Cranberry juice is one powerful antioxidant drink that’s good to keep in your food-as-medicine kitchen cabinet. It’s a festive, easy drink to serve up to your dry and under age guests that wins health points for all.
Cranberries have stood the test of time over centuries like many healthy, plant-based foods. That helped people survive.
The fruits were originally named crane-berry because it was a popular food for cranes, as in birds. Machines 🏗️ aren’t drinking or eating yet.
…Also, wouldn’t it be fun to name fruits because many are still being discovered in our New World? 💭 I remember when elderberries came on the scene as good for cold immunity… I feel like an elder berry. 😊
These days, we share these same foraged foods with other small wildlife creatures like squirrels, deers, and other birds. 🐿️🦌
And humans turn this cranberry fruit (that’s not a berry) into a drink for good reason.
For one, cranberry juice is known to be good for preventing urinary tract infections, even though it hasn’t been made fact.
But preventing infections mean less antibiotics in your body that always helps gut health. The rise of antibiotic resistance and contaminated meat is costing over $2 billion annual in the U.S., so it’s worth believing cranberry as preventative medicine.
Pure 100% juice version is the one to source and buy. 💯 without added sugars like the common cranberry cocktail version you find in convenience stores. Buy it when you’re inconveniently in the big grocery stores with a cart and the juice will last long after opened.
It’s one healthy holiday tradition that you can stand by…
And on-travel, ordering a cran-apple juice on the airplane can be a good next-to-water hydrating drink with vitamins and minerals.
At home, besides as a glass of cranberry juice, you can make a cranberry tea… either iced for warmer months or warmed tea for colder or transitional months.
And the way to keep this a low-sugar, healthy beverage is to change the taste. 100% cranberry juice is tart, so adding other natural flavors will enhance the tartness and make it exciting. ♥️
For warm tea, use dried fruits, flowers, and spices to naturally spice-up the tea, like these pairings:
-Hibiscus & rose hips
-Elderflower
-Raspberry
-Apple
-Orange Peels
-Ginger
-Cinnamon
Use a strainer for the dried bits, and if they’re finely ground, you can use a paper coffee filter that you can cut down to the right size for your strainer.
I actually like when a few tea leaves seep through as it keeps the tea homemade and rustic feeling. Turn on the moody jams and you have an enjoyable break. 🎶
But that’s a nice choice you get to make in the moment…
And at the end, zhughing with some ruby red fruits like cranberries and pomegranates sinking to the bottom make it a bottomless tea party!
In my drinks, you can even find some shredded coconut streamers or rosemary spikes, and a ‘pick of cranberries for tasty interest.
Those details come naturally from my event and party planner days where it’s all about the special zhugh. This one is good for the heart.🫀
For an iced tea version, use fresh fruits, flowers, lemon… and omit the spices.
You can also use your cranberry juice tea to make other wild fresh drinks or mocktails…
You can add cranberry seltzer water to make a big fizzy punch that’s a pink champagne color and bring up happy spirits! 🎉
Malt loaf bread is comfy country bread that I could eat regularly as in weekly. It’s hearty, comfort food like a raisin bread. And this similar molasses cake (yes, you heard right!) recipe needs no proofing.
Learn more below 👇
Recipe below 🧡
Molasses is one of the star ingredients in this loaf or cake (depending on how you want to look at it) and one of my favorite sweet ingredients. ⭐️
Watching the slow as molasses dark glossy liquid glide down the jar to the opening is joyful.
And when it does and makes contact with its destination, it comes with multi-dimensional tastes.
…I like to call it dark caramel and one that Grandma’s from the south grew up with. (That’s also the common household molasses brand most of us know).
It’s got the old-fashioned flavors mixed in…
Along with regular molasses comes a bit of sweet, bitter, and black licorice tastes that gives gingerbread cookies its distinct flavor.
The acidity in the ingredient also helps to activate the cake rise if you use a common household ingredient like baking soda (that’s usually stored in the fridge for other purposes).
