Recipe: Shakshuka (Israelian Poached Eggs in Tomato Sauce with Chickpeas and Feta)

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September is National Breakfast Month!

This is clearly my month to shine, because I make breakfast for dinner far more often than is likely acceptable for a twenty-something-year-old. What can I say? Breakfast foods are the best foods and I'm okay with never being a proper grown up if that would mean I can only have breakfast once a day!

This dish, an Israelian favorite for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, straddles the line between breakfast for dinner and a sensible grown up's meal. That's a compromise I can live with!

Even better: it's simple to make, full of healthy plantbased nutrition from chickpeas and tomatoes, a cheap meal that beats ramen by a mile (feta is the most expensive ingredient, but the core ingredients are canned chickpeas, canned tomatoes, and eggs), and you can eat out of a cast iron pan like a farmer!

I used Nellie's Free Range Eggs to make this a meal that's healthy, humane, and free of residual antibiotics or other icky things from the chicken's diet. I chose Nellie's Free Range Eggs because they're easy to find (I got mine from Whole Foods) and always free range, and free of hormones or antibiotics, and kosher certified. They're also great quality, delicious eggs!

Read on for the recipe. It's a 35 minute dinner!

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Review: Paleo Scavenger Granola

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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. 

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Review: Bhu Fit Bars

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As the temperatures rise and summer sets in, many of us find ourselves on the go much more than during the cooler months. Whether it's traveling or simply spending more time outside at parks, beaches, lakes, and so on, summertime is all about going out and having adventures!

Bhu Fit Bars  from Bhu Foods are the perfect grab-and-go choice for healthy snacking away from home. They're conveniently packaged, like traditional protein bars, and they're made of only healthy, whole foods. That's rare to find in a protein bar!

The bars are no-GMO, gluten-free, and full of healthy protein and digestion-regulating fiber. They're also wonderfully low in sugar, without relying on unhealthy chemical sweeteners, like sucralose.

They come in three main types, all of which are oh so delicious and oh so good for you! 

There are the vegan bars, which are made with organic pea protein and come in three great flavors. Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip is my favorite, but Chocolate Tart Cherry Pistachio is delicious, too!

Bhu Fit Chocolate Tart Cherry Pistachio Vegan Bar

Many chocolate-flavored protein bars feature chocolate as the main flavor, but these bars have just a little bit of chocolate, so that the other flavors still shine, too. The bars have a chewy texture and aren't too big, but also not too small! They're perfectly snack-sized.

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Recipe: Caribbean Coconut Bread

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There are so many wonderful reasons to eat coconut oil - it has been proven to improve cholesterol profiles, may reduce heart disease risk, is great for your hair and skin health, may help reduce dangerous abdominal fat, and an improve immunity.

A quick bread baked with Ojio raw organic coconut oil as the fat, instead of butter or traditional vegetable oil, makes a wonderful switch-up from the traditional banana bread!

We're all getting back into the swing of things at work now, after the lovely Christmas holiday break, and sometimes this time of year can give us a bit of the post-vacation blues. While this bread is not quite as good as a Caribbean vacation (who wouldn't love to go to the Bahamas?) it tastes like the bakery-fresh coconut loaves you could find all over by the beaches!!

Read on for the recipe for my Caribbean Coconut Bread, made with healthy fat-rich coconut oil!

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Review: Honey Ridge Farms Artisan Honeys

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Where has 2015 gone? I can hardly believe that there are only a few short years until the new year!

2015 has been a wonderful year, full of growth, new career developments, new relationships, old creative passions in new ways, and a wonderful abundance of adventure, travel, good times with loved ones, and learning, I'm excited to see what 2016 brings!

One of the New Year's Eve traditions that I find really cute is the tradition of eating honey to herald in a sweet new year. I love honey, so any reason to eat it is good with me!

This year, I'm going for a gourmet spin with the honey I will give my loved ones and enjoy myself on Christmas Eve.



Honey Ridge Farms has a variety of absolutely delicious gourmet honey products that are perfect to start 2016 off on the right foot - or really for any morning!

