Food Balance Your Body Type Archives - Page 6 of 45

Vegetable Pizza From a Home Oven

Vegetable pizza is a plant-based pizza that can be made savory and interesting.

Or like this tomato-shaped farmers market okra, peppers, beets, and alfalfa sprouts pizza.

Microgreens like sprouts 🌱 are a great add to a veggie pie.

This one was made same-day and with “00” pizza flour that makes chewy crusts like those found in frozen pizzas. That’s what I found from baking in my home oven on regular baking temperatures.

That’s different than a commercial oven that I’m also familiar with.

You see, I’m not a beginner pizza maker or vegetable pizza maker…

I spent 4 of my pre-college years working for Domino’s Pizza making pizzas in busy stores around the DC metro suburbs.

The crusts were more like softer warming bread crusts, the kind that I am used to making at home these days. 😋

At the pizza shops, they were called the regular handmade pizza crust. Bread and handmade made for good comfort food. It made the bread soft and a little airy inside.

I was glad I could achieve a similar crust at home from techniques I tested and learned.

And similarly there’s no reason why you can’t make your own handmade pizza dough from your home or apartment oven. 💭

The recipes and steps for how to turn your pizza ideas to dream reality are easy to follow and you can also check out my Home Pizza Dough Beginner guide.

You can make your own easy pizzas from you home oven. And you can see some of my fall pizza regular and soft bread crust examples for ideas.

And you can also make slightly more advanced light and airy, charred pizza bread crusts (like those from wood-fired pizzas or “professional” pizza equipment).

Those are impressive and deliciously satisfying Neapolitan-style pizza that can come easily from your home or apartment oven! …Yasss! 🤸🏼‍♂️

I think pizza is an easy add anyway.

Especially because food costs have climbed a lot over the past years, and making your own home pizzas is a good way to save food and pizza money… and still get your satisfying pizza-fill on Game and pizza craving days.

Making pizza bread is as easy as 1-2-3 once you get the hang of it. It can be an auto-no-brainer with a few tries.

And that can be a regular healthy meal for you (more on this below)…

It’s also a way to impress your friends with your pizza kitchen skills like with this pizza that you may be surprised to know was made in my apartment oven with just a regular baking pan:

…So no fancy tools. And no wood-fired or outdoor pizza oven. What’s not to love? It did get gobbled up – leaving no crumbs.

And pizzas are also such an easy way to add more anti-inflammatory healthy plant-based foods to your diet.

A vegetable pizza is an easier sell than a plate of veggies (for any age) because not one ingredient is the star.

It’s the salty, savory ingredient melange that makes a pizza.

And it wins points for this old vegetable pizza maker! It’s happy and oh yeah, healthy…

Pizzas can be very healthy and low-fat if you don’t add as much “greasy” cheese as you see on most pizzas on the planet. In the pizza shops, our rule of thumb was one layer of oily cheese and no gaps. And that was a good amount of cheese you can pull apart.

But you can use a lot less cheese like in a Margherita pizza where healthy Buffalo mozzarella (yum!) slices are randomly added and the melted cheese patches don’t cover the entire pizza. It’s what you make it!

We also used in the pie shop, all our healthy scraps that fell in the pit for the everything pizzas. Those ingredients are just as healthy!

And you can do the same at home with very little pitfalls.

…Only pizza benefits.

Especially vegetable pizzas that make good beginner pizzas and are good opportunities to use all those veggies that the gardens are abundantly growing. 🍅 🥬

Pizzas are a great way to ramp up on onion and mushroom pairings as powerful immunity foods, especially during cold and flu season. 🧅🍄‍🟫

And if you’re dairy-free, you still can enjoy a pizza.

I remember there were always people who ordered no tomato sauce or no cheese… and even no dough…whaaat? That was before gluten-free was a thing.

And subbing those ways is all covered in my little 17-page guide. Because I believe there’s a pizza for any occasion! And can be enjoyed by anyone who can eat solids.

Oh, and I almost forgot… if you like sourdough or have never made before but interested in beginner learning skills, adding starter to your pizza dough is a great way, and for the crust’s sake that I cover as well.

It’s much easier adding sourdough starter in a pizza where it’s just a little bit and not a whole sourdough bread commitment.

