Showing posts with label health food stores. Show all posts

Thursday, February 20, 2014

Top 10 Cherry Desserts

Bright and cheery, these top-rated cherry desserts are perfect for holidays—or any day! From a favorite cherry pie recipe to easy cherry crisp and fun chocolate-covered cherries, treat family and friends to these sweet recipes.

Cherry Dream Cake

This recipe is a bona fide hit. I make it every holiday and there are barely any leftovers the next day. My family loves this. Thanks for sharing!

Cherry Bars
Chocolate-Covered Cherry Cookies
Cheery Cherry Cookies
Chocolate Covered Cherries
Quick Cherry Turnovers
Cherry Chocolate Coconut Cupcakes
Easy Cherry Strudels
White Chocolate Mousse Cherry Pie
Microwave Cherry Crisp

My Favorite Peanut Butter Cookies

I got to thinking the other day about how I didn’t have a good old fashioned classic peanut butter cookie recipe on this site. The horror! While there’s tons of cookie recipes in my recipe index, most of them are all gussied up with chocolate, nuts or other fancy things. Sometimes you just need a classic cookie and a cup of milk…amen?

These peanut butter cookies are no frills delicious. They are like the kind you get from a bakery — all big and soft and full of peanut butter flavor. I must have made these cookies at least a hundred times in college. They are perfect fuel for late night study sessions, parties, gifts for the boyfriend, girls nights and, let’s be honest, broken hearts. In my experience, a good home baked cookie and a bubble bath often functions as life’s perfect medicine.

So if you like big soft peanut butter cookies, these are for you!

I think they key to great peanut butter cookies is using only brown sugar in the dough. It makes them super chewy and soft. And don’t even get me started on what it’s like to make ice cream sandwiches with these babies warm out of the oven using vanilla bean gelato and a {huge} drizzle of chocolate sauce. Please.

Yum. I just don’t even know what else there is to say….but yum.

Happy {early} weekend!

My Favorite Peanut Butter Cookies

adapted from Gourmet

Yields 2 dozen large cookies

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

3/4 cup peanut butter

1 cup bread flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp sea salt

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350. Line two baking sheets with either silpats or parchment paper.

Cream together the butter, brown sugar and peanut butter until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until just combined.

In another bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking soda. Add to the wet ingredients and blend just until a dough forms.

Using a large spoon or an ice cream scoop, scoop out big balls of dough onto your prepared baking sheet — about 3″ apart. Press down gently with a wet fork on each cookie.

Bake for 15 minutes until edges are golden.

Time:

25 minutes

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Slow cooker honey chicken w/ quinoa

If you know me, I’m all about quick and easy DELICIOUS recipes! This slow cooker honey chicken is one of those recipes. The chicken has such a unique flavor and leaves your family begging for more! They’ll think you slaved all day in the kitchen. Shh! Don’t tell. They don’t have to know it only took you five minutes to make. ;) This dish is also pretty healthy as well. You can cut back on the honey to make it even more healthy. It’s one of our family’s new favorite recipes!

Slow cooker honey with with quinoa recipe -

Slow cooker honey chicken w/ quinoa

Ingredients

3 large frozen chicken breasts (if your's are thawed, adjust cooking time)
1/2 cup soy sauce
3/4 cup honey
1 TB olive oil
1 tsp onion powder
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/4 cup sesame seed (optional)
1 cup quinoa (cooked according to package directions) - could substitute with rice

Instructions

Place chicken breasts in a crock pot. Combine soy sauce, honey, olive oil, onion powder, garlic, salt and pepper in a medium bowl. Stir until combined. Pour sauce over chicken. Cook on low for 4-6 hours, or until the chicken easily falls apart.
Serve chicken over cooked quinoa. Add extra sauce from the crock pot on top and add sesame seeds for show.
Enjoy!

Mmm… tasty!

Slow cooker honey sesame chicken with quinoa on iheartnaptime.net ... super easy to make and absolutely delicious! #recipes

So are you a crock pot fan? What are some of your favorite recipes?

Cheesecake Filled Chocolate Easter Eggs

It's hard to believe Easter is just around the corner. This year is going too fast for me to keep up! I swear it felt like yesterday that I was laughing at how quickly the Easter displays went up to replace the Christmas stuff at the beginning of the year, it has managed to creep up on me. My days are getting busier and busier, so I am easily drawn to the simpler, quicker desserts that I can pull together at the last minute. This recipe could not be any easier; there's no baking involved and it takes hardly any time to create these cuteCheesecake-Filled Chocolate Easter Eggs with a 'yolk' made of passionfruit sauce.

I took it as a compliment when Lisa (who hates eating eggs) said that these looked so much like real eggs that she was a little creeped out by them. The texture of the chilled cheesecake and the passionfruit sauce looks just right, making it a great filling for some regular hollow chocolate easter egg shells that I cut the tops off. I was inspired by the chocolate-mousse filled Easter egg cups that I've seen on sale and decided to do my own spin on that idea but with a cheesecake filling and a deliciously fruity filling in the centre that would look like an egg yolk. So it looks a little like a creme egg. It's not the same but it's just as tasty.

