Strawberry banana smoothie is one I can get behind. It’s a great start.
For frrozen smoothies, frozen strawberries are a reliable source. They are a high source of Vitamin C.
For bananas, you don’t have to wait until they are ripe for a smoothie as texture best. You can go ahead and add your just bought bananas to your freezer.
Peel the banana and add to a freezer safe bag. The bananas will turn brownish black but they will be a good taste and soft texture for your smoothies. So like strawberries you can freeze or buy frozen, you have your bananas ready.
I learned this after I had been using fresh bananas that were too soft to eat by themselves. I like bananas when they are firm and about a day away from their green unripe peel.
And if you’re picky like I am with banana brown spots, if you freeze them you won’t have to deal with them. The entire banana will be brownish.
Blend the ingredients. When you add the herby flavor, it gives a third dimension. Mint will be mildest, basil is middle of the road, and cilantro will the the most pungent. Save Money Tip: you can freeze your fresh organic strawberries when they are in season.
Pour about 3/4 full, leaving a little room for the orange dreamsicle layer.
Blueberry cobbler is a dessert that can be made with low-sugar and no butter. And this one is made from unsweetened applesauce as a substitute.
This is also a blueberry recipe that can be made all healthy with no-added sugar (only blueberry and apple 🍏🫐), and all gluten-free if you want.
You can super easy mix this in one bowl and in less than 30 minutes from start to finish (prep and bake). 🏁
Pre-heat the oven to 325°F/165°C while you’re gathering your ingredients.
It’s that simple…
And with just 5 primary ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen: flour, applesauce, frozen blueberries, maple syrup, and milk.
The star ingredient is the blueberries. I’m wild about the wild ones (…you too?).
Blueberries are super healthy foods with their anti-inflammatory eat-from-the-rainbow polyphenols 🌈 Anthocyanin flavanoids are also found in blackberries that can be added or substituted in this dessert.
Berries paired with applesauce is loaded with vitamins, minerals, and fiber… and you’ll taste all that natural goodness in a blueberry cobbler dessert.
Fruit cobblers came from England and word got around and traveled to the U.S. southern states where it’s a dessert staple.
And that’s where I made this simple and healthy blueberry cobbler version.
The mixed batter will look like pancake batter if that makes you happy!
And it reminds me of the batter I made for my first blueberry muffin pan. That was the first dessert I ever made as a teen. I remember the box with the small aluminum can of blueberries inside that was cracked open with a can opener.
Those baking memories inspired me later on to make more blueberry inspired desserts like blueberry pancakes. And then blueberry became wildly popular as a touted super food.
And if you use frozen blueberries, you don’t have to drain or take out in advance. You can just add them from out of the freezer. And you always have them available like ingredients in your pantry (like applesauce that’s also a great item to always have on hand).
I like how they leave a little blueberry streak as they defrost.
You can even make a blueberry swirl pattern if you like by slightly squishing the blueberries as they warm up to room temps, and then taking a knife to swirl the juice.
But there’s nothing a full on blueberry look… it’s dramatic and you can make no mistake… it’s blueberry!
Tropical smoothie is one you can make at home with passion and tropical fruits like dragon fruit we now have access to in our Western grocery stores.
Like I’ve seen beautiful dragon fruit that’s a relatively new find in the Western hemisphere. The fruit’s outside vibrant pink and green color gives off the tropical (orchid?) look. It’s also called Pitaya that means “scaly fruit” and not scary fruit as it’s very pretty like a tight rose.
But, surprise (!) it’s not what it looks like inside…
Blend in a smoothie, it does do as the dragon fruit taste is so subtle (almost tasteless) and smooth in a smoothie with dragon fruit, passion fruit, and pineapple. 🍍
But you don’t taste the dragon fruit.
And like Houdini magic, you don’t even see it either… the dragon fruit disappears as you saw that it’s distinctly whitish with black seeds.
