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Category: Easy Recipes

Fruit Roll Up – Homemade with Applesauce

Fruit roll up is a happy memory from when I was a kid. 💭

They were a sweet and light snack from the grocery store that melted in the mouth.

It was (and is) a cross between fruit + candy.

They came wrapped up in their own packaging and were attached to cellophane that I liked to play make things with when I was young. They were rolled up like scrolls.

Almost like the Dead Sea Scroll minus the ancient writing.

…And not that far back, my young days was when posters were the rage so anything rolled up meant happy entertainment or enjoyment.

Playing around, I haven’t had a fruit roll up like those until now as an adult. 😋

Decades later and these parchment paper looking treats are naturally preserved…

These were like the ones that ruined me to never want any other fruit roll up wannabes. 😅

A homemade fruit roll up cut up like the ones I had as a kid.

These are the REAL DEAL.

Making these fruit roll ups bring me joy (...and maybe for you too?) because they resembled packaged old-fashioned fruit roll ups that you would buy at the store… minus additional sugar that’s not needed for these.

As thin as they are like sheets of music, these stack up nicely! 🪵…

Thin as paper and pretty as rice paper too.

They’re as durable as leather.

Technically they fall in the leather fruit category but are as smooth and supple as suede.

My mom was a dressmaker, so she played a role in influencing my fabric choices where I learned lighter materials are usually higher quality.

And I’d agree about that with this light leather fruit material…

These feel light and feathery (not leathery) and are very apple healthy! 🍏

This fruit roll up is light.

Plus, they last for weeks at room temperature.

Made with apple they are a great fall snack that can be made year round.

It’s almost like wrapping paper… or maybe it’s an old map or a key to hieroglyphic history. However you want to call it, it’s a SWEEET fruit roll up.

Oh, and kidding aside, the BEST part is (…can you tell I’m getting excited that it just gets better? 😊)…

You can make these in your home oven in one hour and 20 minutes with just 5 minutes of prep time.

How’s that for predictability?

…Seriously it’s that easy!

They are fun (and dare I say relaxing) to make and everyone of all ages will love them! 💕

They make a great sweet snack without any artificial ingredients.

And actually just 2 sweet and natural ingredients that make a perfect duo. 🍏🍯

Using applesauce, you don’t even have to turn the stove on to cook down apples and de-core them… and they will turn out even better. Because for one, the apple fruit roll up will be more even.

…The first time you make them, don’t freak out because they turn transparent on a baking sheet.

Don’t worry, it’s there. 😀

…I tried that once with Aquafaba because I heard you could make meringues that way… and POOF! I wish I could say that was magic, but it was more like a trick. 🪄

They dissolved into thin oven air… but I digress.

These fruit roll ups will turn out… I promise.

These are the proof…

fruit roll up scrolls.

I’m so happy to share these with you through the screen. And I hope they make your day like they did for me the first time I made them. 🍥

(And maybe this will keep the kiddos staying happy and cavity-free as low-sugar goodies with plenty of sweetness… that are substitutable for a certain candy holiday 🎃).

And if you’re into experimenting (like I am gladly doing with sweets), you can try other flavors.

Keep in mind they will take longer to bake with more complex ingredients.

You will know when you touch or look at the baked fruit roll up whether it’s dry and done, or half-baked and almost there….

In this one, you can see here that the dry section is on the upper right area and the rest of the fruit roll up is not done… simply pop it back into the oven.

Change the time but don’t mess with the temperature.

