Chocolate, Fruit & Nut Energy Bytes
Chocolate craving! Time for something chocolatey good. With nuts. Yes LOTS of nuts. Oh and some peanut butter. Dried fruit in there … ah yes. And to add a little bit more healthy yumminess, some oats.
Roll it all into a little ball and what do you have? A quick, healthy snack. Not one you want to eat a LOT of at one sitting because they are a bit calorific, but something you can grab on the go when you need a little energy, especially before or after a good workout. An energy byte! (Terrible geeky pun intended.)
I like to eat one of these for a bit of dessert after a good meal, or when I am running out the door and need something fast to grab for a quick bit of energy. Or when you need a quick chocolate fix, but you don’t want to totally destroy your healthy eating plan. A little bit of chocolate and a few nuts every day are very good for your health.
Chocolate, Fruit & Nut Energy Bytes
You could use a good quality dark chocolate in place of the almond bark and cocoa powder. I just didn’t have enough on hand, so I decided to make my own “chocolate”!
- 2 squares of almond bark (or white chocolate)
- 4 Tablespoons dark cocoa powder
- 3 Tablespoons of Chocolate PB2 powder
- 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
- 1/4 cup peanut butter
- 1 cup quick-cooking oats
- 2/3 cup nuts (I used a mix of peanuts and cashews)
- 1/2 cup dried cranberries
- 1/2 cup dried apricots, chopped into bits
- Coarse sea salt
Directions:
- Melt the almond bark in a medium mixing bowl in the microwave by microwaving on high for 1 minute, stir, microwave for 30 seconds, stir again, keep microwaving for 30 seconds/stirring until the white almond bark is completely melted.
- Stir in the dark cocoa powder, PB2 powder, vanilla and peanut butter and stir until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
- Stir in the oats, nuts, cranberries and apricot bits until everything is coated in chocolate. Form the mixture into balls and set on a tray. Sprinkle the bytes with a bit of coarse sea salt.
- Set it in the fridge until the chocolate is set, then transfer to a covered storage container. You can store these at room temperature or in the fridge, as you prefer. I like to eat them at room temperature so I’m not bothering to refrigerate mine. They aren’t going to last that long anyway!
This recipe was shared at Katherine Martinelli’s Nut Bloghop, Share it Saturday, Lunch Box Linky and Scrumptious Sunday.
Sesame Noodles with Cucumber
Brianne at Cupcakes & Kale Chips is a great source of food inspiration for me. When she posted a recipe for sesame noodles, I wanted them right away … it was a simple, quick recipe, so I went into the kitchen and made them straight away. I have veggies galore in my kitchen right now, so I had to throw some of those in. So I sliced up some cucumber in thin noodle-like strips and tossed in some shredded carrot and sweet onion.
I also replaced the peanut butter in the recipe with PB2 … it’s a powdered form of peanut butter that has most of the oil removed. And I left out some of the oil to cut down the amount of fat. It was still quite delicious. I looove this sauce!
You could add in cooked chicken or shrimp or scallops to dress this dish up, use other vegetables or even replace the noodles with zucchini noodles (have you seen that? zucchini cut up in long thin strips like noodles? I want to try that one of these days!) Anyway, I used brown rice Pad Thai noodles and that worked wonderfully. My cucumber strips weren’t quite straight or thin enough to really act like noodles, but they added a refreshing crunch to the dish.
Sesame Noodles with Cucumber
Adapted from Cupcakes & Kale Chips (who got the recipe from The Mom 100 Cookbook by Katie Workman)
There is enough sauce to cover about twice this much noodles/vegies, so go ahead and make more if you have more mouths to feed. I was just cooking for me … I’m lucky, though. Making this amount means I have some of that scrumptious sauce left for another day.
Sauce:
- 3 cloves of garlic
- A 2-inch hunk of ginger root, peeled
- 2 Tablespoons white or rice vinegar
- 2 teaspoons Sriracha or other hot pepper sauce (use more or less to taste)
- 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
- 1 – 2 Tablespoons dark sesame oil (I used 1 Tablespoon, but I think it could use a little more)
- 4 Tablespoons PB2
- 3 Tablespoons water
Noodles and vegies:
- 4 – oz. of noodles (I used brown rice pad thai noodles, but any long skinny noodle will work …)
- 1/2 cup of cucumber, cut in long thin strips like the noodles
- 1/4 cup of shredded carrots
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced onion
- 1/4 cup thinly sliced bell pepper
- Garnish: fresh cilantro, chopped peanuts, sesame seeds (or chia seeds if you can’t find your sesame seeds … like me)
Directions:
- Make the sesame sauce: whir all of the sauce ingredients in a handi chopper, food processor or a blender until smooth. Set the sauce aside.
