I LOVE pumpkin and these pumpkin chocolate chip cookies are sooo easy to make and delicious, they are truly a “no-brainer”. In this brainless baking segment, I show you how to vamp up your old chocolate chip cookie mix and create something not only healthier and lower in fat than traditional cookies but a treat that tastes even better too!
Month: October 2013
Candy Corn Parfaits
Another YUMMY, healthy and VEGAN Halloween treat! Check out these easy to make and adorable make parfaits as well as my “hummus pumpkin patch” video for fun, festive and HEALTHY Halloween ideas! Be sure to subscribe to my youtube channel while your there!
Hummus Pumpkin Patch!
Watch me make this EASY, healthy and VEGAN Halloween treat! Your friends, your kids, everyone at your Halloween is going to fall in love with this adorable, good for you treat!
Japanese eggplant over quinoa
This whole meal was inspired by a Japanese eggplant that was given to me by a friend I work with! I love eggplant and I couldn’t wait to make something delicious with it. It turned out surprisingly delicious considering I mostly just used whatever I had laying around in the kitchen and lucky for me I had enough left over to eat it again for lunch! Give a whirl yourself..
JAPANESE EGGPLANT OVER QUINOA
1/2 cup quinoa
1 cup water/veggie broth
place in a saucepan and stir while boiling till all the liquid has evaporated. Season as needed and set aside.
1 Japanese eggplant
1 bundle of asparagus
1 package of edamame
1/4 cup chopped garlic
1/4 cup chopped ginger
2 or 3 tbsp of ginger infused olive oil
2 cups red table wine
1 cup plum sauce
1/4 cup chopped shallots
1 tbsp of olive oil
First, thinly slice your eggplant and lay it out on paper towels to help absorb some of it’s natural water. Chop asparagus and add to a large frying pan with ginger infused olive oil, half your garlic and half your ginger. Add in the shelled edamame and finally your eggplant slices. Keep the veggies moving around and the heat on low-medium while you work on the sauce.
For the sauce, in a separate sauce pan, put your chopped shallots, the leftover ginger and garlic, and olive oil and sautée. After they have cooked for a bit, add in your plum sauce and red wine and let it reduce on medium to low heat. Sauce is ready when it has a medium thickness.
Assemble your dish by placing quinoa on the plate first, then veggies and top of with a drizzle of your red wine sauce! Enjoy!
How do you use your time?
Laugh away baby. It’s a thousand percent true! You know that person in your life that always seems to get a ton of things accomplished in the same twenty-four hours you might as well of sleepwalked through? They don’t have some secret pass to stop time just to get more done and make people like you feel inadequate! They just manage their time wisely.
And guess what?!
So can you!! How? Well it’s the same way you manage anything! Want to see why you’re not losing weight? Write down what your eating so you can see all those extra calories you’re not considering. Want to know why your bank account is embarrassingly small? Well you would write your income and expenses down, right? So why not write down HOW YOU SPEND YOUR TIME?!
Try it! For one week, bare with me and log how you spend every hour of the day and then at the end of the week go back and look for “wasted” time. Anything you think could be a better use of your time and circle it. Now Write down all those things you’d LOVE to get done and start inserting them into those circles spots! Give it a shot. It can totally change the way you use your time. 😉
Fall Quinoa ‘Oatmeal’
You all know how much I love my quinoa and of course, how much I love FALL flavors, so it’s no surprise I whipped up this creation this morning! This vegan gluten free breakfast is packed with my perfect protein, quinoa and some delicious fall foods to keep you seasonally skinny and satisfied!
FALL QUINOA ‘OATMEAL’
1/2 cup quinoa
1/2 cup almond milk
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/3 cup organic pumpkin purée
Heat together in small saucepan on medium heat till quinoa has cooked and liquid has reduced.
Garnish:
3 tbsp crushed walnuts
2 tbsp of dried cranberries
What thoughts can you LET GO of?
I was reading yoga journal on the subway this morning and this quote really stuck out for me and I knew I needed to share it! A really amazing and eye opening exercise to try today is sitting down and jotting a list of “who you are”. Who do you say you are? What are your best qualities and what are your worst? Completely unfiltered and real, how do you define yourself? Go ahead, try it! No, really, stop reading this and grab a piece of paper or start writing in the notes app on your phone. Okay, once you’ve got the list, go through and circle or star any of the things that are not serving you. What on that list is getting in the way of the person you want to be?!
Guess what?
Those things you circled, THEY ARE NOT YOU. They are things you have decided about yourself! And the beauty of that is, now it’s time to go back and decide differently. So now return to that list and replace all those qualities that aren’t working for your life with ones that will. It’s that simple. All you have to do is change your mind and COMMIT to that. It’s a great practice to read these new qualities once a day or at times where you are struggling to stay connected with them so that slowly and surely they will be melded into who you have chosen to be.
Are you peaceful?
Kicking off our #quoteoftheday! Are you peaceful? Life can be chaotic and we can’t always control what’s going on out there in the world BUT we can control how it effects our internal environment. I challenge you to take a minute today and choose to remain peaceful on the inside. Take notice of when things in your life stir you up and how it feels when you make the conscious choice for PEACE! 🙂
My Favorite Salad!
After a month of hotel living and room service/take out eating, I could not wait to get back to NYC, my apartment and my kitchen! My body was craving something delicious, fresh and healthy. Yes, your body will actually start CRAVING that after you feed it too much heavy, restaurant-y food! I didn’t eat like a total heathen, I mean this is ME we’re talking about but fair enough to say I had a couple more cocktails than usual and indulged my love for mexican food more than once while on the west coast. So first night back and all I can think about is making a salad! Seriously, starved for a salad with home-made dressing for a change. Now, don’t get me wrong, I can not wait to start making some season fall dishes, but it was almost 80 degrees in NYC when I got back (total bummer for fall-obessed me) and so I thought it fitting to have my favorite salad just one more time before pumpkins, cranberries and apples take over my culinary life. Spinach, strawberries and brie, it’s a little naughty but very nice, all of my favorite things combined to make a very easy, simple and delicious salad. Enjoy!
MY FAVORITE SALAD
SALAD
2 handfuls of baby spinach
5 small strawberries, sliced
small handful of crushed walnuts
5 slices of brie, chopped into fourths
DRESSING
1 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp olive oil (I used basil infused)
pinch of salt
1 tbsp of fresh strawberry (or any kind of berry) preserves