This one took another 20-25 minutes to finish… and was worth the wait. ⏲️

Pumpkin apple fruit roll up
Pumpkin apple fruit roll up

Ready to make these? 😋

homemade fruit roll ups like the ones I had as a kid.
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Easy Apple Fruit Roll Ups

These are no fuss-no muss apple fruit roll ups you can bake in under 2 hours. This will make 4 - 4 inch roll ups that are about 9 inches long.
Course Snack
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

  • Silpat silicone baking mat on sheet pan

Ingredients

  • 2 4 ounce applesauce cups, unsweetened
  • 2 tbsp raw honey (high quality)

Instructions

  • Thoroughly combine apple sauce in a bowl and add honey. Tip: use a high quality honey with a smooth consistency.
  • Smear the mixture into a thin layer on a Silpat (silicone sheet) laid out on a baking pan. Tip: Use different light to check that there are no "holes" that show up with shadows.
  • Bake on 200°F/100°C for 80 minutes. Tip: if you add or experiment with other more vibrant colors and flavors, they can take significantly longer. You'll know it's completely done, when the fruit roll up is one uniform color and dry throughout to the touch.
  • Let cool completely and then start to peel at one corner and then slowly peel up the entire fruit roll up. Roll up, slice, and enjoy!

Apple fruit roll ups that remind me of my childhood.

The Great British Bake Off + Happy Battenberg

The Great British Bake Off season means baking time, so that’s what this light-hearted foodie is sharing about today to lean into the happy! 😋

…And as a show fan, I get giddy like a school girl. I’ve even got my hair put up in a high up side ponytail like a teen to match my feelings. 🤸🏻

Oh, but don’t worry… this will probably be my only giddy post on the show if you’re not a fan (yet). I’ll be back on the healthy earth channel 🌱 next week… so stay tuned. 📺

…And tuning this week into The GBBO also known as the Great British Baking Show 🇬🇧 is the alarm for me (and us home bakers) that it’s time to fall B-E-ake!

But before we bake, can you guess what this is?

It’s NOT butter. And it’s not fondant even though it makes a good food illusion 💭… but neither are good to eat on its own so that rules those out.

…Well, hang on to your hat (for that finished thought), and keep reading as it will make more sense when I spill the butt-ah…

Btw… in the States, we like our good sense, scents, and cents, as we’re multi-faceted and have many preferences to show.

We’re similar to our neighbors across the pond where we have adopted some nifty baking ways. Isn’t that right, Rahul (our beloved Great British Bake Off friend)? 😊… and we love that! 🇺🇸

I also love that we get to idea mingle with our UK friends that unite the kingdoms through our grams (Instagram and convertable baking gram measurements). 🇬🇧

…and isn’t it about worldly T-I-M-E!? 

Cheers! 🎉 (as in thank you in Brit-English and cheers 🥂).

Oh, and did I mention we’re getting mini-Brit speaking lessons from the show’s entertainment side? 🐿️

One lesson note-to-self: I’ll now know to bring more pants than trousers and trackies to the U.K. next time. 😉

But all-in-all, we have a lot and even more in common… both countries speaking some English-variety. We’re also closest in time zones when you consider the other Old World countries.

…And GBBO o‘clock 🕰️ helps us bridge the ocean divide. 🥧

But I will add… it’s a little weird seeing the show baked creations before the episode airs on Netflix.

…Ah, but a few seasons in… like most watchers from the States, I’ve gotten used to the spilled (butt-ah 🧈) beans. 🫘

Plus I grew up in the simpler dialup era so no complaints (not my style).

Which btw, I think I saw one of those ☎️ this week and a green sewing machine that brought me back to my youth where we had one of those in the house.

…Plus I learned a new mini checkerboard technique a.k.a Battenbergs that I heard about from the show. 🏁

And that’s what I was baking up this week in my no-pressure tent? 🎪 Well.. sorta, but not exactly!

…I get excited about sugar talk that goes straight to my head 💭…  I forget for a brief moment that I’m a low-sugar baker in the comforts of my kitchen.

So swept back to reality, a MINI Battenberg marzipan dessert is fitting. Because a mini one has very little sugar.

…And this one is reaallly small! …Good for maybe a big Barbie food table.

But too small to bake a cake in unless you’re Barbie baking for Ken and then it’s never too small. 💖

But for the rest o us, an all easy marzipan sweet bite can be made in minutes. It’s like playing with Play-dough.