Sourdough is also healthy because it’s lower glycemic index than doughs made from just commercial yeast. And that’s good for not spiking blood sugar (and helping prevent lifestyle/Diabetes 2 on the rise).

That’s just one reason why people are still so wild about the wild yeast and an added benefit for those who didn’t know!

That’s healthy food inspiration and ideal weight aspiration for anyone who has a gut and wants to keep it healthy. I’m pretty sure that’s all of us 🧡

Vegetable Pizza (Whole Wheat Flour Crust)

An easy and delicious pizza crust you can make in a couple hours to accompany veggie toppings you choose.

Course pizza

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 cup whole wheat flour (or combine with bread flour)
water (enough to combine and have a slightly moist dough)
1 tsp salt (kosher salt recommended)
1/4 tsp instant yeast

Instructions

Incorporate ingredients with either a mixer with a bread hook or do by hand. By hand, create a well (that looks like a volcano) in the middle of flour, yeast, and salt (like you would in homemade pasta making). Gradually add water and mix in.
After combined, knead dough. Roll with hand and flatten with palm of hand. Do not be gentle. Do this for 5+ minutes.
Let dough rest for at least 2 hours in a plastic container. Be sure the dough is moist. If baking same day, pull out and shape/flatten dough with hand leaving about 1/2" edge crust untouched.
Bake at 350°F/180°F for 20 minutes and then pull out of oven and add sauce and vegetable toppings. For wet or frozen veggies, cook those separately in a pan before adding to pizza. Bake for another 10-15 minutes or until bottom of crust is fully baked.

Cabbage Soup with Beet – Healthy Low-Sodium Soup

Cabbage soup is a great fall soup and for year round. And when you add beet juice, you get a beautiful color… you can’t beat that!

This is an Ayurvedic melody. You can get your sweet vegetable, savory, sour, and umami tastes in one bowl. You can also add some heat if you’re feeling cool (and more Kapha or Vata in fall Vata season).

Tamarind is the sour taste that’ll set your soup apart from the rest. It’s commonly used in more exotic sauces and dishes.

If you buy tamarind paste that has seeds, to remove the seeds: pull apart taffy-texture-like pieces. Then place the tamarind paste in a bowl with heated water (just below boiling water is good). You can leave for a few hours or even overnight. Then the tamarind taffy-sticky texture should slip off more easily.

Add go right into your warming cabbage beet soup. You can make this soup without beets if you’re not a fan. And use red cabbage.

But if you’re a beet lover, this is the fall color you can BEAT! 🫜

And at the farmers markets or maybe your own farm

Cabbage soup is a healthy and light soup you can enjoy year round. It’s better warm, but you can enjoy it cold too. Either way, it’s LOW SODIUM healthy.

Cabbage is a great veggie to lose weight. And in a soup, it’s soup-er tasty. When cabbage is raw, it has a crunchy texture that can be satisfying like chips.

And what you don’t use, you can save for a future cabbage soup or dish. Or a lettuce wedge salad.

Iceberg lettuce is the common cabbage head. Sometimes they’re the size of a head or a volleyball.

It’s a filler that’s a good way to stretch a grocery bill, like the cost of a common loaf of bread..

And since cabbage is over 90% (and mainly) water, it’s underestimated as a healthy food.

For starters, it has K vitamins, some B vitamins, and minerals. It also has Vitamin C, that’s an antioxidant.

And best of all, cabbage is a high source of fiber, so it’s great for digestive reasons and losing weight.

The cabbage soup that my mom used to make did not have tomatoes. She used soy sauce that gave it a umami taste.

And instead of just heating the cabbage to soften, you can do what I call the radish method. Which is adding the cabbage to the freezer overnight and then bringing to the fridge or in room temp when you’re ready to work it in a soup.

It will turn mushy and you can cut into strips like for a radish salad.

You don’t want to skip cutting down the cabbage into smaller pieces as it’s hard to swallow fibrous whole cabbage leaves. Like a palm leaf, it would be good shade cover.

So to avoid a big mass wad of cabbage, you can take a pair of kitchen shears and cut, cut, cut… similar to as if you were trimming hair, making many micro-cuts. Keep cutting through the fibers.

