Stuffed cherry tomatoes are a healthy dream snack.
When you add a filling with a great flavor pairing, that’s all you need for a moment of delicious joy.
These are good low calorie bites that you can snack on daily. You can pop or stuff in your mouth, a cherry tomato without feeling stuffed.
They flavor burst squirt the tomato juice so effortlessly and why kids can love them so easily because they’re a form of eating entertainment.
And if that’s mouth-entertainment you avoid, when you stuff them, you remove the squirt effect because you remove the inside juices.
The juicy inner parts are also the most sour tasting that you can save for a tomato sauce. An easy way to remove the center is to use a large round baker’s piping tip with open jaws or a star-shape one. ⭐️ Twist and scoop out the inside.
And then in its juicy place, add cooked quinoa (or cous cous would work and is even quicker).
Here with quinoa you get a nice bite that’s also a pseduo-grain that will help make it a filling protein snack.
Because quinoa is filled with the essential amino acids that are building blocks of protein.
And then add a small dollop cottage cheese topping (or your fave healthy creamy cheese) if you want to keep the healthy bite vibes.
You gotta love the micro healthy bites that help keep you tied over until dinner (instead of chocolate or salty bag snacks)!
And then finally to top it all off, add a green, fresh earthy bite that balances the acidic sweetness in tomatoes. 🍅
You can add asparagus or leafy herbs like mint or basil work well to give a 3rd dimensional taste. It’ll also give a color pop to the plate. 🌱
That’s what makes these stuffed cherry tomatoes, appetizer worthy: unique shapes, colors, and textures 🌿
There are a variety of tomatoes each season to deliver on their promised natural abilities. And maybe you experienced their abundance in your garden this year or discovered a new tomato in your store.
Another variety that’s similar in sweeter taste and juicy-ness is a plum tomato.
You can substitute cherry tomatoes with plum tomatoes if you want to do more stuffing as they’re larger. They look like new deviled eggs.
These below are filled with cous cous and gorgonzola creamy blue cheese protein.
You can make these snacks in minutes and I like that they look homemade and not like perfect little catering appetizers.
They’ll get gobbled up in seconds in a delicious and healthy way.
Tomatoes are full of Vitamin C, A, some B vitamins, fiber, and lycopene that’s anti-inflammatory (and even good for sunburns).
…Well, when you put it that way! 😊… maybe you’ll give them a try too.
Between carrots and tomatoes, you can have your healthy, low-calorie orange snack anytime of day. 🧡
Btw, you can take any tomato seeds and grow a plant. I started one a week ago and it has a green sprout 🌱 about 2 inches tall. Maybe growing tomatoes are the easiest produce plant to grow… as I’ve been told, have seen from others, and who knows?… maybe will see my own. 🤞
These are like mini build-a-snack bites that delight.
Course Appetizer
Cuisine American
Author Brandy @ Healthy Happy Life Secrets
Equipment
jumbo jaw piping tip
Ingredients
cherry tomatoes
cottage cheese
asparagus or fresh green herb
Instructions
Cut cherry tomatoes in half with a serated knife so they cut cleanly without squirting juice. An easy trick to remove the seeds is to use an open jaw or star piping tip. Swirl around and put the seeds aside and save them for a sauce. Or grow a tomato plant.
Joy is used and experienced in many ways in life. And spiritual joy is one of life’s mysteries that doesn’t have to stay a secret to you, to help your life now.
Seeing a painted sky through a window can be a joyful experience that brings us closer to spiritual joy. 🌄
“Things and conditions can give you pleasure, but they cannot give you joy.” – Eckhart Tolle
But in our lives, most of the daily joy is not lasting as we get bored or the scenery changes, such as the season we’re in or a pretty sunset. 🌅
Daily joy is a common calm feeling we can have when we sip on a nice comfort tea… or get reminded of something that puts a smile on our face… or have a good outlook about the future days ahead.
I had one of these joyful days yesterday with a cinnamon chocolat-y flavored rooibos tea… that’s good anytime for Ayurvedic balance, and especially great in season and life transitions that’s life now and always for all of us. 🌿
I can always tell my daily balance state by my tea and spice desires.
Feeling calm is joyful. And feeling warm and fuzzy inside is where joy and happy feelings meet…
Joy is the new happiness.