The unique flavors of honey cremes include blackberry, clover, lavender, lemon, raspberry, coconut, blood orange, lemon lavender, and my personal favorite, spiced. Honey Creme spiced is the perfect festive blend of warming spices that, paired with the sweetness of the creamy honey, makes for a treat perfect for the holiday season!

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Review (and a Recipe Round-Up!): Food to Live Goji Berries

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I loved trying Food to Live's Medjool Dates a while back, so I was really excited to try their festively-colored little red goji berries, now that the holiday season is in full swing!

For those who missed my review of the dates, Food to Live creates certified organic dried fruit snacks featuring delightfully short ingredients lists of only one nutritious ingredient each. The goji berries followed that wonderful trend!

The berries are chewy, sweet, flavorful, and each one is the same exacting quality as the last - you won't find a dry berry in the bunch!

I love to eat the little red superfood berries plain, as part of a trail mix, sprinkled in a peanut butter and honey sandwich, mixed in with my yogurt, as a topping on my morning oats, or as a healthy 'sprinkle' on ice cream. Yum!

Read on for three more fun ways to enjoy the yummy goji berries!

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Review: Blissful Eats Granola

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Blissful Eats granola is gluten-free, vegan, paleo, kosher, non-GMO and all delicious. There's no preamble needed (nor wanted) for this review, because the granola is simply that delicious!

It makes a perfect breakfast, an excellent snack, and both a delicious topping and an amazing straight-out-of-the-bag food to munch.



Blissful Eats granola proves that healthy can be delicious! The two varieties of granola that I tried are organic, gluten-free, grain-free, paleo, vegan, and free of refined sugars.

That leaves more space for great nutrition! The granola is packed with healthy fats (including the ever-trendy coconut oil) and is low in sugar, but a decent source of fiber.

Read on for more of what makes the granola an excellent breakfast, snack, or anytime choice!

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Review: Food to Live Medjool Dates!

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When I was little, I loved prunes. They were sweet and chewy and delicious, so I couldn't care less that (along with my beloved knitting) my big sister insisted that my love of the sticky snack meant I was secretly a senior citizen.

I still love prunes today, but I've also fallen in love with a new sticky and sweet dried fruit snack over the past few years.

Dates!

Medjool dates are among my favorite types of dates and Food to Live medjool dates are my favorite brand to buy. Dates are nature's candy, a super sweet and nutritionally dense energy bomb that makes it easy for hikers, athletes, busy snackers, and plantbased eaters to get in enough calories and healthy sugars to keep energy levels up all day long.

They also taste like caramel, but are made of only one plant ingredient, are loaded with iron, are unprocessed (and, in the case of Food to Live medjool dates, organic), and are vegan, gluten-free, dairy-free, paleo, non-GMO, and naturally free of added sugar but packed with healthy natural chocolate!

Whir some dates into a smoothie, pack some in a little jar or Tupperware for a work or school snack, blend some with nuts in a food processor for the base of homemade energy bars, or stuff them with nuts and chocolate (I love almonds or peanut butter and dark chocolate chunks). There's no wrong way to enjoy them!

What are your favorite dried fruits?

What is your favorite way to eat dates?

What food did your siblings tease you for liking when you were little?

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Review: Mamma Chia Organic Chia Granola Clusters and Organic Chia Vitality Bars!

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Let me introduce you to my new favorite snack foods. 

Mamma Chia Organic Vitality Bars and Organic Chia Granola Clusters are so deliciously fantastic.

They're both packed with heart healthy chia seeds, healthy fats, and plant-based protein. They're also all organic, gluten-free, and made with 100% whole grains in the case of the granola (the bars aren't grain-based).

Want omega-3 fatty acids (a whopping 1000mg of them) in a sweet, chocolatey, delicious and portable snack? Mamma Chia Vitality Bars have you covered!

They come in four great flavors, each as delicious as the next. 

While my favorite (by a narrow margin) were the Blueberry & Dark Chocolate Vitality bars, every single flavor was amazing. 