And this will allow for an enjoyable soup experience that you can serve as an appetizer or starter bowl.

For a little heat that creeps us, wasabi powder (or horseradish powder that’s white color) is a sharp and pungent way or cayenne pepper for more heat.

If you’re game for a healthy comfort bowl of soup, you can also try an anti-inflammatory rainbow soup with cauliflower, a fall vegetable soup with fresh veggies and fall spices, and other easy homemade low-sodium soups.

Low Sodium Cabbage Beet Soup

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

1 cup cabbage
1 can whole beets
1 tbsp Five Spice
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup vegetable broth
salt and pepper to taste
wasabi powder or cayenne pepper (optional for heat), to taste
tamarind (optional)

Instructions

Add beef broth, soy sauce, beets, and beet juice (from the beet can) to a cooking pot.
Cut cabbage into small strips, and add to pot.
Add spices and seasonings.
Cook on heat until cabbage is soggy and soft.

Vegetable Soup – Low-Sodium Soy Sauce

Vegetable soup is one of the healthiest and tastiest soups when done right. And low-sodium homemade healthy.

…That’s easier than doing it not-right, because you can’t really mess up this easy-to-make simple soup.

Especially when you use fresh veggies that stand on their own. You can find unusual varieties from your local farmers markets and grocery stores.

Variety is the spice of life and this bowl of spice has plenty. Recipe below.

This Ayurvedic balancing soul food soup recipe is all veggies and great for Vata (fall) season. 🥣

It has no tomatoes (that’s a fruit and maybe doesn’t belong that way?).

The healthy goodness ingredients are good for any diet you’re on (plant-based, anti-inflammatory, Mediterranean, all-of-the-above)… and even a balancing Ayurvedic one.

Plus, this no-tomato variety vegetable soup is even more exciting to look at than an ordinary tomato-based soup.

And then another plus on top of that… if acidity prevents you from eating tomatoes, then this umami soup base recipe will be a good substitute.

It’s like a change in autumn leaves color in a bowl. 🍁

So you can think of it like a no-tomato, heartburn-resistant minestrone soup full of welcomed warm comfort surprises.

That also includes no carrots or celery found in other common soups.

Save those good ingredients for homemade low sodium soups like immunity carrot ginger soup or a cream of celery. Or anti-inflammatory eat-from-the-rainbow soups.

…Believe me, I used to buy all my soups before I learned how easy it is to make my own healthy (soups).

…Sometimes it’s as much or little effort as heating up a canned soup, like the vegetable soup here.

It’s also fun to add in your own little of this… and a little of that.

You build a warm relationship with food in a healthy way.

…Oh, and wait ’til you hear what warming and cooling spices (below) are in this soup that’s great for transitions and weather changes.

I get excited over the simplest things, like spices that are year-round adds 🎉for me. And changing it up as Ayurvedic seasons change.

…That’s something I look forward to plus a bowl of soup in the fall that I like to make bottomless by adding new veggies like a growing soup garden.

But I slowly digress.

…And speeding it up – are you ready to make this comforting soup-ed up souper soup (sorry, couldn’t resist 😁) that can enjoyably last as long as you can before spoon scooping it up?

This fresh vegetable soup has a umami flavor with spices, so that the star ingredients are the veggies and the spices that support them.

Adding more plant-based veggies to a diet is always a good thing and when you can make it super tasty with simple flavors and spices like turmeric, pepper, thyme, and paprika. And even a little cayenne pepper heat.

…Depending on your season. And you!

Or add white pepper that’s not hot, but has an adult umami-forward flavor. And turmeric is perfect for a smoky touch in a warm bowl like this.

Spices are a great way to balance daily Ayurvedic moods and preferences that your body naturally gravitate towards. And as holiday spice accoutrements.

Spices can be the new low-sodium substitute (from salt).

And if spices were punctuations…

Cayenne pepper is the exclamation point ❗️of spices. Where a sprinkle of heat sneaks up on you at the end.

If you’re not ready for heat or are Kapha balanced, you can put a comma pause on it. 😁

And you can add dashes of cumin for Pitta if that’s still spilling over from summer heat in your body.