Joy is used more often in trending media channels associated to describing general things in specific life seasons like: “I felt a sense of joy for…”
These descriptions are usually external triggers that are situation-based.
…Something in our surroundings prompted the joy.
These common joy ways are acceptable and often more surface fleeting feelings (if a deeper purpose or meaning context isn’t added).
“Joy” in daily word usage can often get tossed around like word salad and is not the same as the deeper joy that’s spiritual rooted, where the deeper meaning is often missed… and this article is about the spiritual joy you tap into.
But it’s good to know that daily joy can help you more easily get into spiritual joy.
It can be the primer or vehicle to get you there.
By contrast, someone or something at any moment can ruin your fleeting daily joy, peace, and pleasant feeling with a piece of sad or irritating news as quickly as the joyful feelings arrived.
“Stopping to smell the roses” 🌹is a good self-care practice that initiates or resets daily joy that’s good for calming and mental health.
…In a more relaxed headspace like out in calm nature, this can help prep you to look deeper for your spiritual joy that’s within and anywhere you go.
…Or you can miss the spiritual joy messages.
Spiritual joy is the kind of joy you don’t experience unless you’re intentional to tuning in.
The spiritual joy source is the higher world channel that’s inside you (spirit).
You can look up to the sky or Universe if you need a visual reminder.
Or it’s where you search inside you for ad hoc bright ideas and higher possibility inspiration. 🎨
In this spirit acknowledging realm, you are internally connected to the Universe.
You can do this in prayer, or just simple quiet acknowledgement that you are not alone.
With your spirit, you’re never alone because the spirit is another energy source inside you.
Acknowledgement helps you to unleash spiritual joy that gives a deeper satisfied feeling about understanding this Universe and that you matter to more than just the people you know.
It’s a higher way of thinking or a knowing like a gut instinct.
An example is when you feel goosebumps when seeing a solar eclipse in-person that has deeper profound meaning that makes us wonder about our existence, who we actually are inside, and why we’re here on earth.
It’s heartfelt, and we feel the outer ripple effect as sensations on the body and skin.
How to experience spiritual joy (or more of this deeper feeling):
Tap into your quiet spiritual inner being channel.
One way is you do mindful active listening for the quiet whispers inside you.
It’s not woo woo if you don’t make it about that as our lives zoomed out are big woo-woo miracles from the start 🎉🎉… and so you make your spirit about higher purpose living and your personal growth… while keeping level-headed and your feet on the ground for most your waking hours.
This can become your everyday healthy life as it is for me, as much as daily cooking and reaching out in community. 🌱
You can do this out walking in nature or sitting in a quiet spot indoors.
And to go back to your daily living, you shut out the spirit whispers that is subtle like daily wind.
You get back to your busy headspaces and to-do lists, listening to your thoughts and the noises of the external world… or simply get back to the work in front of you.
That’s the frequency most of us are on during our awake hours, unless we’re intentional to carve out time for something else higher.
If you’re in a loud restaurant or sports arena with friends, it’s unlikely you’ll hear your spiritual joy calling there.
But, spiritual joy can happen even if you’re not purposefully trying…
Maybe a wave of emotion strikes you in the air, or you blurt out impromptu somethings that feel right at the moment as the spirit inside you tries to help lead you to your better purposes in this life.
But at the time that happens, you don’t know why you did or acted out that way that was harmless, but curious to you.
Your spirit inside you knows better because it’s prophetic.
And you can be in ordinary circumstances like a concert or conference and a speaker that comes on discussing a topic or mission in the world that you’re aligned and passionate about that strikes your spiritual joy… or you meet The One (your person) at a grocery store and you feel instant chemistry without saying a word in the smoothie drink aisle.
The alive-in-you spirit can show up at any time without invitation to give you clues to help you.
This is the essence of the joy of the spirit.
There are also times when some people get spiritual awakenings for longer than moments or a day.
Those are not as common, but it’s the same spirit source creating spiritual joy.
Many wonder if they have a spirit inside them…
There’s a spirit in each of us that’s gentle and quiet if we listen.
To be clear, this is the same as the Holy Spirit living in us as defined by the Bible for Christians who understand what that means.
The Holy Spirit (or Spirit) is a heavenly being living daily and inside you ready to do life with you when you choose to invite this being into your life.
