Recipes

BANANA & ALMOND MUFFINS

These banana almond muffins make a great on-the-go breakfast or snack while breastfeeding!

Ingredients:

• 2 ripe bananas, mashed
• 1 tbsp (20ml) maple syrup
• ¼ cup (60ml) almond butter
• ½ cup (55g) spelt flour
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• ¼ tsp. baking soda
• ¼ cup (30g) walnuts

Instructions:

Heat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and line a muffin tray with paper muffin cups.

Mash the bananas with a fork and combine with the maple syrup and almond butter. Fold in the flour, baking powder, and baking soda and mix well.

Divide the batter between the 6 muffin cups. Top each one with the walnuts.

Bake for about 18-20 minutes in the middle of the oven, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Remove the muffins from the oven and cool completely before serving.
   

maple pecan breakfast muffins
Recipes

Maple Pecan Muffins

If I was going to say the most common thing moms answer for why they don’t eat a healthy breakfast, it’s this:

I don’t have the time to make a healthy option!

I get it. 99% of the time in the mornings, we are so busy making sure the kids eat, finding a missing sock, packing a lunch, getting our work bag ready, and remembering the school popsicle stick project is due today, we don’t have a second to stop in the chaos.

I’ve been experimenting with grab and go options. These Maple Pecan Breakfast Muffins were inspired by my Perfect Breakfast Muffins and an extra Costco sized bag of pecans that I had in the pantry. They are super satisfying, low on sugar and carbs, and delicious!

And what’s even better, you make them in a blender so they’re super easy to make and clean up.

These Maple Pecan Breakfast Muffins have become a new staple for us. When you try them, let me know how much you love them!

Ingredients

  • 3 cups of pecan halves
  • 1/2 cup of dates
  • 1 cup of plain greek yogurt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1.5 tsp baking soda

Optional Ingredients (for Protein Boost)

  • 1 additional egg
  • 1 cup collagen powder (unflavored)

Instructions

Preheat oven to 400F and lightly grease a cupcake pan using coconut oil.

In a blender, add the pecan halves. You can pulse the blender a few times to turn them into a “flour” (optional, this step depend on how powerful your blender is). Add the remaining ingredients to the blender.

Blend on high speed until everything is combined into a smooth batter. If the batter is too think, you can add a few tablespoons of water.

Separate the mix into the cupcake tins. Bake at 400F for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool for 10 minutes before serving.

Nutrition Facts

Recipes

Overnight Apple Cinnamon Oatmeal

This is one of our favorite easy breakfasts to make for those days when you need to be up and out of the house quickly. By preparing everything the night before, you will only need to eat and go in the morning. It’s also a great breakfast to make when you have relatives or house guests staying with you, because everyone can wake up on their own schedule and serve themselves. These overnight oats have staying power to keep you satisfied until lunch, especially if you add in some healthy fats or protein.

Ingredients:

  • 4 large apples (we love Gala or Red Delicious)
  • 4 TBSP cinnamon
  • 3 cups of steel cut oats
  • 3 cups of coconut milk (or 2 cans)
  • 3 cups of water
  • 3 scoops of Sunwarrior Classic Plus protein powder (natural or vanilla flavor, this is optional)

Instructions:

Chop the apples into cubes and place them into a 6qt crock pot. You do not have to peel them! Sprinkle the cinnamon over the top of the apples. Set the crock pot on HIGH for 1-2 hours.

Once the apples have softened, pour the oats over the apples. Add in the 3 cups (or 2 cans) of coconut milk and the 3 cups of water. If you decide to include the protein powder, mix it with 1 cup of additional water and add to the crock pot. Gently stir the crock pot mixture together.

Turn the crock pot to the KEEP WARM setting. Cover and leave overnight (8-10 hours).

In the morning, serve and enjoy! You can add additional coconut milk (or your milk of choice), chia seeds, almonds, pecans, walnuts, and/or berries.

Recipes

Eggless Banana Oat Pancakes

While on vacation last week, we visited my cousins (who are awesome by the way) for a weekend. The large family breakfast that was planned for Sunday morning was pancakes (yum!), but there was a tiny problem: we forgot to get a gluten free pancake mix for me and my daughters. Now, while I can certainly get by eating eggs and various fruit and veggies for breakfast, my poor 3 year-old isn’t quite able to take the high road yet when everyone else gets pancakes but she doesn’t. I needed gluten free pancakes, and I needed them quickly.