Inspiration to The Great British Baking Show mini marzipan Battenberg but with no cake

…So that’s what I turned my butter illusion into. And making a fancy pattern marzipan is still less time than baking.

But I couldn’t leave my oven cold.

Because butter talk inspires baking. Especially on The Great British Bake Off.

…So I made a healthy delicious bake, but instead of butter (or butt-ah) I used an ingredient you may or may not have heard of… MCT oil.

It sounds like a pharmacy prescribed oil, but it’s OTC… and healthy! Now we’re back on track. 🌱

The healthy fat food supports weight loss, helping the body make ketones for energy that then gives us more energy.

It’s a form of coconut oil that most or all of us know. 🥥

And so I thought only fitting to make a healthy chocolate donut.🍩

That was made coconut tasty with organic unsweetened coconut chips that also make delicious snacks on their own!

Healthy coconut flour was used to lean into the tastes of chococonut (say that 10 times). The gluten-free flour makes a denser no-rise bake that’s great for pancakes or ONE donut here…

…that’s btw how us baking peeps fit into our fave jeans so we can better thrive in our mind-bodies 😊  where we’re all slightly different tuned that’s good to celebrate in our turning world.

Speaking of jeans👖…my baking genes wouldn’t fit in The Great British Bake Off fiery baking tent. 🎪

The show competitors got that competitive gene.🙌👏🏽

…And it looks like all of them this season were very blessed.

For the rest of us, we’re watching The Great British Bake Off and doing our stress-free baking.  And on that note, you can enjoy  with a best melted chocolate dessert.

Fish and Chips Cod Recipe – Healthy Baked with Waffle Chips

Fish and Chips with Cod is a recipe to share because it’s easy, filling for a family, and made healthy light when baked… that’s a tasty way to make food count and enjoy the calories.

This one is accompanied with healthy waffle chips with a salty and tangy sour dip that has balanced tasty notes (…what’s not to love?). The recipe is below. 🧡

healthy baked and fish and chips recipe with healthy sauce dip.
Baked fish and chips cod recipe below. 🧡

Jump to Recipe

…But first, I wanted to share my inspiration. Making fish and chips takes me back to travel and one special place memory of my time in U.K. 🇬🇧 hoppin’ in and out of London Cabs after dramatically being re-routed from visiting the Mediterranean south.

I didn’t mind as I had worked in food party planning for Mediterranean (Lebanese, Spanish, and Italian) restaurants for years, so that felt a little like home.

And, re-route is part of adventure.

Oh and travel is always an adventure… and GOOD times…

…even if it’s serious business getting history (Stone Henge) downloads.

…And then getting my bearings back up to food familiarities like with these small BUT mighty food bites at Covent Garden near Westminster where I stayed…

Covent Garden salmon lox.
…and scallops. I see a smile on this plate. 😋

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…Even as big as London is, somehow I found the comfort food. What a memory! 💕

And one memory dish that U.K. is famous for and you don’t have to look long and hard for there is Fish and Chips.🐟 … it’s as common as U.S. served crab cakes, corn on the cob, and potato chips.

That’s a mouthful of “c’s” to say.

Saying Fish and Chips is much easier…

The common U.K. fishes sourced for the dish are salmon, cod, and haddock.

The healthiest fish are wild fish anywhere you source because the fish eat what they would in the wild… makes sense.

And cod is the best choice.

Why cod?

It’s easy to source and that means affordable groceries .

Most U.K. fish come from the shared seas in the North Atlantic and Norway I learned working with chefs and travel.

Fresh salmon like this in Bergen fish market could be used for a baked fish and chips recipe.
Fresh salmon at the Bergen, Norway fish market.

My last fishy travel tale was in the Bergen, Norway fish market as I’m going down memory lane 🐟

…And in the U.S., we have our own fish markets. it’s common we source wild fish from the Northwest Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

But anywhere you are and anytime of the year, you can make your light (aka healthy) baked Fish and Chips.

