Showing posts with label Breakfast. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Breakfast. Show all posts

Aug 5, 2017

Recipe: Flour-less Whole Grain Seedy Bread

There's this general misconception out there, probably thanks to the carb-phobic diet industry, that bread is unhealthy. False! Bread can be unhealthy, just like anything else, but it isn't inherently unhealthy. There are all sorts of healthy bread out there and the best way to make sure that the bread in your sandwich/on your plate/drowning under your peanut butter is healthy is to make it yourself!

Healthy Bread recipe

If you want to keep the carbs down and the healthy fats and proteins and fiber up, this bread is for you. It's wheat-free and, if you use gluten-free oats, is also gluten-free. It's chock-full of heart-healthy nuts and seeds, plus enough fiber to pep up your digestive system *cough, cough* from the chia seeds and whole psyllium seed husks. If you want to make it sugar-free, you can sub stevia for the maple syrup - but honestly, I don't see the point. It's a very modest amount of maple syrup, adds a little nice something, and a teeny-tiny bit of sugar won't kill you. But it's up to you!

Enough blathering on and on from me, here's the recipe. Happy baking!

Jul 10, 2017

Recipe: Whole Wheat Honey Oat Bread

Who doesn't like bread? I spent my summers in Germany growing up, so I've been completely spoiled as far as good bread goes and snub most store-bought loaves over here in the US. 

So that I don't have to wait for my next trip to Germany to enjoy bread, and because baking a loaf of homemade bread from scratch is so satisfying, I like to make my own bread when I have someone to share it with, a picnic to bring it to, or just a bit of spare time and some yeast in the pantry. 

How to bake whole wheat bread

This honey oat bread is a dense, but soft, loaf that's chewy, nutty, and 75% whole wheat. You won't get as crusty a crust as with breads that have a higher percentage of white flour, because of differences in how whole grains and refined grains bake, but it still has a good crust. Read on for the recipe!

Mar 10, 2017

Review, Giveaway, and a Discount: Ambrosial Harvest Muesli + Granolas

Cereal is one of America's favorite breakfast foods. It's one of my favorites, too! 

Starting the day with a bowl full of sugar and refined grains, however, is a questionable health decision. Sugary breakfast cereals aren't good for energy levels or blood sugar levels, they don't contribute much other than empty calories to your nutritional needs, and they're just not 'breakfast of champions' material. On the other hand, a bowl full of twiggy bran that both looks and tastes like shredded cardboard isn't satisfying anyone's cereal craving.

Luckily, there are healthy cereals that both taste great and are great for you!

Ambrosial Granola

I love Ambrosial Harvest cereals! Ambrosial Harvest makes whole grain granolas and muesli that are all USDA organic, gmo-free, gluten-free, vegan, certified kosher, free of refined sugars, and full of heart-healthy omega 3 fatty acids. 

As a bonus, they're also local! Ambrosial Harvest granolas are made right here in New York!

Ambrosial Muesli Review

I love the creative flavors - their muesli has goji berries, big flakes of shredded coconut, generous pumpkin and sunflower seeds sprinkled throughout, and filling whole grain oats.

I'm half-German, so I grew up on muesli for breakfast and it has long been a favorite. This one didn't disappoint! While I would have liked a bit more of the dried fruits (I loooove dried fruits) the balance was sweet enough and the combination of flavors was delicious! I love it soaked in milk for 15-20 minutes, so the oats start to soften, but don't turn to glop.

Feb 24, 2017

My Top 10 Favorite Places to Eat in NYC

NYC has so much good food and that seems to count doubly for plantbased food. From acai bowls to raw vegan lasagna and sushi that's all vegan and fish-free (Beyond Sushi, you're on my to-eat list!), there's anything and everything you could possibly want to eat!

...and some that you'd rather not. When there's so much good food, it's a pity to waste up precious stomach space on mediocre meals. Especially if you're only in NYC briefly, you should just eat the good stuff.

So here's my list of my top ten vegetarian- and vegan-friendly food places in NYC! Some are totally plantbased and others offer options for omnivores, but also plenty of vegetarian options.

Feb 10, 2017

More Delicious Mornings with Erin Baker's: A Review

I love getting mail. I also love breakfast foods and mornings. So getting this in the mail was wonderful!