Also, unlike white table sugar as a sweetener, amazingly molasses has anti-inflammatory effects. If you’re a food science nerd like me then you get excited about these nuances in daily sustenance that affect the body! 🎉 …and whether the ingredient will be used.
Not as common is blackstrap molasses that comes out after the third boiling, so most of the sugar has dissolved like Houdini. It has a lower glycemic index and polyphenols compared to regular molasses. PLUS it has minerals and Vitamin B-6.
With the dark flavor, the dark color matches.
It’s perfect for the cooler months and warming inside if you think of a warm fireplace playing jazzy tunes. 🎶
…And just in time for holiday baking season.
Malt loaf was a challenge on the The Great British Bake Off where I heard of the cakey bread.
And I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love a cakey bread because that means no proofing, but is Prue-fitting, as in Judge Prue Leith who sent the loaf popularity waves across the pond… and into my sound waves vicinity.
…And what makes this loaf so out-of-the-ordinary great is the plumped up raisins from the Earl Grey tea.
It’s a strong brisk black tea that is what you expect for an afternoon high tea. 🫖
I had first heard of the intriguing “raisin plumping” idea in a food class where I collaborated with dieticians.
I loved the idea then… and loved it even more when I added them to this recipe.
You can see how bold and dramatic the raisins become. Who knew raisins could grow and not more wrinkly old? 😁
And to top off this breakfast dessert, you can add a glaze if you wanna shine! ✨
But I like the rustic and plain… like the simple raisin bread. But with bananas, this one is even BETTER.
Not needing butter.
And however you bake your cake or bread, you can make this in one bowl or even in the same baking pan it will end up in! That’s what happened here…
I mean, it doesn’t get much easier than this for fall foods, breads, and baked goods. That makes it so easy to FALL for! 🍂
A moist malt loaf that has molasses as a star ingredient.
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy LIfe Secrets
Ingredients
1tbspEarly Grey tea, brewed
1tbspraisins (plumped up from tea)
1/3cupcurrants, chopped dates, or additional raisins
1cupmashed bananas
1tbspcoconut oil (in addition to coating the pan)
1/3cupmolasses
2eggs, room temperature
1/4cupalmond milk or milk of choice or more
1/2tspbaking soda
1/2tspground cinnamon
1/2tspsalt
1cupflour of choice
walnuts, chopped (optional)
Instructions
Coat your baking vessel with coconut oil that helps to give a nice thin outer crust and help prevent sticking to the pan. If you prefer less crust, then you can use a light dusting of flour to coat your pan or use a non-stick baking spray.
Brew hot tea and add raisins to the tea. While you're waiting for the tea to steep and raisins to plump up, make the loaf.
Mix the wet and dry ingredients together. Easy tip: you can do this in one bowl and even the same baking pan/vessel that you will use to bake the loaf! This is/should be a very liquid-y batter (like pancake) depending on the flour(s) you use tthat will come out moist. Bake on 350°F for 65-80 minutes until outside is the brown color preferred.
Pan co’Santi is All Saints Day bread and National Cinnamon Day bread celebrated on November 1 and anytime year-round that you want.
Anything happy goes these days!
And this joy-filled bread has raisins, walnuts, dates, cranberries… and bananas too!
It’s very much like a banana bread. 🍌
Bananas make this a sweet breakfast bread that goes with your breakfast drink, hot cocoa, or coffee.
…But this banana bread is better… it’s heavenly and has landed on the plate like a meteor in the shape of the sun.
Like a shooting star under the sun to be more precise. It’s earthly food that was sliced in half to enjoy. 🌠☀️
It was sent from above with love. 💌🌤️
And you can have the same experience from your oven.
…Like bread that fell from the sky like a gift during Biblical Ezekiel’s era.
Bread afterall is life.
And LIFE is a gift.
Where we can appreciate the present as in now (and 🎁).