If you add cayenne and cumin equally, they’ll help to cancel each other out as heat in your body even though you’ll get the cayenne heat in taste.

And turmeric will change everything. It’s a great year round spice add, period.

Now you have a smoky and herby blend great for fall outdoor tastes.

I also love to add a little sumac (that’s found in za’atar). The dramatic purplish color blends in well and contrasts with the warm orange and yellows. It gives a little subtle tart taste.

You’ll know whether to add the spice if you give it an EASY sniff the spice test. If it smells good, it will BE good in your vegetable soup.

I’m never shy experimenting with spices and I use taste and sniff preferences as my Ayurvedic balance guide.

And with that, then I add the soup base.

Water is underrated (like, “it’s just water”) as an ingredient, but often the most important ingredient for soups.

Which btw, the no-cost pure ingredient solves a lot of cooking and baking dilemmas that other ingredients can’t.

You can make a vegetable broth with a little umami flavor that low-sodium soy sauce adds.

You can also sub the sauce with Worcestershire sauce that has several subtle tastes for the taste buds.

And that’s it for the broth. The spices will also bring out the broth.

Now it’s time to meet the star veggies. 😊

Before cooked, look at the gold beet ⭐️, red beet 🫜, watermelon radish 🍉, and red cabbage. This could be a band.

And these colors can’t be BEET!

Then when cooked with okra in a vegetable soup, they become the burnt autumn leaf colors. Oh, and there’s a violet tucked amid the bowl from a purple bell pepper that snuck in there.

Anti-Inflammatory Vegetables For Soup:

Okra is an anti-inflammatory food that you often find in southern dishes and soups like gumbo. It is sometimes used as a thickening agent… so now you can look at its somewhat slimy personality as a plus.

It’s also filled with healthy antioxidant seed pods that add pearly contrast to a bowl.

An easy way to cook okra is to cut the long veggie into smaller pieces like you see in frozen bags (with the round flower shapes). Okra is actually related to the hibiscus flower. 🌺

It also belongs to the same family as cotton. And cacao too.

Beets – classic red beets are earthy that go well with umami flavors. Gold beets taste pure to me and you gotta love the warmish color glow. 🌅

Radishes – watermelon radishes are so pretty like ‘lil pieces of artwork in a soup bowl. They’re also less bitter than classic radishes.

Red cabbage is loaded with polyphenols from the purplish color. They have more of a bitter taste and is a hearty vegetable.

After you choose your veggies, add your longevity beans like pinto beans. Or kidney beans for a minestrone vibe… and then you’ve got one anti-inflammatory preventative health forward bowl.

It’s that simple for bringing in more plant-base in your soup bowl.

You can also make your own no-soggy za’atar cracker for your soup that’s 3 ingredients if you include water (that ya know I do).

And to make fluffy rice flawlessly from dry grains, it’s easy and you can walk away from the stove when you use the double boiler method.

Healthy Fall Vegetable Soup (Low Sodium)

Ingredients

okra, cut
watermelon radishes, sliced
beets, sliced
pinto beans (or kidney beans)
cooked rice (optional)
water
low or reduced sodium soy sauce
spices

Instructions

Cook veggies, spices, and liquids in a pot. Let simmer but don't overcook veggies.
Cook rice separately. Add if desired.
Pour in a bowl and enjoy.

Notes

Tip: Add your spices in the heating soup to enhance the flavors and unleash the spice healthy benefits.

Easy Apple Tart Healthy Recipe

Apple tart can be a breakfast idea or dessert made from healthy baked wheat, oats, and honey. Oh, and wholesome apples are whole snacks for some… maybe you? Fuji apples here, but there are so many apple to choose from for your enjoyable tarts. 🍎

Below is an easy breakfast ingredient recipe for apple tart that’s low sugar and needs no proofing. And the proof is when you make them (…and in photos below 😊).

And if you decide to bake your apples at all…

Because a whole apple snack from an apple tree needs no improvement or addition… and if all you do is add peanut butter on them and eat them raw, they’re delish-elevated!

I esp. like the crunch and taste pairing of Granny Smith green apples with a natural peanut butter (like the kind you stir up with peanuts). 🥜

With a baked apple tart recipe, the sweeter crisp red apples are better for dessert snacking. As they soften in the oven, you can taste more of the sweet and tart.