- Prepare the noodles according to the package directions, reserving 1/2 cup of the noodle cooking water (or 1 cup if you are making a full batch), then drain the noodles.
- Add the reserved cooking water to half of the sesame sauce and blend. Place the warm drained noodles in a large bowl and toss them with the sauce and vegies until everything is coated.
- I skipped this step because I was starving but the recipe says to let the noodles cool to room temperature because they will absorb more sauce as they sit. This might be true … I have yet to try it.
- Garnish with cilantro leaves and peanuts or sesame seeds and serve. Try not to inhale them like I did.
This recipe was shared at: Foodie Friends Friday, Fit & Fabulous Fridays, Serendipity & Spice, Weekend Potluck, Summer Salad Sundays, Recipe of the Week and Manic Monday.
Chocolate Peanut Butter BonBons
Craving. Chocolate. Peanut butter. Nagging, nagging. Helllooooo. Chocolate. NEED Chocolate! Peanut butter. Mmm. Peanut butter. Nagging. Craving. Peanut Butter. Chocolate. CHOCOLATE!
Bonbons … Mmm. Bonbons. Yes. Chocolate. Peanut butter. Yes, yes, yes. Ah! Better.
I feed my cravings with high quality ingredients and then I also try to lighten up my favorite decadent treats. If they taste really good, I find I don’t need to eat large quantities of them. These are sort of like a Reese’s peanut butter cup, except they’re healthier.
Chocolate Peanut Butter BonBons
Heavily adapted from Baby Gizmo Blog. To reduce the fat, I used PB2 in place of half of the peanut butter, which is a powdered form of peanut butter with 85% of the fat removed. If you can’t find it at your local grocery store (in the health food section), you can order it online.
- 1 1/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (chocolate or regular … whatever you prefer/have on hand … I used a mix of both)
- 1/4 cup flaxmeal
- 1/2 cup PB2 (chocolate or regular or a mix of both … I used half chocolate/half regular)
- 1/4 cup fat free half & half
- 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
- 1/4 cup honey
- 1/4 cup light cream cheese
- For dipping: good quality dark chocolate and mini chocolate chips … I am not sure how much I used because I grabbed some bar chocolate then added chips to it, but I would guess it would be about 1 – 1 1/2 cups of dark chocolate chips plus a cup of mini chocolate chips
This recipe was shared at Melt in your Mouth Mondays, Manic Mondays, Fit & Fabulous Fridays, Foodie Friends Friday and Newlyweds Recipe Linky.
Peanut Butter Ice Cream {Low Fat}
I am a peanut butter fanatic. For as long as I can remember, I have cherished the taste of peanut butter. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were my favorite snack growing up … until as a teenager, I noticed I was putting on some weight. I asked my mom (the dietician) for some help and she gave me some materials to help me form a plan to get to the weight I wanted to be. That was when I checked just how many calories were in my favorite “little” snack, and decided that my beloved peanut butter just wasn’t fitting into my plans. I didn’t totally give up on my favorite snack, but I didn’t eat it very often anymore.
Many years have passed and my passion for peanut butter has not faded, but I still want to keep myself at a healthy weight, so I still take care to limit how much of my beloved peanut butter I put into my body. My son shares my fondness for peanut butter, especially when it’s paired with chocolate.
Recently a friend told me she’d tried PB2, a powdered form of peanut butter that has had 85% of the fat taken out. I was suspicious and checked, but they don’t use nasty chemicals or preservatives. It’s simply peanuts, without (most of) the fat. I thought I should try it in one of my favorite ice creams: the decadent peanut butter swirl ice cream from Saveur.
To lighten it up, I used PB2 in place of most of the peanut butter, I skipped the swirl part, swapped out the milk and a cup of the whipping cream for fat free half and half and replaced the 3/4 cup of white sugar with 1/2 cup of brown sugar. The result is a rich, decadent-tasting ice cream that has a LOT less fat (about 30% of the calories from fat, which is a good guideline to stick to in general) and a yummy peanut butter taste. Add a few peanuts on top and a bit of chocolate syrup and I’m in heaven. And I don’t even have to feel guilty about it!
Peanut Butter Ice Cream {Low Fat}
Adapted from Saveur.com’s Peanut Butter Swirl Ice Cream.
Note: there are 2 cups total of fat free half and half in the recipe … I separated them in the ingredient list to make it easier to follow the directions.