Dragon fruit, passion fruit, and pineapple tropical smoothie blend. 🍍🪷
…But invisible dragon fruit is quickly becoming a common tropical fruit. And makes a good choice to add to our tropical smoothie drinks 🌅 since we can find the fruit in our stores.
And you know what that means: fruit abundance equals price drop.
This hand-picked tropical fruit was under $3 and I remember its fruit siblings as over $5 just a few short months ago. It even has its own 3040 PLU sticker and number, making it a common produce. 💕
So you can add to your anti-inflammatory morning routine, breakfast parfait, or break-fait to take a break.
But first you have to crack into the stunning looking soft magenta and pineapple green streak fruit exterior.
…When you cut inside, you see the magenta flaming color even brighter than the outside.
Inside has a lot of pink color drama going on. 💄Looks like yummy fine silks. And feels slippery like an orchid’s petals.
When you finally get deep down into the fruit center, you’ll see the stark color and pattern contrast.
It’s like a dice color pattern design. Nature is so clever.
…And you can cut them into game playing dice shapes for your edible creations! How fun is that. 🎲
Whether you slip them into your dragon fruit tropical smoothie or assemble in a parfait, it’s a fun treat.
And a healthy one full of fiber (beating strawberries 🍓) that’s good for losing weight goals. And full of C and B vitamins.
…And when paired with passion fruit, it’s off the fruit charts!
In addition to a tropical smoothie, you can also build a tropical parfait.
How to Play the Parfait Game (or Build a Parfait)
This is a game where you end up eating what you make with your dragon fruit dice. 🎲🎲
It’s a lot more rewarding than playing a game of Parcheesi that can take hours. It takes prep minutes and you can play with one or more players. 😊
So let’s begin…
Rule of thumbfor parfait (that I like to use): add one layer of Greek yogurt at the bottom.
That becomes your base.
Bottom layer: And then add two star ingredients (or hero flavor ingredients as Paul Hollywood would say on the Great British Bake Off if he were here critiquing).
…Be bold, choose visually contrasting food ingredients in color and/or texture. You can even choose kiwi or a star fruit which was popular during my catering days. That can also go in your tropical smoothie.
Dragon fruit is an interesting choice.
I chose blueberries for the dark moody blue contrast, and you can sub with any bright berries for a pop! 🫐
Making micro choices like this is fun and relaxing… it’s playing creative dress up with your food. Then it’s not like work.
Moving on, next add another layer of the primer or Greek yogurt white base.
Middle layer: And then add another layer of one of the star ingredients already used, and introduce another fruit or new ingredient.
In this case, banana slices. 🍌
I could keep building layers, but by this point I’m running out of space in the glass. If I had a trifle bowl to work with, I’d add another layer.
Top layer: Then for the very top layer I call the zhugh layer, add your textures like nuts and seeds. I like walnuts and flax seeds for this one.
Chia seeds would be dramatic too.
It’s your dreamy parfait, so you can dream up your parfait desires into reality!
The other tip I have is to make two for yourself. So if you’re making for a couple, then make 4. Easy math…
Or roll the dragon fruit dice, and see what fun number you get. It will be at least uno “1” for each dice. 😊
The reason I make one extra is because then you can enjoy again. The next day. And the same for a tropical smoothie.
This is a good smoothie for breaking a fast…
It has protein (yogurt or milk for a smoothie), carb (fruit), and fat (nuts and seeds) all in one.
Tropical Smoothie with Dragon Fruit, Passion Fruit, and Pineapple
This is a tropical smoothie you can now make at home and not travel to the tropics or a smoothie place to get!
Course Breakfast
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
1Dragon fruit, diced (they actually look like dice!)
1Pineapple (fresh or canned)
Passion fruit, diced
maple syrup (optional)
milk of choice (coconut milk suggested)
Instructions
Blend up your tropical fruits and add about a 1/4 cup milk to 1 cup milk. Add more milk as desired for a thin or thick smoothie. To add more or less sweetness, add or reduce pineapple and/or maple syrup.
For a foam top, you can use the thicker part of coconut milk to create.