…And for a pop of bright red on a plate.

Well… sometimes.

They do come out with baked fall colors. You’ll see below what I’m talking about. 🍁

Because red apples vary in color as you’ll see shades of red, yellow, white, and green if you pay closely attention. It’s like nature did a Bob Ross painting on each apple (and apple orchard if you like landscapes).

Like us peeps in nature, no two apples are exactly alike.

They say there are over 7,000 apple varieties and you know the ones that are abundant and growing in your surroundings. 🌳

Red apples dominate the fruit market scenes in the autumn. They match the fire engine red leaves on the U.S. east coast and make great healthy candy apples (instead of sugary caramel).

Healthy apples can be stuffed with healthy ingredients… like the sweet messy kind you can’t stuff in a bag 🎃, but you can stuff yourself with and enjoy the swirling mess in your mouth.

That’s one idea for today.

And with apple season upon us, you need no other reason to come up with new apple snack ideas, like an easy baked apple tart.

The steps are simple and easy…

Cut your whole apples in half and de-core them.

An easy way to do this is to take a paring knife and cut around the core, and as you get around to the other side of the track, you can almost pop the center out.

Save your apple seeds and plant them.

Then seedless, you can eat all the apple flesh parts without waste. Organic (pesticide-spraying free) apples are suggested if you eat the skin (that have a lot of healthy fiber).

Add peanut butter (that will ah! and ooh!-ze out when warmed and baked).

Then put your apple halves aside.

Make your pastry dough:

It’s an easy mix of ground oats and whole wheat. You can even add wheat bran and/or buckwheat for some more variety and healthy goodness, like I did. Mix in water.

Then add the honey and butter that’s a food pairing harmony, working so well together for taste and texture.

But if you want to use a healthy oil (instead of butter) you could do that.

And also your choice is to add cinnamon (and/or cardamom) spices with your apples.

Cinnamon adds that warm fall-ish cozy fireplace or fall hiking outdoor tasting vibe. Sweater weather is coming, but apple cinnamon baking is the active season beforehand.

For Vata (fall season) and us balancing moods, that’s comforting and clearing. It’s a great season to breathe intently and catch new breaths.

And getting back to the bake (and not to get too much in the weeds), cinnamon will help anxious energies. Cassia or traditional cinnamon spice you find easily in grocery stores is going to be sweet for adding to bakes before going in the oven. The other Ceylon cinnamon kind is more healthy and good to add to coffee and zhughing. But mix-and-match spices and kinds before, after, and during as you please.

You do you… and dousing some cinnamon spice of any kind is healthy. The plants even love some on their soil to prevent unintended growth. 😊

Cinnamon is one of those natural foods that have no pitfalls. and goes great in the fall.

And now you’re ready.

For this easy apple tart good for fall bake, you can put this short pastry crust together in a few short minutes.

The dough will have crumbly bits falling off (appropriate for the season), but will mostly stick together as a ball.

Divide the dough into three equal parts.

Flatten/roll out the dough with the palm of one hand is easier. See as easy promised, you don’t even need a rolling pin.

Shape the dough into an apple shape around each apple half if you like. Of make into a circle with your circle cutters.

Use some honey to glue your apple bottoms (halves) to your flattened pastry bases. Then when you’re happy with your apples…

Bake at 325°F for about 25 minutes. If you want to give your apples a drying baked apple look (see 🍎 baked photo above), you can leave them in the still-warm oven after you turn the oven off. That will soften the apples even more for that you can even add to an apple pie. 🥧 💭

Before the apples are fully softened, the pastry base will be golden brown. You can pull them out of the oven at that point or bake a ‘lil longer. The apples start out shiny smooth like this duo below.

Which btw, these apple tarts in-the-making look like they are in jail but believe me, they’re enjoying their warm cell and cozy base as they bake. 😁

Oh, and if you like this recipe, you’ll love these low-sugar dessert recipes… some even have apple ingredients.

And if you’re looking for Vata season sweet and salty snack idea, you can try a happy Rocky Road energy bar, a no-bake peanut butter cookie, and/or pair with an apple carrot smoothie.