And this lighter version pairs great for Wimbledon time 🎾

If you’re a fan, as you’re maybe catching points you can decide how you want to serve up your taters. An unsexy 5 lb bag of potatoes makes up points by being long lasting in your fridge and versatile for any spud dish…

And this healthy baked fish is served with waffle potato fries that doesn’t compromise taste or health… and is so simple to make.

Potato waffle fries are made with a little extra virgin oil love that’s healthy. You can use a waffle iron if you have one or you use a skillet and make potato hash or flat pancake potato shapes.

And if potatoes are not on your menu choice and you want a different style with the same basic ingredients in baked fish and chips, alternatively you can cook your fish with boiled potatoes.

This fish and potato dish is inspired from my hotel catering days as a food service professional. It has a French bistro vibe with capers and lemon sauce.

Baked fish and chips without chips can be made with a lemon and caper sauce.

But if you just want to stick with the traditional fish and chips fare made healthy, enjoy this one recipe with no guilt.

…Even the “tartar sauce” is a healthy cottage cheese dip with fermented probiotic goodness mixed in.

A tartar without mayonnaise  works well with this healthy baked fish and chips cod recipe!

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Healthy Baked Fish and Waffle Chips

Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

  • waffle iron

Ingredients

  • white fish such as cod, whiting, or flounder
  • Panko bread crumbs
  • white or all-purpose potatoes
  • cottage cheese
  • pickles or gherkins

Instructions

  • Brush fish with olive oil to keep from drying. Add to oven at 325℉/165°C until fully baked.
  • For bread crumb topping, toast panko crumbs in a separate pan from fish. Set bread crumbs on the top oven shelf so they don't burn. They will toast brown in about 5 minutes or less on the top shelf.
  • Cook/soften your potatoes until they are mashable. Scoop out small balls about the same size and flatten. You can make the "chips" in a waffle iron or on a sautee pan with olive oil.
  • For the tartar sauce, mince the pickles and add to a blender with cottage cheese. Add a tiny bit of pickle juice for stronger flavor. You can do this in a Magic Bullet or similar easy blender.

Blueberry Smoothie Cheesecake Dessert

Blueberry smoothie mornings start your day right with a brightening healthy boost. They can also make a great afternoon dessert with low or no added sugar other than natural fruit.

A dessert blueberry smoothie is super easy to put together in minutes. No baking needed and cool enough for hot temperature days.

blueberry smoothie with cheesecake flavors for a dessert smoothie.

And smoothie ingredients in this blueberry cheesecake one are simple and healthy. 🫐 So often we want something sweet in the day.

And instead of going for a high calorie and refined sugar shake or food dessert bite, a blueberry cheesecake smoothie could be the fix for our sweet tooth.

The sugar source is all-natural fruit.

The healthy notes:

Blueberries that have AA goodness in Anthocyanin Antioxidants.

And another great point with blueberries is there is no traces of fruit leftover. So you can enjoy the fruit and not have to think about disposing  a seed or core, or recycling a can.

Blueberries are a super smart food choice for more reasons than one!

And this blueberry treat is combined with cottage cheese that gives a balanced cheese “cake” taste. Plus, you’re getting protein, B-vitamins (B-6, B-9, and b-12), calcium, and more.

Blending in a ripe peach 🍑 is the perfect pair (not pear 🍐).

Peaches have lycopene antioxidants like tomatoes. And for a tad more sweetness and Vitamin C, pineapple juice will do the trick.

Hope you give the blueberry smoothie  a try and instead of being loaded down, enjoy the healthy energy. ✨

And if your body craves more sugar, adding a little maple syrup sweetness is a good balance to tip this over to the happy dessert edge you deserve while staying cool to your body.

You could also pair this with a cooling blueberry cheesecake and other cool summer dessert recipes. For more antioxidant and healthy foods to add to your grocery list 🛒, check out these 200 anti-inflammatory foods.