Believe me, a decade ago I didn’t know this.
…And like former-me, everyone is not aware of this spirit presence, but everyone still has a spirit inside them.
Depending on actions and how they choose to live their life, the spirit can be the good and effective influence in their life.
How you choose to live is your personal willpower choice.
You can purposefully invite in your good spirit.
It’s 24-7 operating inside you like a quiet and invisible angel… ready to help you (and other lives around you that you encounter) if you’re willing to be helped.
Helping includes suggesting with higher thoughts and sudden reminders, and guiding you to make the next best steps that you can choose to listen to (like a passing gut instinct), or ignore and listen to your louder thoughts.
Unlike people, our good spirits don’t hurt people. Only we or other people have the ability to do that as we have an ego in us.
The good spirit can’t create any harmful situations because it comes from the heavenly perfect good realm that isn’t earth bound.
It’s easier to explain this to anyone as the Universe looking out for you.
And now you know better how unleashing spiritual joy works inside you if you didn’t before.
This can be a part of your daily way when alone or finding quiet time.
You can give praise and gratitude for the daily favors and blessings you experience to re-center, get back to calm and daily joy, and remind yourself of the spirit in you.
With more favor comes joy (like the common happy-joy kind) because you deeper know you’re cared for.
You also naturally get better answers in life that are higher truths if you tune in regularly.
You’re less likely to make a wrong turn when you keep your steps close to tuning in consistently (and not taking a busy season off that can easily happen in our cultures).
This is where you gain wisdom and get better aligned perspectives.
You can get epiphany that it’s not about the things you do or acquire, but who you are and are becoming that matters most.
People, things, and situations are an integral part of our lives and they help move us along for our purpose discovery, and so we can help the world we’re in.
With the help of your spirit and developing more faith, you can trust the future and believe in what you don’t see in your life but believe all will work out for good (that fear and ego can shut out).
And if you’re new to spiritual joy and finding faith, one of the biggest challenges is tuning into the quiet frequency in a noisy world, and deliberately tapping into your spirit for answers vs. culture’s comments.
These ideas can be intriguing to a curious beginner (that was also once me)…
But like anything else new, it takes intention and practice.
The first habit step can be to set an intention or goal if that works better for you, to invite in your spirit in your life. A goal example could be you measure the number of days you do this.
You can achieve this in meditation, yoga, or in any quiet time.
Learning to relax and repress the mind’s loud ego thoughts also work to quiet the noise that internally competes and drowns out how the spirit softly communicates (that’s as different in us as each of us is).
Even if we’re listening to relaxing instrumental music, that can crowd out our spirit if we’re day dreaming on something else or focus-thinking about the music itself.
There’s a time and place for that if we’ve had a long day or just wanting to relax.
But remember, coming back at least once a day to your higher channel helps us in so many life aligning productive ways! 🌅
Without our spirit’s quietly working in us, our planet would be a hopeless, chaotic mess.
But our world is not this way… it’s organized under the hood with the help of our spirit working in us.
It’s not perfect or perfectly good and never will be, but there’s more quiet good than bad.
…Just look at all the productive and buzzing actions going on in nature daily. 🌱
And when you unleash your spirit outward (that’s the only one you’re responsible for), then you feel a sense of deeper joy and positive outlook living on this planet.
It’s life changing and life-giving as connection.
You’re never alone.
…And you’re fully loved.
And when you go out in the world doing your daily rounds and business, you can keep your head up and appreciate the kind people and the favor their spirits are greeting you with.
It’s a positive energy, and if we send our joyful spirit out, then that’s usually what we get back. And if we don’t get that, we still celebrate how we showed up.
With new insight about yourself and your spirit that’s with you always (and always has been even before you knew), you’re a better person.
You keep growing in ways you couldn’t have imagined before, and the way you started isn’t where you end up!
Finding out what that is, is everyone’s bread crumb journey. It’s a life adventure that’s exciting (and not boring).
Having lived both sides fully, starting out in my 20s thinking I had to make everything happen on my own and then evolving into relying on my spirit to guide me decades later, I would never go back to the old ways. 100% never.
With accumulated wisdom and new insights, comes purpose and meaning in a transformed life that optimizes the one life we live.
We get transformed inside and that brings joy and higher self-perspectives as veils are lifted. That’s the opposite of self-suffering that when you look back was survival existence.