Curious, what you like? Lemme know in the comments.

Baked Apple Tart Breakfast with Oatmeal and Peanut Butter

This is a great dessert snack idea with healthy oatmeal breakfast-inspired ingredients. Makes 3 apple tarts.

Course Breakfast

Servings 3 apple tarts

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Ingredients

3/4 cup whole wheat flour (can combine with wheat bran or buckwheat)
2 Tbsp softened or melted butter
1/2 cup old fashioned oats
3 tsp peanut butter
1 Tbsp raw honey, plus more
4 Tbsp heated warm water (plus a little more as needed)
1-1/2 tsp cinnamon spice
1/2 tsp cardamom spice (optional)

Instructions

Grind your oats into fine pieces.
Cut your apples in half and hollow out center with seeds. Leave skin on (if using non-organic apples, you can de-skin apples also if you choose).
Add peanut butter to apple hollowed center. Set apples aside.
Make the pastry dough apple bases. In a bowl, add the flour and oats, butter, cinnamon, and then add water and honey, and cinnamon (if using). Fully combine with a spoon. You can use a little more water as needed to help the dough crumbly pieces stick together. The dough should stick together and have some crumbly bits.
Divide pastry dough into 3 equal balls. Flatten each with palm of hand and shape into circle or apple disc-base shapes that your apple halves will fit onto of.
When you're happy with your pastry discs, add a honey circle ring drizzle around to "glue" your apples to the pastry. The peanut butter will ooze out of the apples.
Bake at 325°F/165°C for about 25 minutes or until the pastry is lightly browned on the sides and bottom. You can leave in the oven after the temp is turned off for a softer baked apple tart.

Easy Pecan Latte + How to Make Pecan Milk

Pecan latte is one that’s up the chic alley as pistachio lattes. You can use store-bought milks to make an easy coffee beverage or a smoothie that tastes like a German Chocolate Cake. But is healthy and easy to fall for!

For a latte, blending pecan milk with coconut milk will add to those pecan dessert tastes and give a more creamy experience with more flavor. But you can also sub or add with cashew or almond milk that are easy to find. 🛒

…And make your own easy homemade pecan milk.

Which btw, pecan milk is a great Magic Bullet recipe.

And this is how to make pecan milk in 3 easy steps:

Step 1: Soak your pecans overnight.

Step 2: Drain the pecans, add fresh water, blend, and add to your cloth strainer. Oh, and remember to save your pecans because you will use those in the pecan latte smoothie recipe (below).🧋

Tip: if you can’t find cheese cloths or muslin that are more fancy kitchen supplies (that can be tricky to find in a pinch), you can use mesh bags (like the kind you’d use for delicate laundry) and store a couple in your kitchen supplies. Since those mesh bags have bigger holes, you can double up so the pecan bits don’t fall through.

And now you’re ready for the final step…

Step 3: Over a bowl or glass, pour the fresh water-pecans chopped blend into the (mesh) cloth strainer. And squeeze tightly so all that good wholesome homemade pecan milk flows through.

Unlike cow’s milk, you’re milking a bag for milk. 🥛

So easy and you may amaze yourself it works. It actually has a milk white color (compared to the soaked pecan water in step 1 that’s beige-ish color).

The first pour you can call the first press. 😊

That’s going to be the thicker milk (that can be used for foam and/or part of your pecan latte drink).

I took a photo to show you the difference in the milk thickness from the first and second press if you decide to make more pecan milk.

You can see the difference in the thicker (1/4 cup pecan milk) and then the more watered down pecan milk in the additional 1/3 cup made from 4 whole pecans:

pecan milk first pour and second pour comparison. — Pecan milk: 4 pecans make 1/4 cup thick milk and addt’l 1/3 cup thin milk

Then to make the pecan milk foam (or coconut milk foam that goes well in coffee or the German Chocolate Cake latte smoothie 🧋).

You can make foam effectively on your home stove.

Add your fresh milk (fresh-off-the-press) to a stove pot and place over your stove burner on medium-high heat. I find that pecan milk works better when blended with an even thicker milk or alternative milk like a plain unsweetened almond milk or coconut milk.

