Tag: healthy

Brussel Sprouts Salad with Orange Ginger Dressing

Melissa King 13 Comments

I have had a love affair with Brussel sprouts lately.  During the winter, I was often eating my maple glazed brussel sprouts, but they are great raw in a salad as well!  I already have on Brussel sprouts salad on the blog.  Now it’s time to add this Brussel sprouts salad with orange ginger dressing to the mix.

Brussel Sprouts Salad with Orange Ginger Dressing - My Whole Food Life

This Brussel sprouts salad is super easy to make and it will make you feel energized!  Love all the flavors in here.

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Quinoa Salad with Avocado and Tomatoes

Melissa King 40 Comments

You need to try this Quinoa Salad with Avocado and Tomatoes.  I am a huge salad lover.  That is probably why I have so many healthy salad recipes on my blog!  This is quickly becoming my new favorite.  I am enjoying a bowl as I type this.  This Quinoa Salad with Avocado and Tomatoes is a great post workout meal.

You really can’t go wrong with avocado on a salad.  One of the things I like best about this quinoa salad is that it only contains simple ingredients that you may already have on hand.  It took me just a few minutes to make.

Quinoa Salad with Avocado and Tomatoes

I used quinoa because it’s a complete protein.  I made the quinoa yesterday so I could throw the whole thing together easily in the morning.  This quinoa salad with avocados is vegan and gluten free.  I also think this would be great with cilantro instead of parsley.

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Healthy Toddler Crackers

Melissa King 53 Comments

My kids love animal crackers.   Problem is, I have never been able to find a store bought brand with a super clean ingredient list.  Sure you can buy GMO free animal crackers at Trader Joes and Whole Foods, but even their brands have too much sugar for me.  So when Wholesome Sweeteners sent me a sample of all their products, I decided to use their coconut palm sugar in this recipe.

toddler-crackers-3-watermark-998x1024 blur

Ideally, I would have liked to make these in animal shapes, but I didn’t have an animal cookie stamp.  I found this one on Amazon and ordered it, so I will make these again once it comes in the mail.  For now, these are just cut into tiny squares.  Since these cookies are for toddlers, I made them only mildly sweet.  My daughter loved them and I hope your kids do as well.

Healthy Toddler Crackers

Healthy Toddler Crackers

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Prep Time 20 min Cook Time 30 min

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cup rolled oats
  • 1 cup spelt flour (for a GF option, try using GF all purpose)
  • 1/3 cup Wholesome Sweeteners coconut sugar
  • 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
  • 1/4 cup coconut oil
  • 2 flax eggs (I used a flax egg replacer)
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1 tsp ground vanilla bean or vanilla extract
  • 1 tsp cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup milk (I used oat milk)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350. 
  2. In a food processor, grind up the oats into a coarse crumb-like texture. 
  3. Add them to a bowl with the rest of the dry ingredients. 
  4. Add all the wet ingredients into another bowl. 
  5. Add dry to wet and mix only until combined. 
  6. Gather the dough into a ball and wrap in plastic.  It may be a bit sticky. 
  7. Stick dough in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up a bit. 
  8. While the dough is firming, cut two sheets of parchment paper the size of your baking sheets . 
  9. Using a bench scraper, cut the dough in half. 
  10. Lay the parchment paper down on the counter.
  11. Place the plastic wrap you had the dough wrapped in between the rolling pin and the dough.  By doing this, you will be able to roll the dough out very flat and it will not stick to the counter or the rolling pin.  It will also make for easy transport to the baking sheets . 
  12. Roll the dough as flat as it can get and transfer to the baking sheet. 
  13. Repeat the same steps with the second half of the dough. 
  14. Before you place the dough into the oven, score it for easy cutting once it’s baked.  I used a pizza cutter to make squares. 
  15. Bake for about 15 minutes. 
  16. Remove the pans and very carefully, flip the pieces over.  If you have scored the dough beforehand, they should easy break into little pieces. 
  17. Put back in the oven for another 15 minutes, carefully watching them to make sure they don’t burn.

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Recipe Notes

If you have really young children, you may want to bake them a little less so they can easily be chewed. I filled a large mason jar with the crackers I made. Enjoy!

Clean Eating Peanut Butter Cups (Vegan)

Melissa King 110 Comments

Clean Eating Peanut Butter Cups.  Let’s face it.  We all need a little something sweet every once and a while.  Who says you need to give up peanut butter cups?  While I will never eat Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups again, I will have a homemade peanut butter cup every now and then!

 

clean eating peanut butter cups

 

I made these with homemade peanut butter and also almond butter.  Both worked out well, but I think I liked the peanut butter cups better.  Most homemade peanut butter cup recipes call for powdered sugar.  This does not.  I just dropped some freshly made peanut butter in the middle of these.

So much better that way and also much less sugar too!  The chips I used are from Enjoy Life.  You can also make your own chocolate with 1 cup coconut oil, 1/2 cup cacao powder and a few tablespoons of liquid sweetener.  Or you could melt a couple of bars of dark chocolate with a bit of milk.  Any way works.

The Enjoy Life chips have a pretty clean ingredient list and are gluten free as well.  They do contain a bit of processed sugar which is why I gave some other options.  I have tried the chips and the coconut oil chocolate.

I chopped one of these homemade peanut butter cups and ate it in my 5 Minute Banana Ice Cream.  OMG!  Best.Thing.Ever.  A healthier dessert option.

If you don’t want to use chocolate chips, you can use my 3 ingredient chocolate recipe in this video.

Looking for more candy recipes?

 

Clean Eating Peanut Butter Cups

Clean Eating Peanut Butter Cups

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Prep Time 10 min Cook Time 20 min Serves 12     adjust servings

It's a healthier version of a Reece's Cup.

Ingredients

  • 1 bag chocolate chips (I used Enjoy Life gluten free and soy free chips)
  • 3/4 cup almond milk
  • Roughly 3/4 cup peanut butter or almond butter

Instructions

  1. Get out a couple of muffin tins and line them with paper or silicone cups. . I used standard sized muffin pans, but the mini cups would work well too.
  2. Using a double boiler, melt the chips and milk in a glass bowl, stirring constantly to get the lumps out. It makes a great arm workout.
  3. Once the chocolate and milk have combined and are smooth, pour a little bit of chocolate in the bottom of each muffin cup.
  4. Place them in the freezer for about 20 minutes to set.
  5. When they are hard, pull them out and put a dollop on nut butter on top of each one.
  6. Fill the remaining cup with chocolate.
  7. Repeat until all the cups are filled.
  8. Place back in the freezer.

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Recipe Notes

I would give them a few hours to set. Actually, I store mine in the freezer as well. I think they would get too soft in the fridge. That’s it!