You no longer have to deal with past self-hangups in phases of life created by former beliefs and perspectives.
You wisely let go and grow out of former patterns and Imposter Syndrome.
Your spirit of joy helps to grow and transform your healthy mindset, attitude, and insecurities. That’s something to celebrate. 🎂
I celebrate with food like a balanced delightful bowl. How do you celebrate?
Chocolate pumpkin mousse is a healthy dessert that’s so easy to make in 5 minutes with no baking!
Is it delicious? …Of course!
But make no mistake this is a luscious creamy dessert scoop THAT NEEDS NO added sugar. Recipe below. 🧡
You can use anti-inflammatory unprocessed cocoa and pumpkin from a can or 100% pumpkin that’s pureed in with A-B-C vitamins and fiber. 🎃
Pumpkin is one of those holiday ingredients that reminds us of fall when we see PUMPKIN EVERYTHING.
Plus, this chocolate pumpkin mousse dessert snack has almond and coconut flours that are gluten-free.
If you want, you can make your own almond flour easily with whole almonds that you add to your chopper tool or food processor.
Almonds are a food kind of healthy fat, so you can have synergistic nutrition absorption with the pumpkin-almond healthy duo (since pumpkin’s Vitamin A is a fat-soluble vitamin that btw, is good for eyes).
…And is a tasty duo with pumpkin-chocolate flavors, using cocoa for the recipe.
Or cacao that’s not a typo for cocoa. 😊
It’s the raw, unprocessed version of cocoa.
But if you can’t find 100% cacao that’s anti-inflammatory healthy, you can use any unsweetened cocoa that’ll be almost as good.
Besides pumpkin that’s the star ingredient for this mousse, another fall flavor incorporated is tart cranberry… thanks to another later American holiday where you can give more thanks to the feast on the table.
And cran-pumpkin together is a glorious pairing in both sweet and sour taste, and punchy fall vivid colors.
Dried cranberries (or Craisins) that are commonly used in salads, are low calorie and high in Vitamin C.
You could use juicy whole cranberries for flavor, but they would make this recipe too wet, and then we would have to add more dry ingredients or flours.
With mostly dry ingredients, you don’t need much flour.
You can adjust the coconut flour based on the creamy perfect mousse texture you want… even though you can’t go wrong here!
After you pull together and hand mix all your ingredients, take an ice cream scooper (or spoon) and test the texture thickness of your choc-pumpkin mousse that can be like soft ice cream scoops.
Your eyes can get big because you’ll want a bite. 👀
And when you get the textures to liking, you can let the glorious and healthy flavors melt in your mouth.
This site is all about happy and healthy living and eating ways and inspiration. If this is your first time here, I encourage you to find out more about me and this healthy recipe blog.
Transformation change such as changes in identity (and realizing that you won’t go back to past and old identities that no longer serve you) lead to personal growth and purpose.
That’s what this article is about.
And I believe what this Life is meant for (…while enjoying the perks and good foods that our living planet offers). 🎉
Consider: why would you stay the same as you started as an adult? You know the better way now than you did even a few years ago.
As adults, one identity we all grow out of is our childhood identity as a rite of passage.
With more years, we gain more experience, knowledge, privileges and freedoms, and respect for our wisdom gained and shown in our lives and communities we belong in.
Accumulated wisdom is a wealth of knowledge as byproduct of transformation change.
And life transformations are about wise growth and celebration of life where each year we live, we can celebrate a new year and our birthdays.
We also get the free-will choice to live life differently than our past… making healthy changes.
And a positive transformation change from personal growth would enhance our future lives (for the rest of our lives).
Embracing a new change inside us could change us deeply.
While we’re not in control of our life destinies or even what opportunities come our way, we can take wise daily steps that lead us to the right ones for us when we’re ready.
If we’re open to and available when something big comes our way or when opportunities call that may not be what we thought or thought we wanted, that can accelerate our growth and reaching our fullfilling purposes we’re destined for.
If we’re stuck, going in a different direction is worth investigating.
Avoiding a new direction in front of you would be like trying to turn back time or fit the genie back in the bottle to the former life seasons with the better perspectives you have now.
Because today and now is already yesterday tomorrow. The clock and current situations move whether we want it to.