Erin Bakers New Products Review

Erin Baker's focuses on making delicious foods out of whole grains and without preservatives. Whether they're eaten as a standalone snack or part of your breakfast, they're food that nourishes you and fuels you for a great day ahead.

The two new products I got to try were The Original Breakfast Cookies Minis:

Healthy Breakfast Cookies

They taste just like the full size cookies - hearty, just the right amount of sweet, and always fresh (never stale) but they're a smaller size that's great for crumbling over yogurt or oatmeal or slipping into a lunchbox as a sweet, but nutritious, snack. 

Oct 16, 2016

Review: Healthy Chef Creations Vegetarian Meal Delivery

Healthy gourmet meals, made for you, and delivered fresh - never frozen - nationwide? To this busy girl, that sounded pretty great. 

I love cooking and baking and spending quality time with my kitchen, but sometimes life gets crazy and having a few days, or a week, where the food just magically shows up ready to eat can be a godsend. Enter Healthy Chef Creations!

Healthy Chef Creations' menu is spa-inspired and delivered weekly all across the US in individually packaged meals, snacks, and desserts that are fresh and never frozen. 

              Healthy Vegan Meal

As long as you transfer them to your fridge immediately, they'll last for a week. It's healthy, it's fresh, and the dishes are even tempting to non-healthnuts.

Going on a diet

They offer meal delivery programs and a la carte meals suitable for omnivores, vegetarians, vegans, and/or people on gluten-free diets. You can customize your meals accordingly! And it's always natural and organic.

Healthy Chef Creations: The Food

Oct 4, 2016

Review: Honey Ridge Farms Honey Cremes

I love honey! It's probably my favorite sweetener and it's all natural to boot.

Did you know that honey has antibacterial properties? That's why it's great to have in hot tea (preferably hot peppermint tea) when you're sick. That, and it coats your throat and makes it feel better. I, fortunately, haven't gotten my first cold of the season yet *knock on wood* but my poor co-workers are dropping like flies. They need tea with honey!

I also love honey in my oatmeal, honey on my granola, honey drizzled over acai bowls, bananas and apples dipped in honey, and peanut butter honey sandwiches (also honey cookies). 

When I eat honey on bread, my favorite way to eat it is crystallized! You can either put liquid honey in a jar, let it sit in direct sunlight for a week or two, and wait for it to harden into sweet and delicious crystals. Or you can get Honey Ridge Farms honey cremes!

Honey Ridge Farms Honey Cremes

Oct 1, 2016

Recipe Roundup: The Best of Autumn

In what feels like just a week, summer magically transformed into autumn!

The leaves, dressed in autumnal yellows and oranges and red, lie on the ground. Tote bags of apples are at the entrance of every supermarket (um YUM). I need a sweater in the mornings and evenings! And sometimes I don't wear a sweater and just rock the pretty fall dresses and pretend I'm not cold.

Fall marks the beginning of baking season, too! Aka my favorite. So, without further ado, here are my favorite fall recipes, from a girl who loves all things apple, pumpkin, pumpkin spice, and nutty. Enjoy!

Cherry Pecan Bread

Pecan Bread Recipe

It's moist, it's perfect for banana bread lovers, and it's something different and delicious!

Sep 22, 2016

Review: Vitalicious Deep Chocolate VitaTops

Sometimes it can be hard to marry a vicious sweet tooth and the desire to eat healthy. Fruits make a delicious and healthy dessert, but sometimes you just want chocolate!

Deep Chocolate Vitatops

VitaTops Deep Chocolate is the solution. It's whole grain, loaded with vitamins (but tastes way better than taking a multivitamin) and so, so chocolatey. I had tried (and enjoyed) VitaTops before, so I was excited to try the new formula. 

Deep Chocolate Vitatops

Aug 27, 2016

Back to School with Garden Lites!

It's back to school time! My little sister is eleven years old now (how did that happen?!) and heading into her second year at her new school in Germany. She loves it! 

Though we have a later start here in the USA, my coworkers' kids are all heading back to school soon, too. Back to school is the perfect time to refocus on goals (consider it a mini New Year's Eve) and set your family up for a happy, healthy, and successful academic year. 