- 1 cup fat free half & half
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup PB2 powder
- 1 Tablespoon natural peanut butter
- 1 cup fat free half & half
- 1/2 cup heavy whipping cream
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
Directions:
In a saucepan, stir together 1 cup of the fat free half & half with the brown sugar and cook over medium heat just until hot. While the milk and sugar are cooking, in a small mixing bowl, beat the eggs till they are fluffy and a consistent yellow (that is, no blobs of egg white floating about).
In a slow stream, add the hot cream mixture to the eggs, whisking or beating constantly as you do. Beat them a little more just for spite, then put the saucepan back on the burner and heat at medium-low heat, whisking constantly, until it is thick enough to coat the back of a wooden spoon, about 5 minutes.
Remove the pan from the heat and mix in the PB2 and the peanut butter using your mixer. Whisking the custard well while it is cooking helps keep the lumps out, but if you see any lumps in your custard, strain them out. If not, just let it set for a few minutes to cool, then beat in the cream and vanilla. Cover and refrigerate until cold, 6–8 hours, then put it in your ice cream maker and freeze into creamy wonderful deliciousness. I like to add a little drizzle of chocolate syrup and a few roasted peanuts on top, but just a little … I didn’t want to spoil all the work I’d done to lighten up my peanut butter treat.
This post is an #icecreamlove post powered by Linky Tools
Click here to see all the other wonderful ice creams everyone is making this month …
This recipe was also shared at Melt in your Mouth Mondays, Makin’ you Crave Mondays, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Cast Party Wednesday, It’s a Keeper Thursday, Thursday’s Treasures, Tastetastic Thursday, and Fit & Fabulous Fridays.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Chia Smoothie
(a.k.a. “Healthy Muck”)
So far, I have a total of one smoothie on this blog. One. I guess if you count this one, that’s two, but it’s really the same smoothie (this one is a health-ified version of the other one), so does that count? I think it’s still just one.
I do really love smoothies … but I realized a while ago that many smoothies are packed with enough calories for a meal for a petite little middle-aged person like me. I like to maximize the enjoyment of my limited number of calories, and I tend to drink fast … so smoothies are not normally such a good dietary choice for me. I would much rather have a salad I can munch on for a long time … it satisfies my palate much better than a quickly-downed smoothie. For my son on the other hand, he is well over six feet tall and still growing … he loves smoothies and I’m quite glad to oblige him.
Anyway, the ONE smoothie that I do have on my blog is the cream of the crop. It’s my son’s favorite smoothie … AND the only smoothie I would choose to have to replace a meal, and I would enjoy every drop of it. My dad invented it. We used to call it “Grampa smoothies” up until my son’s friend said it looks like muck. So it was re-named “Muck”.
Anyway, I got a couple new ingredients to try out. First I won a bag of chia seeds from Lauren at Nutri-Savvy and Ruth’s Foods. I had never used chia seeds before, but I’ve heard they are a nutritional powerhouse: packed with Omega-3s, plus protein and fiber, they are even better than flax seed or quinoa. AND then a friend was telling me how wonderful PB2 is. It’s powdered peanut butter with most of the fat removed. I used to think that sounded just totally gross, but after talking to my friend, I thought what they heck: I’ll give it a shot. And did you know they have a CHOCOLATE version of PB2? Who can resist chocolate and peanut butter? Only 45 calories in two tablespoons? Um, yeah. I’m in. I found it in the health food section at our grocery store, but if you can’t find it there, it is available on Amazon.
I expected that my health-ified version wouldn’t really be as good. And really, I can’t say it has the same rich decadence as the original, but it was pretty darn close. The chia seeds added a slight bit of crunch … but they didn’t change the wonderful chocolate peanut butter banana taste. And the Chocolate PB2 did EXACTLY what I wanted it to do: gave it all the chocolate peanut butter taste without all the fat, sugar and calories of peanut butter and chocolate syrup.
Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Chia Smoothie (a.k.a., “Healthy Muck”)
- 1 1/2 bananas, frozen
- 1 cup lowfat milk (I used 1% milk, but you can use skim or I am sure almond or soy milk would work well too)
- 2 Tablespoons Chocolate PB2
- 1 Tablespoon chia seeds
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Put all ingredients in blender and blend till smooth. Pour into a nice tall glass (or two smaller ones) and enjoy! Drizzle with a tiny bit of real chocolate syrup if you like …
Just for fun, I put it in the Calorie Count Recipe Analyzer on About.com and it gets an “A” for a Nutrition Grade!
With 10.6 grams of fiber and 17.1 grams of protein, not to mention 39% of your day’s needs for calcium and 26% of your vitamin C, it’s a fantastic way to start your day.
This recipe was shared at Fit & Fabulous Fridays, Weekend Potluck, Manic Mondays, Totally Tasty Tuesdays, Cast Party Wednesday, and Thursday’s Treasures.