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Blueberry Cheesecake Smoothie

This tastes like a light blueberry cheesecake that you can enjoy with your breakfast.
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets

Equipment

  • blender

Ingredients

  • ½ cup frozen blueberries
  • ½ cup cottage cheese (no need to drain)
  • 1/2 cup milk of choice
  • 1 Tbsp pineapple juice
  • ½ peach, diced

Instructions

  • Blend ingredients and enjoy! Optional: zhugh with your peach. Alternatively, you could use oranges or orange slice.

Born Again Is Your Spiritual Choice

Born Again is a mysterious phrase.

Potato waffles are like being born again where you can’t turn them back to the mashed potato form they were before. And they’re so much better. 

It’s a spiritual reference that you don’t hear often except in churches and The Bible.

And it’s a miraculous life changing event like being born.

To do it again (as in born again) means to live a completely changed life.

Like birth, it’s only once.

And it’s by choice, if ever.

For an adult, it’s a personal decision.

It’s the profound choice that makes this life wondrous  because it’s not what you set out for.

It’s what Life tells you in the whispers of the wind.

And your day-to-day living drifts toward those whispers.

Born again is usually marked by adult baptism.

The baptism you had as a baby doesn’t count because you weren’t of mature thinking mind to make the choice.

A conscious baptism personal choice is an important event, like getting married.

There’s no going back as it’s part of your past.

And like the potato waffles that are pictured above, they started out as another form of the same food. Those spuds can’t go back to being a raw potato. 🥔

You can’t take back what’s already happened in the past and you can’t go back in your mother’s womb.

And you wouldn’t want to… as life gets better.

Or in this born again case, back into your pre-born again  younger self identity.

“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” – John 3:5

After you’re born again, you’re alive with the spirit living inside you.

In the Bible, it’s the same as living with the Holy Spirit.

Becoming Born Again isn’t by coincidence… and your being here is no accident.

The story of your real life birth from your birth parents may have sounded like you were an accident oops! baby, but it was no spiritual accident..

…I know this experience intimately because that’s what happened to me.

And as life is an adventure one day after another, I never set out for that mission.

I didn’t grow up religious either.

This was something I grew into gradually.

Never having been baptized before and then for the first time as a mature adult, that’s when my Born Again life began.

What It’s Like to Be Born Again 

It was an ordinary day with extraordinary impact.

You never forget the baptism day.

You wonder how being submerged in a pool of warm water can be so profound.

But it is.

Every fiber of your being changes and you get the rest of your life to figure out how to apply those changes.

Because it’s not like your life has suddenly changed around you.

It the meaning you apply to what just happened in your ceremony.

You’re now living with the Spirit inside you helping to guide you.

And you look at your life and the eclipse differently.

You feel chills and something deeper emotionally happening inside you that you now know are tied to the Spirit inside you.

You’re not alone.

And you can explain where those waves of tears and emotions are coming from.

And when you see a painted sky, it reminds you of where you came from and where your future will be in heaven.

born again is a miracle like a unique painted sky that you may be the only one notices.

You can be less interested in culture and more interested in your personal growth.

That’s how it was for me.

I grew up in an ego-centric area outside Washington, DC.

…I had to leave those ways to keep going and growing.

And because after Born Again, life has more meaning.

You want to discover more about yourself and your potential.

You’re not just cut out to do a job and retire.

This life is so much more!

And from then on, you know you were touched by God and the Universe in love, finding out what your role and purpose is.

You seek out why you’re specifically here.

Because that’s where your BEST LIFE is.

Gaining Biblical knowledge fuels your understanding as the Word of God and love letter from God who only wants the best for you.

After being Born Again, you know there’s a spirit living inside you to comfort you, send daily messages to you when you ask, and give you favor on any ordinary day.

The Spirit is often referred to as the wind (or a dove) 🕊️

It’s the same spirit that connects us all under the sun, and that came upon Jesus after he was baptized in the Jordan River.