Garden Lites are the perfect delicious lunchbox treat, after school snack, or breakfast component. Kids (and big kids) love them and parents love that they're packed with 3g of fiber, 5g of whole grains, and vegetables at the main ingredient. 


I tried two of the three delicious muffin varieties - chocolate and blueberry oat.


Both are delicious! They're the right amount of sweat, flavorful, not heavy, and neither greasy nor dry. They're perfect!

Aug 4, 2016

Recipe: Jalapeno Cheddar Bread

I love baking bread! While I'm a total wuss when it comes to spicy food, many of my friends love a little fire in their food. This bread is savory, just the right amount of cheesy, and has a jalapeno kick (but not so much that you cry when you eat it).

Easy Bread Recipe

This loaf is flavorful, moist with a good texture, and makes grilled cheese sandwiches, croutons, and savory sandwiches. It's also a nice gift loaf or nice to bring along to a picnic or potluck! Read on for the easy-to-follow recipe.

Jul 27, 2016

The Best Acai Bowls in Boston

I love acai bowls! They're fruity, sweet, refreshing, creamy, and have some yummy crunch from the granola.

I love the combination of different textures and flavors from the blended fruits, chopped fruits, and granola. I love that they make a perfect breakfast, snack, or light lunch. I love that they're portable and delicious and satisfying without weighing me down or making me sleepy (the opposite of what a lunch should do, especially on a work day).



NYC is an acai bowl heaven, but I've been in Boston all summer and am making the move here (or, rather, Cambridge) full time in just a few short weeks. Luckily for me, moving to Boston might mean that I give up some of my NYC favorites (at least unless I move back some day) like Juice Generation, Magic Mix Juicery, and Juice Press. But I don't have to give up acai bowls!

There are several places in Boston where you can get an acai bowl. Here are my two favorites!

Jun 23, 2016

Review: Paleo Scavenger Granola

Granola is my absolute favorite sort of cereal. Nuts are my favorite crunchy snack. So a granola made almost entirely out of nuts sounded delicious!



It didn't disappoint. Paleo Scavenger Granolas are handcrafted in Chicago and, as the name suggests, completely grain-free, gluten-free, and paleo-friendly.

Instead of the usual grains, these granolas are made of healthy nuts, like almonds, walnuts, and coconut, as well as dried fruit and natural sweeteners, like honey and maple syrup!


Healthy fats are so important for healthy skin and hair! Paleo Scavenger granolas are a much better choice than many other commercial granolas, which can often be packed with processed sugars and sometimes even trans fats. I would much rather have a breakfast or snack that keeps my skin soft and glowing and my hair shiny and healthy!
 

They're also all delicious! They're not what I would first think of when I think of granola and they do taste different than other granolas, so I would say they're somewhere between granola and trail mix. 

May 27, 2016

Superfood of the Day: Tigernuts

Have you heard of tigernuts?


The latest superfood craze, especially among fans of the paleo diet, is not a nut - it's actually a small root vegetable!

Tigernuts make a great snack, either straight out of the bag or after an overnight soak in water to soften them. My favorite way to eat them is out of the bag, because I like the crunch!

There are many reasons to eat tigernuts. They may look like wooden beads, but they're also rich in a variety of important minerals and in the prebiotic fiber that nourishes the good bacteria in our large intestines!

I recently tried an assortment of tigernut products from Organic Gemini.


Organic Gemini has a nice variety of tigernut products, beyond the two types of raw tigernut granola and raw tigernut snacks that I tried. Their snacks and granola fit into pretty much any healthy diet - they're non-GMO, gluten-free, kosher, vegan, paleo, nut free, organic, and made by real people in Brooklyn. It's always nice to know where your food comes from!

May 21, 2016

The Old and The New

Life is full of old things that appear in our lives in new ways. Sometimes we re-purpose old belongings, sometimes we re-visit old places, sometimes we try new versions of old things.

I love the old-new combination and here are some of the old-new things in my life right now!

Old jacket, new shoes -

Remember this jacket from last year? Pairing it with new pieces makes it more fun and great for late spring/early summer in Boston!


The gold sneakers give it some warm weather pizzazz.