Time to do one of my favorite things: invent a recipe through improvisation!

We had a lot of bananas in the kitchen and my cousin knew how to make “pancakes” using just eggs and bananas. BUT… we ran out of eggs (I know, I know – big oops there). Luckily, she had flax seed which can be used as an egg substitute in baking. I ground up the flax seed needed and mixed it in with the bananas but wasn’t getting anything that resembled pancake batter, so I decided to add some oat flour to the mix (which you can make by grinding up plain whole oats). Then I drew on some lessons that I learned while working on the Perfect Breakfast Muffin and added in baking soda and baking powder to make the pancakes more fluffy. (Side note: if you look at any store bought pancake mix, the baking soda and powder is already in there which is why you don’t usually need to add it.)

Finally, the batter got to the right consistency and we tried them out. I’m happy to say that they were delicious! Once we added the blueberries, they were naturally sweet and didn’t even need syrup. My toddler and 10 month old both gobbled them up, and many of the relatives who can eat gluten tried them and thought they were delicious as well.

So here is the recipe. Let me know what you think!

Pancakes on the griddle

Ingredients:

  • 2 bananas
  • 1 TBSP flax seeds
  • 1 C whole oats (steel cut preferred)
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 C water
  • 1 pint of blueberries (optional)

Instructions:

Using a coffee grinder or bullet blender, grind the flax seeds into a fine powder. Grind the oats into a powder. Mix the flax seed powder, oat powder, baking powder, and baking soda together in a large bowl.

Mash the bananas and the water together until you get a smooth liquid (you can do this using a blender if you have one). Mix the banana/water liquid into the dry ingredients. Add additional water gradually until the batter is the right consistency (should be a little runny).

Heat a griddle to 350F and grease with a little butter or coconut oil. Pour pancake sized dollops of batter onto the griddle. If you want to add blueberries, place several on each pancake. Allow them to cook for about 3 minutes. The pancakes ready to flip when the edges firm up and there are small bubbles rising through the batter.

Flip the pancakes and cook for another 3 minutes.

Enjoy!

Delicious Pancakes

Recipes

Garden Vegetable Quiche

Oh fancy brunch, how do I love thee? When I was growing up, our family would have amazing brunches on holidays like Christmas and Easter and it was a guarantee that quiche was on the menu (thank you French heritage). Since I have been an adult (and doing all my adulting), I’ve jumped at the chance to make quiche for special occasions because: it’s actually easier to make than you think, quiche is delicious, and everyone always loves them.

This past weekend we had friends visit on Sunday morning for brunch before taking our kids swimming. So of course, as a part of the brunch I had to make quiche. I was experimenting with a new recipe and everyone thought it was delicious! Even my picky three year old and the babies gobbled it down. My friends asked me to share the recipe so here it is.

Ingredients:

  • 4 eggs
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • 1 TBSP of avocado oil (or olive oil if you prefer)
  • 1 cup of chopped rainbow chard stems (chop them like celery – if you don’t have rainbow chard available, you can use chopped spinach)
  • 1/2 cup of a leek, finely sliced
  • 8 ounces of cherry tomatoes
  • 1/4 cup diced green onion
  • 1 cup shredded mild cheddar cheese
  • 1/2 cup diced cooked bacon (about 4 strips cooked and diced)
  • 1 pie crust (or you can make your own, see this recipe)

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 425F

Slice the cherry tomatoes into thin slices, remove the seeds, and set aside. Slice the green onions and add them to the tomatoes. Slice the chard stems and the leek.

In a skillet in medium-high heat, heat the oil and saute the chard stems and leek until they are tender. Remove from the heat. (NOTE: if you are using chopped spinach instead of chard, only saute the leek).

In your pie crust, spread an even layer of the chard and leeks. Add a second layer of the tomatoes and green onion and a third layer of the bacon.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs and the cream together. Gently pour the egg mixture over the veggies and meat in the pie crust.

Top the eggs with the shredded cheese.

Place the quiche in the oven and bake for 15 minutes at 425F. Reduce the temperature to 350F and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes, until the center of the quiche is firm. Allow to cool for 10 minutes before serving.

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