Notes
This will work with coconut water, but will be thinner and you can add pureed fruit or small fruit chunks to thicken.
Donut baked with low-sugar cinnamon and honey is a way to love the original fried dough dessert that tastes amazing. 🍩 And these are made with healthy flour and ingredients. Recipe below.
The hole is credited to a sea captain on the waters in 1847.
Holed-donuts even look a bit like life preservers 🛟… and his story (and history) goes like this: the captain wanted more even cooking all around, so he punched a hole in the middle.
Then years later, donuts became “oily cakes” from the earliest donut shop recorded on land in the U.S.
And today, you can avoid oil and water (in cooking) by easy baking low-sugar donuts.
And you get more of an even bake like I did, using your special pans.
I used my Nordic Ware for this baking project that would hold up to any heated baking wars inside the oven. 😊
When you mix in whole wheat flour, you’re getting more fiber and protein than all-purpose flour. It’s a small tweak you can make in your cakey dough recipes.
The dough-batter will be a little darker in color.
I grew up on whole wheat sandwiches so it was an easy substitute for me.
You can see it holds up well in the pan of whole and hole donuts. With holes too, you get double the w(hole), plus more.
And sometimes a low-sugar healthy sweet cinnamon donut hole bite is all you need to fulfill the sweet tooth inside the pie hole (mouth).
When I worked with food event planning in Lebanese restaurants, one of the more popular desserts was Awamat (donut holes).
So this is where it can get confusing… is the hole the space in the middle of the donut or the donut round hole? 😁
In my party planning days 🥳, it was the round holes.
Those were often the choice for birthday parties or special dinner events that could be built up into a Croquembouche display (like a Christmas pine cone tree 🌲).
Holes in the middle can’t do that as they’re just air.
So the solid holes was something special and new to me. 🍩
Another new change I learned: donuts aren’t just for breakfast anymore like they used to be.
And the decked out party cinnamon donut holes I worked with were made with honey instead, and zhughed with saffron that gave a tangy tasting top.
…Plus a pretty interesting look with the stringy red strands.
In reminiscing about those special event donut days, this is my low-sugar healthy whole wheat version of the donut that you can decorate for any sweet occasion. You can make these anytime.
When you want a sweet bite, these fill the hole with a low-sugar, healthy baked snack.
Course Dessert
Cuisine American, lebanese
Servings 4
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Ingredients
1-1/2cupwhole wheat flour
1/4cupmilk of choice
1tspbaking powder
1tbsphoney (or maple syrup)
1tbsplight extra virgin olive oil
1egg, beaten
1tbspcinnamon spice
additional cinnamon for zhughing (optional)
Instructions
Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients until fully combined.
Roll 8 balls with hands and add to baking sheet pan (or make 2 donut rings and 4-5 1" balls).
Bake on 350°F/180°C for about 20 minutes. Don't overbake. Tips: With whole wheat flour, you'll tend to think that it may not be baked through so time is more reliable. About a few minutes or 5 minutes before finished, you can also flip the donut bottom to top of the pan, and see that the bottoms are slightly darker and finish your bake more evenly. Or for the donut holes, have fun rolling them around!
For a simple glaze, save your egg white and add a splash or water. Glaze donuts about 5 minutes before end of bake. You can also add a melted chocolate, light honey, or maple syrup glaze after the donut pan is cooled. Or simply zhugh with a dusting of cinnamon.
Radish salad is one that isn’t often a first choice for most. Because fresh radishes are bitter, pepper-spicy.
But the salad recipe below is more sweet than bitter notes.
This salad is radi(sh)-cally DIFFERENT.
And radishes are super healthy and I have a way to lessen the bitter.
You can even replace tomatoes and cherry tomatoes in your salad for this similar but different radishes in a radish salad.
You may even fall in love (with this no-tomato salad again). Radishes are a year-round produce staple that often gets overlooked and not over picked in stores.
And it’s a good substitute for tomato because some people can’t eat tomatoes despite their bright attractiveness and summery abundance.