…So being proactive and unafraid to jump into our lives’ fullness is a good way to look at making big leap changes that’ll help us sooner and head us toward our brighter future. 🚀
Being open to what we didn’t know before as truth and NOW DO know is even better.
No regrets of the past because our past led us to better discoveries and ways today.
And that keeps us fearless and pressing onward.
Making a radical transformation change (personality, beliefs, and identities) could be the difference maker. And from what I know, it comes from within…
It starts with you.
No one can make those decisions for you except you.
And no one can make other people’s life decisions except them.
So often we want to help others and our input backfires.
They do what is not best for them anyway because of their strong emotions or beliefs running inside that can go in any direction.
And sometimes what we miss about what they did was actually their best for them at the time. They were called to a different destiny than the one we thought they should head toward.
We have no control over that or them, so we stay mostly in our lane and focus on working on ourselves for our healthy lives.
I think everyone reaches a crossroad in their life where they get to pause, wonder, and productively cross-examine if they’re still on the right path… not the right career or where to live that changes over time anyway… but the higher path that’s also the wiser path.
I know for me that became evident when I had life problems in every balance wheel of life area that gave me my first gray hair stress sign at 25. That was not a wisdom hair.
…I didn’t know where to turn. So that set me on a quest to seek answers and a transformation change and transformational path that I may not have entered otherwise.
And when those problems gradually resolved (that felt like forever at the time but lasted a few years), new season challenging circumstances took their place.
Transitions happened often in my life. A lot like today’s world where two years is a long time.
But back then, I felt like the poster child for adaptability in new work environments.
From taking close, harder looks from my experiences, I realized the beliefs I had were mostly culture-influenced.
…And doing me no healthy good. They were hurting me.
I grew up and worked mostly in the Washington DC metro area that’s one of the most competitive areas in the country.
I leaned on the external clues to measure success, growth, and happiness.
But over many packing up moves and career moves, I realized it’s not about career or where you live that matters most.
It’s what you carry inside you that determines what happens next and how healthy you are (mind-body connection).
And I’ll pause here a second to recognize that I know not everyone sees life problem signs as helpful ones to make a life change…
But doing so is a gift.
It was a blessing for me so I didn’t have to live the same life I started in.
…And one that can make designed life transformation change more smooth and enjoyable than fighting truths (what’s meant to be) that can be exhausting and anxiety-fear filled.
Truths align and lead you to fulfilling purposes and your best future destiny outcome.
An illustration: we see signs blown up in celebrity’s lives who live under microscopes in America.
In prime media channels, we see whether their lives have evolved in a healthy or in an unhealthy way… such as trying to live their past selves because that’s what made them into a celebrity identity.
But holding on would hold them back in personal growth and transformation where they’re meant to move into other areas with greater impact.
It’s the same for us peeps in ordinary lives. 😊
We are all on this journey of life living and learning in the One Life we‘re given, where we look out from our perspective. No one else has the exact same perspective.
We can make our vantage point an advantage in our lives.
The point we stand is different for all of us snowflakes, but to grow, each of can ask ourselves: what am I missing in this life?
Questioning life is always good… because there’s nothing more important than life.
And if the complicated mind feeds you ideas that there is a companion, a pet, dream job, or better career that hasn’t shown up yet… then keep looking deeper and higher.
Because none of those earthly desires are answers to forever happiness. It’s what you do within that will bring the daily joy and happiness to carry you along moment by moment.
External things are a temporary vantage point.
If you were living out the dreams, after some time reality challenges would show up and the honeymoon happy feelings would wear off because now it’s every day… and that’s why we have good and bad days so we can celebrate the good ones.
Happiness is not about getting what you want, like children and young adults would tell you.
Fleeting happy feelings and getting stuff keep us moving ahead in life until we’re more mature, so we can handle more and get to the fulfilling, fruit bearing stuff that become our life passions in ripe timing.
It’s the deeper discovery within and above that will bring the joy on Life’s journey. And life transformations are the vehicles.
The life choices made today take us to tomorrow. Wisely, they will also be a part of the past soon enough. So the only thing not fleeting and temporary is who you and I are in our now vantage point that we look out from that moves with us.
We carry us and our vantage point everywhere we go, even on vacations.
And if ever stuck, we can ask the Universe to help us with our intentions: can you take me higher?