And for the blessing of our daily bread, like this cinnamon bread. 🍞
Bread used to be a food category on its own as one of the four basic food groups when I was growing up. And food is one of the 4 basic needs of survival, so that makes bread a need for us (and this one needs no knead 😊).
These days, since our lives are more complex and we have more healthy food options, we get to choose. Bread is one option in the broader acceptable grain category for healthy living.
And this saintly glowing bread of life is shaped here as sun, earth, moon and stars combined. 🌻🌕⭐️
You can make your celestial and grounded shapes with your baking molds. These could be bread, cake, and donuts.
Because of how moist and sweet it comes out piping hot from the oven is why I call it cake bread.
…Part of that comes from the nature of bananas.
Banana bread and I go way back before when I first knew what I wanted to do as a grown up that turned out to be a hotel catering planning professional career.
That’s when life was bananas working crazy long hours.
But a bananas life helps you handle chaos later on in life so you adapt better.
And banana fruits that are the star ingredient in this bread are a metaphor for adapting through the changes, as one fruit we can count on (or at least hasn’t changed much over the years).
The new bananas used for this recipe are soft bananas that got mushed up in a freezer bag and were left in the freezer.
Those are the best kind to use for this recipe, where they turn a dramatic scary black like a black car oil spoof.
You can bring out the frozen bananas on the same day as baking day… and let them warm up to room temps.
That’s one way this recipe is super simple.
Another way is there’s no need for yeast, proofing, or proofing time.
And a third way is you won’t need a mixer as you can do this all by hand with little effort.
…So maybe I got your attention now. 😊
And to lean in on easy recipes, I like to mix using a regular metal kitchen spoon instead of a whisk because the batter can get sticky and you end up losing a big part of the batter that way… and that could be the reason for a low-rise bread (as there’s less batter).
Mixing is also why this is more like a cake recipe, but turns out like a bread in the magical oven.
The baking secret is to use use enough flour so that the cake bread can stand almost firm on its own. That will better ensure a bread with homemade bread holes.
We don’t want too dense of a bread, but we want a moist bread that will rise and not look flat in the end.
And if you’re like me, you probably like to see the ingredients first to see if you have them and want to use or eat them. 😋So here’s the Pan co’Santi bread easy ingredient list:
mashed bananas
coconut oil
maple syrup
eggs
almond milk
flour
baking soda
salt
ground cinnamon
optional: walnuts, dates, raisins, craisins
And that’s it!… go Pan co’Santi bananas and welcome in the new season weather and time changes!
Mint chocolate biscuit is one of my happy cookie memories. They were the Girl Scout Cookies that I grew up with. And Thin Mints were my favorite… Hands down (and up)! 🙌
I’ll show how you can get similar tastes below that I made in my weekday NO-bake kitchen tent…
Where I have all the ingredients. And I laugh when people say peppermint flavors “taste like toothpaste.”
…Like I did watching The Great British Bake Off where one of the contestants said that on Biscuit Week where a peppermint chocolate technical biscuit challenge was presented on the gingham table under the tent. 🎪
…And if you agree and a Girl Scout Samoa cookie is more your taste, then you might like this energizing and healthy Chocolate Coconut Bar.
BUT, if you’re okay with Thin Mints or peppermint is your chocolate vibe… what makes the mint chocolate biscuit cookie so enticing is that it melts in your mouth with a magically good crunch.
And if you leave them in their sleek cellophane sleeve in the freezer for a few hours, the crunch is even more pronounced.
Inspired by them, I made my own cluster of chocolate peppermint treats.
They look a wee-bit like chocolate popcorn, yes?… but you’ll never guess what they are made of…
It’s NOT popcorn… they’re oyster crackers.
Yep, the kind you buy from the soup aisle in the grocery store or that is served with a bowl of restaurant soup.
This bowl was a homemade oyster seafood broth that looks like it’s adorned with a strand of classy oyster (cracker) pearls 🦪
Before you laugh at or dismiss the sweet biscuit idea, consider it as a snack…
Rather than a salty or Saltine one, you get a sweet bite that satisfies your sugary hankerin’. 😋
If you like a crunchy biscuit, and the chocolate-mint flavor pairing duo, then this simple way could do the trick.