With your milk, when you get small boils (never understood why they would call those fish eyes… eww! 🤪), then you can turn your stove off or pull the pot off the stove. You don’t want to burn your fresh milk.

Turn your frother tool on into your pot of warmed milk. You’ll see foam develop. I find if you move the tool up and down a little you get more even froth.

Tools: You can purchase a basic hand-held frother tool for a few dollars (or pennies per drink for all the drinks you will make!). They’re like magic 🪄

…Along with a magic bullet blender (or similar) that makes life easy for Magic Bullet drinks, dips, and smoothie recipes.

These are two easy tools that give you a bougie drink without much effort!

Tip: Don’t worry so much about the foam. For a latte drink it’s not as important as a feature like the foam on a cappuccino drink. Latte is more about the milk.

But if the foam is important to you, then store bought full-on coconut milk can be a better foaming source and more stable. I find it better than the “barista” labelled milks, but that depends on you and your tools.

However you make your foam, it will go down tasty! 😋

You can pour the remaining milk liquid parts into your dessert smoothie or coffee pecan latte drink.

Remember to reserve a little spoonful of foam until the very end like a barista does.

And now you’ve made an at-home barista drink, saving time and without having to walk out the door. Plus you save money (…remember the latte factor?). You’re the barista or drink maker.

…How cool, yes?

And from there with drink in hand, you can have a party! 🧋🧉

And of course a beverage like this will pair decadently with a sweet-ish chocolate-y dessert (…maybe for a Swedish Fika break).

When I worked in catering management, we often served decadent-oozing chocolate soufflé desserts at parties that were always a hit at special occasions and wedding dinners.

So I was inspired and made my gluten-free version of the individual chocolate cakes that are easy to make healthy and bake at home.

A dessert like this would go well with a coffee latte. Especially with flavored coffees with vanilla, coconut, or chocolate bits!

A latte can be served hot or cold (depending on the season and your Ayurvedic season happening in you).

Coffee is a healthy plant-based drink that you can make less acidic with an easy at-home cold brew coffee.

And if a pecan latte in coffee or smoothie form isn’t your thing for today, how about a tea party (for one, plus one, or more)? These days everyone loves teas. They’re healthy and comfortable.

You can make a light dessert tea with a pecan latte. This works well brewing a a light tea, like a holiday tea you can find in autumn weather that a sugar cookie would go great with.

The healthy and tasty pairing possibilities are endless. 🎉

Ready to make your easy pecan latte drink?

…Or try a decadent tasting (but healthy) German Chocolate Cake smoothie.

Both are sustainable plant-based healthy drinks that drink up all traces that it was there. You can use all the blended solid and liquid pecan parts. And poof… just like that, it’s magically gone! 😋

Healthy Pecan Latte German Chocolate Cake Smoothie

This 12 oz drink tastes like a German Chocolate Cake Smoothie with a latte foam and pecans.

Course beverage

Cuisine American

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

frother tool
pot for stove
cheese cloth or muslin

Ingredients

1 cup unsweetened coconut milk, cold
1/2 cup pecan milk
1 tsp cocoa powder, add more to taste
1-1/2 Tbsp coconut powder
1 Tbsp maple syrup
4 whole pecans for 1/4 cup thick pecan milk and smoothie "pecan butter.")
ground pecan bits, shredded coconut, cinnamon, and/or cocoa powder of zhughing
pecan milk foam

Instructions

To make the pecan milk (latte) with the pecans: soak pecans in water overnight. Discard the soaking water and blend the pecans with 1/4 cup fresh water). Pour and squeeze pecan milk through a strainer cloth (e.g. cheese cloth, muslin, or double wrapped mesh bag) over a bowl or glass. Save the blended pecans as the "pecan butter" for the smoothie.
Make the pecan milk foam: Add some of the fresh pecan milk made into a stove pot on medium high heat until small boils. Turn off stove and use frother tool to make foam from the warmed milk. Reserve foam for the top of drink.
Make the smoothie drink: Add all ingredients (except for the milk foam) to a blender and blend smoothly. Pour into a drinking glass.
Spoon foam that can be made from fresh pecan milk (or milk blend) to the top of the drink.
Zhugh with ground pecan bits, shredded coconut, cinnamon spice, and/or cocoa powder. Enjoy!