Because tomatoes are acidic. Even though they’re healthy lycopene food.
And radishes have a different profile (or personality if food were people).
Radishes prepared the way I describe below look a bit like yellow potatoes (also abundant), but have no starchy calories, so that’s another good reason to ra-dish.
This radish salad recipe is a new way but a traditional salad in that there’s no cooking meal prep involved… gotta love that!
A salad is great in the hot or summer months when you want to eat lighter and meet weight loss goals.
Red radishes are available and abundant year round in most stores.
They’re usually packaged next to their baby carrot root veggie friends… and cost about the same affordable pennies each as price.
Plus the packaged ones have been de-stemmed so they’re ready to eat after you rinse them off.
But unlike the carrot, the radish is part of the Brassica family that Cousin broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collard greens, and cauliflower are all in.
There are many interesting types of radishes with names just as curious, like Watermelon, Cherry Belle, Daikon, Easter, and French Breakfast radishes.
But keeping it simple and wallet-friendly, you can use red radishes for your radish salad.
And to make the radishes soft and less bitter, there are 2 ways that I’ll share here…
The first way is: instead of cutting or thinly slicing up in round radish coins fresh from raw radishes, wash off your radishes like you would, put them back in the plastic bag and tie up the top or in a freezer safe plastic bag with a ziplock for at least 2 days.
Don’t bother to dry them off (…even easier!).
The moisture helps them mush a little.
The radishes will transform and change color.
Where instead of the vibrant magenta-ish reddish purple pink color, you get a white-washed pale faded magenta color with a slightly burnt light brown hue around looking more like a yellow potato.
Did I do my paint color description justice?
When you’re a few days away from working with the radish in your salad and meals, you can take the bag out of the freezer and place in the fridge in a noticeable place you won’t forget about (but you can intentionally temporarily forget).
If you add to you fridge mid-week, they’ll be ready for your weekend salad.
There is some exercise of time and patience here… but if you leave the radishes as an afterthought, then it’s just time…
…So just fuh-gettabout it!
And then when you’re ready to use your radishes for your weekend dish, they will be soft and squishy… and if you squeezed one like a cherry tomato, it would squirt juice across the room like a water gun
Except it’s more like watery juice than tomato juice.
So that’s the first way.
The second way takes less time.
You’d freeze your radish like the first step in the first way already mentioned.
But then after they have formed icicles after a day or longer, bring the bag out to room temperature and place the bag in a bowl.
There will be a lot of juice coming out that you can use for a gazpacho or some other juicy food bowl dish.
After a day and overnight at room temps, they will get soft. But the color will be more like the faded pink-purplish colors in case that matters for your dish.
…Like these that are ready to be cut and used for your radish salad.
Tips for radishes from frozen:
Cut the squishy radishes with a serated knife (with jagged edges). Pierce into each radish first, in order to let out the radish water and air that has accumulated like a pressure cooker… except they won’t explode on their own.
[Btw, if you use a butter knife, the radish will just roll around like a inflatable beach ball.]
With prepared radishes from frozen, you should notice easily the less bitter pungent smell (than that of raw radishes).
…Ya never thought you could have so much fun with produce, did ya?
And then you can cut up the radish bits to the sizes you like and place them in your salad.
They also go well with pasta salads or an Italian bean salad with radicchio.
…And btw… radishes and radicchio are not related. That would be ridiculo! Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
But they pair well on a salad plate together.
…And wow-za, you have one bright plate that’s calling. The contrast against a bed of spinach or Iceberg lettuce is inspiring… and if you add Romaine lettuce, that would be a salad melange party.
Anding sweet diced pimento peppers, chopped red bell peppers, and corn also dazzle up the dish.
If you’re sensitive to cheese dairy, but you still want to add, you may find buffalo mozzarella is better since it’s cheese made from buffalo milk or halloumi made from sheep and/or goat milk.
Also, radishes goes well with microgreens and microgreen salads.