And if you’re like me and appreciate a perfect cookie shape but prefer to spend your time on other baking or non-kitchen projects, then these bites are time-savers when you look at it that way.
And they don’t have the long list of processed ingredients you find in packaged goods (that aren’t simple crackers).
These will get gobbled up too… before Thanksgiving. 🦃
And without guilt… I mean, have you ever made something too good you didn’t want eat it or give it away? I know you have and I know I have.
But these you don’t have to think twice about because you can make plenty of these in no time like a Keebler elf.
…Remember, they’re NO BAKE so there’s no oven wait.
So you can make these in minutes, and maybe seconds… ⏲️
And Voila! you have a low-fat, low-calorie tasty chocolaty snack.
You can also add these to your EASY snack list for road trips, hikes, and lunch bags.
Recipe below. 🧡
And if you’re still on the idea fence… these cracker snacks are light compared to buttery baked goods, so they won’t weigh you down.
Saltine cracker ingredients are simple: unbleached enriched flour (wheat flour enriched with thiamine, niacin and riboflavin B-vitamins), palm/canola oil, salt, malted barley flour, baking soda, and yeast.
…That’s pretty much the same type of healthy-style bread baking ingredients that you’d use if you were baking healthy at home.
Many store bought crackers use a ‘lil oil for the fat and in moderation that’s all good. And for the chocolate you can melt with a coconut oil healthy fat that gives a nice glossy shine.
This mint chocolate biscuit recipe uses a healthy no-taste coconut oil that doesn’t compete with mint. More on that below. Keep reading…
And so mint is the flavor we want to be the star. 💫
Plus, peppermint is calming…
If you have a tummy ache, reaching for a peppermint tea is good to have in your food-as-medicine pantry cabinet.
Peppermint relaxes the muscles along the gut that runs from your mouth roof top all the way to your bottom.
It’s your GI tract but I like to say gut as I think it gets to the heart of the matter, as it helps our happiness (where most of the happy hormones are made in the gut).
…And maybe that’s why we consult our gut for answers… often asking what does our gut say? 😁
And along those lines, peppermint food and drinks are good for our Vata and Pitta sides because we’re getting warmed and cooled by the menthol effects.
That also helps us blend in better with these climate change days.
Plus, peppermint always give the holiday vibes that warms the spirit and gives us a pep in our steps…
A peppermint cocoa blend moves into artisanal drink territory.
It’s NO B-E-a-k-e.
…Just like these easy, No FAFF biscuits (as they would say in the GBBO tent). 🎪
And the contestants would love this as a challenge where they can skip the shortbread dough step, subtract baking, and head straight to the tempered chocolate stage. 😉
These are made with low-salt Saltines.
And decorated with peppermint candy canes (that were saved from last holiday season for this very special purpose of getting hammer-crushed one warm day).
I also made one with a sandwiched mint cream reminiscent of Grasshopper cookies that mysteriously hopped away.
And if you wanted to use animal crackers, that would be fun. Elephants, bears, and tigers… OH MY! 🐘🧸🐯
…Or go more classic with round crackers reminiscent of Thin Mints.
And brings us back full circle! 🟢
The point is: these will work on any plain cracker (how smart!)… and you’re guaranteed a crunch (unless you dunk them in your drink or soup).
…then you’d have a soggy bottom issue that we learned is no good 😕 from The Great British Bake Off.
And we don’t want to get on the bad side of Judges Paul or Prue.
This is my graphical representation of the GBBO show 🍰
…Especially since we won’t be baking this time.
Melting the chocolate right is the best way to stay in their good graces… and get a decent peppermint flavor that comes through.
So for these chocolate mint biscuit crackers, I used MCT oil because it’s coconut oil without the coconut taste… brilliant!
MCT stands for medium chain triglycerides that help weight management and burning body fat.