The connection is an energy.

It’s also the guided handed helper, comforter, and all-knowing messenger all rolled-up-in-one.y.

After The Baptism Honeymoon

After some time has passed from your baptism day, the feelings will fade as you sink back into everyday reality and this life.

It would help you to pray for higher answers, and trust that those be the ones best for you even if they don’t make logical sense.

Pre-Born Again life, I called these gut instincts. I just thought the Universe was in my favor but I didn’t know how.

Now I know it’s the spirit that comes from our Creator source.

To keep growing, you’ll want to surround yourself with like-minded people.

I had to let go of some people in my life who weren’t helping me grow. And you’ll likely face those situations.

And what I gained in my life was people I could trust where many my Christian life, I couldn’t.

No one on earth is perfect but I didn’t have the same people problems from those I chose to surround myself with as friends.

You’ll want to learn from Christians who are motivated to love others and do the life God wants for them.

They are the ones that can help you with Bible interpretations that apply to your life today.

Because they have wisdom and discernment, they can help you navigate without giving up. They help to support your growth, such as becoming more humble and less prideful.

And as a new Born Again butterfly, they are vested to help you because they know they will see you again in the future life.

Looking back, I could see that I acted pretty foolishly when I was younger, but I thought I was invincible and smart at the time.

What to Expect With A Born Again Life

Expect to have favor in your daily Born Again walk if you maintain a deep relationship with your spirit inside you and God.

Also take chances as God is waiting for you to make a move. If you take a small “wrong” step, you’ll learn.

And the more daily, alone walks you do with the spirit, the more clear you become and make less missteps.

You walk straighter to your purpose even when you can’t see the forest through the trees.

Your season in life can look confusing or uncertain like the future is for everyone.

But inside you, you know you’re making the right moves for your purpose.

I started out my adult life mostly in the structured corporate work life as I was learning how to be a Christian.

Then in my second act (Born Again), I got to do satisfying work for myself.

But I needed the skills and know-how that I learned working for and with others.

And bam! one day after I was laid off from one of many corporate jobs… a spiritual intervention happened to me.

About two years after that incident, that’s when I got Born Again.

And that’s when life got really quiet around me. I found I was in sabbatical.

If I weren’t born again, I would’ve been lonely as people weren’t around me regularly.

But instead I felt loved and never alone.

That’s part of the inner peace that comes with being Born Again

That season, the work was easy.

I found I had time to look at personal and spiritual development areas that I didn’t delve into ever before.

I knew I would be provided for even when I didn’t know where on earth that would come from.

I knew it would come from above.

And in your life, you’d know when doors shut it’s not a coincidence or bad luck…

And the ones that open, you’re anointed so you get massive daily favor. Troubles that others face, you dodge.

Problems get miraculously fixed in the places you’re supposed to be in for your purpose.

Those bittersweet open doors aren’t permanent, but they’re nice

And in those experiences, I learned life isn’t about what you do.

…It matters most who and what you’re becoming in this life.

And on the journey, you can be proud to look in the mirror at who you are (that’s not an aged person staring back).

Life looks different than before when the goals were about what you would achieve, how long it would take to retire, and all the material things that could be acquired.

You get more and you get to make impact in the world.

Being born again, you’ve also transformed fear, anxiety, and worry that don’t have to take over and permeate life. Especially fear.
When I was a child I was afraid of everything from lightning, darkness, to boogie monsters.
And Born Again, I exchanged fear for love and feeling protected.

And never alone.

Not for one moment even when I moved to places for years where I knew no one and no one knew me.

And that’s when I could focus on the things that matter. And realize nothing in my past was wasted.

I worked in catering for a reason and it’s no coincidence that one of my passions today is food.

I can’t get enough of coming up with new recipes and enjoying brunch waffles.

And in your Born Again life (if that’s what you choose), you’ll get to do the things you love and were born and gifted to do! 🧡