I used my regular chilled cheesecake filling recipe for this, and made up a sauce using passionfruit pulp, apricot jam and a little bit of butter. There's enough sourness from the passionfruit (and the lemon in the cheesecake) to make this a light, creamy and not overly sweet dessert. And it does not get easier than this. It's quite interesting to see how simple this recipe is compared to the Easter Bunny Macarons (including all the hilarious scenarios that I got carried away with while photographing them) and Hot Cross Bun Ice Cream Sandwiches that I came up with last year. This recipe is much quicker and less complicated, but hopefully just as enjoyable to eat!

Alright, I admit I may have taken a few too many photos of these little treats. Probably more than was necessary. But I am still a little scarred from all the trouble I had with the ugliness that way my Twix Cake so I was just happy to have something cute and not falling apart to photograph. Surprisingly A was all excited when he saw these in the fridge and quickly ate two of them, I can never guess which of my recipes he'll end up liking but he was a big fan of the fluffy cheesecake filling and the small hit of passionfruit in the centre. Technically it's more of a cheesecake mousse since there's no crust (though you could put some crust at the bottom of each egg if you wanted) and it's not baked, or a cake.

So if you're looking for a really, really, REALLY easy and light dessert to serve up after a big meal during the Easter break then these are for you. They can be eaten with a small spoon or devoured like a creme egg, whatever floats your boat. I bought the chocolate eggs from the supermarket, but if you're feeling really adventurous you could try making your own. Any plain, regular-sized hollow chocolate eggs will do. I got some very pretty ones that had all different flavours, I especially liked the look of the white chocolate and strawberry shell below. I hope everyone has a wonderful Easter holidays, I am looking forward to some time off!

Cheesecake-Filled Chocolate Easter Egg Cups
(makes 6-8 regular sized easter egg cheesecakes, you may need to adjust the amount of cheesecake filling depending on the size of your eggs)
6-8 hollow chocolate easter egg shells (mine were from the supermarket, approx 6cm tall and 4cm at its widest width, ~~apparently they're not so easy to find in the US so if anyone can find a good online store let me know and I'll link it,~~ apparently you can find them in the US at See's Candy and Costco, thanks Birgit! And HERE at Amazon.com, thanks Tuscadero! Or make your own here. Another commenter rolled melted chocolate around the inside of a cleaned out egg shell and then peeled away the shell when it was set.)
150g (about 5oz) cream cheese, softened
30g (about 1/4 cup) icing sugar (confectioners' sugar), sifted
1/2 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
125ml (about 1/2 cup) thickened/heavy whipping cream
For the 'yolk': 1 passionfruit, 1 tbsp apricot jam, 1 tbsp (about 15g) unsalted butter (passionfruit juice can be replaced with about 2 tsp of freshly squeezed orange, mandarin juice or mango, peach nectar, you can adjust the amount of juice to taste), alternatively you can substitute with any fruit curd you prefer.
Optional: you can include some cheesecake crust crumbs at the base of each egg if you really want to include some sort of crust into the dessert.

Using a small serrated knife, carefully remove the tops of the chocolate eggs. (A couple of people have mentioned that heating the knife under warm water will make this easier and neater, thanks for the tip! But personally I like having the jagged edges.) Place the eggs in the fridge to keep them chilled while you prepare the cheesecake filling, you can use egg cups or your fridge egg holder (Don't use an egg carton like me. I shouldn't have used it but I was desperate at the time, I bought the egg cups the day after!). Place the cream cheese, icing sugar, lemon juice and vanilla in a large mixing bowl and beat on high until the mixture is smooth and fluffy, about 3-4 minutes. Set aside and carefully whip the thickened cream in a separate mixing bowl to stiff peaks (watch it closely as thickened cream is very easy to overwhip and split). Using a whisk, gently combine the whipped cream into the cream cheese mixture until it is smooth. Carefully spoon or pipe the mixture into the prepared chocolate shells. Chill eggs for at least 30 minutes to allow it to set.

Prepare the passionfruit sauce; strain passionfruit pulp to remove the seeds and place in a small saucepan with the apricot jam and butter. Gently heat on low, whisking until the butter melts and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and allow to cool. (If your apricot jam is chunky you should strain the sauce at this point) Place in the fridge and chill until it thickens slightly. Using a small spoon, carefully scoop out a hole in the centre of each cheesecake, about 1 cm deep and wide. Fill hole with some of the chilled passionfruit sauce and return the eggs to the fridge to chill again for at least 30 mins. Remove eggs from the fridge about 10 minutes before serving. Can be made 2-3 days in advance, keep eggs in the fridge in a holder inside an airtight container or covered tightly with clingfilm to stop them drying out.

Saturday, February 1, 2014

15 Healthy Smoothie Recipes for Weight Loss

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Smoothies are a great way to kick-start your day, they are fresh, nutritious and can be eaten on the run. These refreshing smoothie recipes can help you lose some of those extra holiday pounds and prepared form all fresh ingredients they contain your daily dose of greens and vitamins. Eating more fruit and vegetables have never been so delicious, so instead of a fattening breakfast start the morning with a diet-friendly smoothie that can be made in minutes without even turning on the stove. Here we have for you some delicious, filling and energy-boosting smoothie recipes that you’ll love.