MCT oil is often used for optimizing ketone energy (and not for making biscuits 😊). If you’re fasting, you can prolong your fast with MCT oil without feeling zapped of energy.
MCT oil is also good for health and inflammation prevention. We know that chronic inflammation leads to the chronic diseases that are still the #1 causes for mortality.
And if you like what you’re hearing (and get curiously hooked), this is a healthy habit you can habit stack with your coffee or fasting routine.
🎉 So here we go: these are the 4-easy ingredients that will bring the simple mint chocolate biscuit cracker recipe together.
These are No-bake and recipe is enough to make a dozen 2" size biscuits like square Saltines that can be enjoyed year-round and spruced up for the holidays.
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
12Saltines (low-salt or animal crackers)
1tspMCT oil
1/2cupchocolate chips
1/4tsppeppermint oil
peppermint candy (optional)
Instructions
Melt the chocolate with oil and peppermint oil. It will take about 5 minutes with warm-hot water (not boiling hot) with spoon stirring. You can see how to best melt chocolate: https://healthyhappylifesecrets.com/recipes/best-way-to-melt-chocolate-coconut-oil/
Dip the crackers front and back in the chocolate mixture while warm. Set them side-by-side flat on a tray.
Coconut carrot apple smoothie is refreshing and healthy… and one you ought to consider on your list of smoothies.
It’s a bright anti-inflammatory smoothie that you can drink year-round and start your balanced breakfast with that includes fiber, vitamins, minerals, and healthy fat to prep you for your protein bites.
AND it’s a great start for supporting weight loss goals
For starters:
Ginger – is a detox ingredient. This is a good ingredient to add to your daily beverage or water. It’s a punchy flavor that helps digestion and inflammation.
Ginger pairs great with a carrot (…carrot ginger soup 💭).
Carrot is a balanced veggie that’s known for beta-carotene and it’s no surprise that it’s anti-inflammatory. Carrots also have lutein that’s good for eye health. 🥕
Pairing apple with carrot is another balanced pairing. “A” is for apple, and “b and c” is for beta-carotene and carrots.
Red Apple – loaded with anti-inflammatory quercetin. The apple skin has the most antioxidants, so when using all in your smoothie… choose organic apples.
A medium sweetness apple like Gala, Fuji, or Red Delicious apple works well.
And…
Coconut flour is a gluten-free flour that is good for thickening. Since there’s no peanut butter or banana in this smoothie (that’s another smoothie 😋), you need a denser solid ingredient that complements the smoothie taste.
The flour version is a more subtle coconut taste that’s consistent and gives the smoothie a creaminess. If you’ve ever had coconut milks, you may have experienced the inconsistency, where the liquid separates from the solids.
The separation can cause a mix of tastes (not good for picky critics).
Btw, if you have someone who doesn’t like an ingredient, you can always substitute or omit.
…That’s close to my heart because I used to detest ginger and now I love it. And you have stories with your food journey where you evolve in tastes when you give foods another chance… and even some earlier food allergies, you can grow out of.
Spices can be part of that journey.
Cinnamon is one good sweet anti-inflammatory ingredient that you want to keep trying.
…Like in this coconut carrot apple smoothie as one way.
Ceylon cinnamon is the cinnamon that’s good for beverages as it’s the healthiest. It has a more sophisticated taste (my way of saying an acquired adult taste) than Cassia or traditional cinnamon we usually see and fragrantly use in baking treats like apple pie or galette desserts.
And to smooth-ie balance this smoothie, add your milk of choice.
Almond milk is a balanced plant-based milk. It has Vitamin D, E, A.
Adding some healthy fat like almonds (that almond milk comes from) help absorption.
Plus almond milk is usually easy to find in the stores, next to the cow’s milk you grew up drinking (that helped you grow up maybe a few extra inches). 🥛
Blend milk, apple, carrots, flour, cinnamon, and ginger. Tip: keep the peels for texture if you prefer with organic apples. Gala or Fuji apples work well.