Cherry & Dark Chocolate was a close second favorite. The sweet tart cherries worked amazingly well with the chocolate and nuts!

I loved that the bars were healthy, a great snacking size, made with all natural ingredients in relatively unprocessed forms (I could still tell what the nuts and seeds and dried fruits making up the bars were), and that they were coated in chocolate, making them taste much more like indulgent chocolate bars than a healthy snack!

And yet they are a healthy snack with the omega-3 fatty acids you need to keep your brain and heart in tip-top shape. Hooray!

I could rave about the bars all day, but I also want to get to the granola.

Oh. My. Goodness.

Mamma Chia granola won a place among my favorite cereals of all time from the first bite.

It's sweet, it's crunchy, it's hearty, and there are big chunks of granola for from-the-bag snacking as well as smaller pieces for a more cereal-like experience.

How do I love soy-free, dairy-free, gluten-free 100% whole grain Mamma Chia Vitality Granola? Let me list the ways.

With milk, with yogurt, from the bag, on a smoothie, on an acai bowl, from the bag, on ice cream, with peanut butter and banana, in trail mix, and straight from the bag.

I may have mentioned that last way a few times, but it's because the granola is just that good. It tastes great with everything, but it really doesn't need anything to make it delicious!

Oh, and did I mention it's non-GMO, too? Trust me, you'll want to try this granola - any of the delicious flavors will do. You can thank me later!

What is your favorite way to eat granola?

What kind of snack bars do you like most often?

What snacks do you keep in your handbag/backpack/coat pocket? Is that last one just me?

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Review: Raw Chocolate Love

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It's October and not only does that mean that it's now fall, but also the start of the unofficially official candy season! 

Let's face it, from when we start in on the Halloween candy to when we finish the last chocolates from our Christmas stockings, it's a solid three months of sweet indulgences. Wouldn't it be nice if there were healthier options that are as delicious as the highly refined, sugar-packed treats we grew up with?

There are!

I was on the hunt for a line of yummy chocolates that is creamy, sweet, rich, and indulgent, but plantbased, dairy-free, low in refined sugars, and features healthy fats instead of hydrogenated oils and butter. 

I found what I was looking for in NYC's local chocolate company, Raw Chocolate Love!

Free of preservatives, colors, additives, and animal products, Raw Chocolate Love is made in Ridgewood, New York and is kosher, gluten-free, low glycemic index, raw vegan, soy-free, high in antioxidants, and made with love!

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Healthy Habits with Farmivore

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I love smoothies! They're delicious, packed with healthy fruits (and potentially veggies), convenient if you need a snack or light meal on the go, great at any time of the day, easy to digest, and a perfect way to cool off on a hot day or hydrate on a day where you've been less diligent with water consumption than ideal. 

I love adding spinach to a fruity, banana-based smoothie for a delicious, easy way to get in my daily greens!

Smoothies can also be a component of one of my favorite new 'trendy' foods:

Smoothie bowls! I love them, especially acai and pitaya bowls. I had my first bowl in Hawaii and while the ones I make at home (see above) are nowhere near as amazing as those were, they're still delicious! I'm working on it.

One of the biggest challenges I face in smoothie making is the same as I do in cooking and baking in general. As a single girl, it can be hard to buy produce in amounts that you'll use before they go off if you want a lot of variety. I don't like wasting food, so I'm more likely to sacrifice variety in order to buy just what I can use, than to buy a big range of fruits and veggies at once so that i can experiment with smoothie flavors. 

Fortunately, I don't have to decide anymore! I recently discovered Farmivore, a delivery service that provides you with fresh smoothie ingredients straight to your front door in portions that are practical!

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Vegan Stocking Stuffer - Help Santa Out!

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Need some chocolate to stuff in a vegan loved one's stocking?

Let's be real, with all the various special diets and restrictions that people have these days, it can get to be a bit much for Santa. So don't be afraid to help out! And to help you help Santa out, I'm here to suggest a delicious vegan chocolate line - it's artisan, handmade, vegan, and amazing!

