxing family time! I have one last holiday dessert recipe to share today... and this will also be the last Foodie Loves Fitness recipe of 2016! We all have our favorite traditional holiday dessert recipes, but sometimes I think it's nice to switch things up and add in new ones. Truth be told, I get a little tired of seeing the same cookies all around every December... so today's recipe is a bit of an unconventional holiday dessert, but trust me, it's oh so good! These sea salt dark chocolate cherry sunflower seed butter cups are a mouthful - to both eat & say out loud! We've got the richness of dark chocolate, ... [Read More]