Reminds me of the song lyrics in “Higher” by Creed:
At sunrise I fight to stay asleep, cause I don’t want to leave the comfort of this place, ‘cause there’s a hunger, a longing to escape.
It’s a choice to get insight from our higher selves. This accelerates growth and in areas that may never grow if we stay doing life the same way we’ve always done.
One healthy way to look at it is we embrace transformation change.
That’s the deeper wisdom and the higher path.
Those will lead to the highest purposes for our lives here on earth.
I used to be afraid deeper spiritual change would lead me to a life I would hate or a life as a martyr, but trust led to grander things than I could have imagined.
There’s no magic age where purpose aligns in our lives, but the sooner we reach up and out, the sooner we get to leave our former caterpillar identities we started out as.
We get to transform to butterflies sooner and enjoy the sweet nectar and honey that comes along.
In yoga terms, we can go from looking down to the ground in caterpillar pose to opening up in butterfly pose and choosing to look out and up.
That’s the wise growth path I know and maybe one that helps you on your journey. 🌱
White fish broth is a tasty, light, and healthy meal in itself. You can make this delicious bowl of healthy white fish soup in minutes from frozen fish and spices that can please your taste buds.
White fish filet is one of the easiest fish to source all around the world, and you can find priced and stocked reasonably in grocery stores.
Cod, haddock, flounder, and tilapia are a few of these common white fish choices available around the world. Even though wild fishes like salmon are healthiest (touted for Omega-3), it’s often more pricey and sometimes hard to find.
You can almost always catch a white fish healthy deal and meal to feed a table tonight that’s loaded with protein, vitamins, and minerals even if you don’t live by the coast.
Considering other dinner and meal alternatives, it’s good healthy value.
In choosing white fish, you may not notice fish taste differences in fish coming from packaged frozen fish sections that are usually mild tasting, compared to the fresh seafood counters that have a fresh and more distinct-to-type fishy taste.
Wherever you go, the most important healthy choice is choosing the “wild” factor.
Wild fish is the healthy choice over farm-raised fish.
Emphasizing wild fish, then you can use the organic skin for flavorful fish broth.
Fish broth has type 1 collagen, that’s especially good for skin and hair. And, who doesn’t want that?
When I was younger, I was told to avoid the fish skin, but that’s because we ate wild card fish sources that weren’t wild fish. 🎣
But like most white fishes, the white flesh is still a good source of protein, Vitamin D, and Omega-3 healthy fats.
White fish is also a good lighter choice if you’re trying to lose weight.
And if you’re looking to make quick, easy meals… you can pull frozen fish out from the freezer and have a meal like white fish broth soup in minutes.
A zestful soup with so much flavor with tastefully paired spices and spice blends like tarragon, coriander, and my seafood favorite…
I grew up with memories driving to the Maryland beaches, where Old Bay spice is a nostalgic and distinct taste favorite… and for many others who experienced the layer of strong Old Bay celery salt, paprika, and cloves scent in the already salty ocean air. 🌊
A whiff of the spice reminds me of the middle and end of August before Labor Day when the season changes. That’s also back-to-school time. And it was for me too as an 80s teen growing up in the more simple, and happy-go-lucky years.
Carrying the carefree spirit into back-to-school college years, I returned for summers and even worked at Phillip’sSeafood in Ocean City, MD one summer.
Those were the innocent (as in I didn’t know what I didn’t know) days with an unexpected whole new world ahead. We didn’t spend time on smart phones or the internet that didn’t exist.
…We focused on the physical 3-D life in front and around us and played physical arcade games and enjoying all-you-can-eat crabs as entertainment. 😊
And this 3-D person came home from work smelling like a seafood boil festival.
On the shore, they douse Old Bay on everything… and all seafood. 🍤 Like shrimp, scallops and corn…
Old Bay is also great in fishy broths like the white fish broth (recipe below).
Just adding the seafood magical blend, you’d think you were having a soup from a Maryland seafood restaurant.
And because I planned DC parties in Mediterranean and Spanish cuisine restaurants, I especially like the fishy spice combination with the Spanish spice saffron.
It’s often found in a Paella dish that is not a quick meal, but you can make a saffron white omelet in minutes.
As another idea, you can serve that up with your white fish broth soup.