Luna Vida is a brand of handmade vegan chocolates crafted by artisan chocolatier Lisa Tenney and available for shipping anywhere through Etsy.

Raw, vegan, and all-natural, these chocolates are healthy treats that will fill your loved ones with antioxidants and plant-based energy, instead of sugar and chemicals, come Christmas morning. Doesn't that sound like a win?



And you're supporting a small business and an American crafter, so it's a double-win for the holidays.

I enjoyed all of the varieties that I tried, which included Hazelnut, Spicy Mango, Peppermint, Peanut Butter Cup, and more!

Order an assortment and try all their varieties at once, or become your vegan loved one's favorite person for at least as long as it takes to finish all the chocolates!

Be sure to follow Luna Vida on Facebook to stay up to date on the latest developments, new flavors, discounts and more!

What are you hoping for in your stocking this year?

What are your favorite things to find in your stocking?

What is your favorite kind of chocolate?

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A Healthier Alternative to Childhood Cookie Favorites!

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Growing up, I loved Fig Newtons - loved. I also was a huge fan of Nutrigrain bars. While either of those is fine as a now and then treat, they aren't really a daily indulgence. Both are full of refined flour of and overly processed ingredients.

I was delighted to discover a snack that was every bit as delicious as the fig and jam-filled bars of my childhood, but whole grain, all-natural, vegan, non-GMO, and kosher.



Not only do Nature's Bakery Fig Bars have all those health benefits over the fig bars I grew up eating, but they also come in a much wider assortment of flavors than their less-healthy counterparts!

There are the traditional fig bars, of course, which are sweet and delicious. I wouldn't change a thing!

But there are all sorts of other great flavors, like blueberry and strawberry. These two really put the Nutrigrain versions to shame!



Some of the more exotic flavors include Mango and Lemon.

I wouldn't have guessed that fig bars would come in those flavors, but they're delicious! Of the two, I especially strongly recommend the mango.

But you really can't go wrong with any of the bars! The filling to cookie ratio is perfect, they're perfectly sweet, they're flavorful and fresh (there wasn't a single dry or stale one among all of them), and they perfectly exemplify my ideal of healthy and delicious!

My single complaint is that the bars come in twin packs but the serving size is listed as only one bar. Pop-tarts are guilty of this, too, and my general opinion is that they should either wrap them individually or make the serving size two bars, instead of one.

Especially in this case, where the bars are small and a single bar wouldn't be an adequate snack, but two are, I think it's a cop-out to 'prettify' nutrition stats.

But overall, the bars are awesome! Yum!

Have you tried the Nature's Bakery Fig Bars?

What was your favorite packaged snack as a kid?

Which flavor of fig bar sounds best to you?

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SquareBars Review

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I love protein bars - they're convenient, often tasty (I have a total weakness for chocolate flavored ones), and provide muscle-fueling vegetarian protein!

For vegans, howver, there are far fewer good protein bar options. Most bars use whey protein, have milk in their chocolate coating, or both. 

Luckily for vegans, there's a new all vegan protein bar that's been blowing up in popularity lately.

The icing on the cake (coating on the protein bar?) is that part of the profits from the purchase of Squarebars goes to a good cause!

2.5% of net sales of Squarebars go towards fighting human trafficking! Whoo!

And the bars come in three chocolatey flavors - Squarebars knows that chocolate is what we want, so chocolate is what we get. There's the classic Cocoa Crunch for purists.

Cocoa Almond for chocolate nut lovers.

...that would be me.

Last, but not least, there's Cocoa Coconut for Mounds candy bar fans who want the same taste with better nutrition. 

The bars all have similar ingredients and nutritional stats. At a bit over 200 calories and 11g of protein each, they're a great snack to help get plant-based protein in.

And they're delicious. That's huge, because who would eat them if they weren't?

They're more like a chocolate/candy bar than a protein bar in taste and texture, but definitely more like a protein bar in nutrition.

I recommend them!

Have you tried Squarebars? If so, what's your favorite flavor?

What is your favorite plant-based firm of protein?

How often do you eat protein bars?

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