Apr 13, 2016

Recipe: Zucchini Bread

A few weeks ago, I visited Bluestone Lane Cafes on the upper east side for brunch. The zucchini bread there was incredible (as was everything else) and I've been inspired to make a loaf of my own ever since then!



One might not think of zucchini as an ideal ingredient in a sweet bread, but it works so well in zucchini bread!

This bread is soft, moist, flavorful (I highly recommend keeping the walnuts and not omitting the optional topping) and both delicious and pretty!

Zucchini Bread Recipe

It's also easy to make, features easy to find ingredients, includes two whole zucchinis, and will make your apartment smell amazing. Read on for the recipe!

Apr 10, 2016

Spring Flavors: Honey Ridge Farms Artisan Honeys!

Springtime makes me think of flowers, sunshine, twirly dresses, my birthday, and the sticky fingers of childhood. I'm not sure what it is about honey (perhaps the association with bees and flowers and all things happy and sweet?) but honey is such a spring food to me!


I recently tried two new flavors, Honey Creme Coconut and Honey Creme Lavender, from Honey Ridge Farms!


While liquid honey is great for sweetening tea, I prefer honey cremes as a topping on toast for a peanut butter and honey sandwich (or on cream cheese, as in the photo above). It's a lot less messy (making it much more suitable for the adult, less sticky me), spreads easily, and just looks really nice - like spreading gold quartz on bread. Yum!

Mar 26, 2016

Recipe: Cherry Pecan Bread

Banana bread is a beloved breakfast and snack time staple. Cherries are a beloved summertime fruit. And pecans taste like lazy afternoons in North Carolina.

This cherry pecan bread is a combination of all three!

Quick Bread Recipe


This recipe is quick and easy! There are no crazy, hard to find, or expensive ingredients and all you need for kitchen gadgets is your standard measuring cup/spoon set, two mixing bowls, an electric mixer, and a wooden spoon.

It's great eaten warm with a pat of butter, cold with pecan butter, or toasted with cherry jam! There's really no wrong way to eat it and since it's quick, easy, and bakes into a beautiful and delicious loaf, it makes an excellent gift or potluck brunch contribution! Read on for the recipe.

Mar 13, 2016

Five Foods to Celebrate St. Patrick's Day!

St. Patrick's Day is just around the bend!


I am 0% Irish, but holidays are fun. Especially when you can dress up and make festive foods! Here are five fun recipes from the blogosphere for St. Patrick's Day. I can't wait to try some of them!



Are you a fan of red velvet flavored desserts (or do you know someone who is)? This is a fun alternative that's perfect for the holiday and still delicious! It's a great option if you're having friends over for tea!

...please tell me I'm not the only twenty-something year old who enjoys afternoon tea. Tea is the new clubbing! Yes? Yes!


Melt in your mouth Mint Sugar Cookies!

Mint and chocolate are great flavors to combine any time of the year and a favorite of many, but they're absolutely perfect or St. Patrick's Day! 

These are super cute if you want to make a little gift that's easy to hand out to friends (or colleagues or teachers) on St. Patrick's Day. Just put a few cooled cookies in a clear plastic bag and tie it with a cute green ribbon for an adorable little appreciation gift for those who make you smile all year long!

Feb 28, 2016

Fit for Spring: A Go2Go Review!

Sometimes healthy habits can get lost in the hectic of work, the cozy cold of the winter, or the boredom of routine. Luckily, all it takes to return to healthy habits (and feeling our best!) is making the decision to do so! There are, of course, some things that can make that transition back to healthy living easier. Go2Go helps!

Go2Go is delivered daily in the evening (6pm for me) before, so that your food is fresh and ready for you, no matter how early you have to leave for work!


They're delivered in a cute, recyclable cardboard box, like an over-sized take-out container with a handy carrying handle. This is extra convenient for work days, because you can just leave your meals in the carton and carry them along to store in your work fridge that way!


Each day comes with a healthy lunch, dinner, snack, and fresh juice.


There are several plans that you can choose between. Whether you're a vegetarian, an athlete, or even ordering for a kid, Go2Go can be there for you!


That takes most of the work of food prep out of your day, but also leaves with the flexibility to choose what you want to eat for your third meal. It's a win-win! You are, of course, encouraged to choose healthy, natural foods for your third meal and to stay hydrated.

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