Category: snacks

September 16, 2015

Five Ingredient No Bake Granola Bars

I love simple, good for you recipes. When it comes to crunch time, I need something I can make in a big batch, quickly and with little mess. Granola bars fit these requirements to the T but I don’t want granola that is full of extra ingredients. I want something natural and as few ingredients as possible.

These simple to prepare and even simpler to make no bake granola bars are my favourite. I can make these quickly on a Sunday night and have a weeks worth of granola bars ready for us to enjoy on the run or as a healthy snack before dinner. They have quickly become an easy and satisfying snack to consume on the run to work, between practices or even as a sweet tooth craving at night.

Ingredients:

four cups of oatmeal
1 and 1/2 cup of peanut butter
3/4 cup of honey
3 boxes of raisins
1/2 cup of chocolate chips

Directions

Cover a rectangular pain in parchment paper and set aside.

Combine all the ingredients into one bowl. Mix the ingredients together well and until all the dry ingredients are ‘wet’ and sticking together.

Transfer the mixed ingredients into the rectangular container on top of the parchment paper (this will help with easy removal of the granola afterwards). Push down to ensure the ingredients bind together well.

Put the container in the fridge and allow it to remain in there for at least two hours.

When you are ready to eat the granola, cut yourself out a piece and enjoy!

This granola recipe stayed well in our fridge for the entire week.

March 26, 2014

Banana Peanut Butter Bites

I was on Pinterest about a month ago (big shock there right?!) and I saw these delicious looking chocolate covered frozen banana peanut butter treats (can not find the original link now but I am sure if you search it on Pinterest you will find it!). I wanted to try the recipe out but I am not a huge fan of chocolate covered fruit so I altered it a bit.

For this tasty treat you will need:

one banana
1-1.5 tbs of peanut butter (I love Earth Balance Coconut & Peanut Butter Spread)
tooth picks

Slice up the bananas thinly (pairing them helps me remember if I cut the right amount!). Add a small amount of peanut butter to each one. I found this part to be the trickiest as the peanut butter wouldn’t stick too well on the bananas sometimes it was more of a “blob” of peanut butter. Squish the two pieces of banana together and stick a tooth pick through and voila! I love having these for an early afternoon snack.

What is your favourite snack to enjoy in the afternoon?

December 3, 2013

Delicious Guilt Free Goodness with CheeCha Puffs! #Review #Giveaway

Eating snacks between meals is important – it keeps our energy up, prevents us from over eating at meal times, allows us to remain feeling full and satisfied and has been shown over time to help with weight loss. What we eat at these snack times is very important. I find that too often it is so much easier to reach for the junk snack foods that are so readily available and full of calories, sugars and ingredients you can’t even read! Which defeats the whole purpose of healthy eating at snack times!

But what if there was a snack out there that was made with wholesome ingredients, low calories and tastes delicious?

CheeCha Puffs covers all those points and more! I was introduced to the brand when I started my gluten free diet two years ago. I wanted something healthy, gluten free, low in calories but would still satisfy those snack cravings I seem to always get in the early afternoon!

The gluten free CheeCha Puff line is made up of five flavours. Each flavour is not only gluten free but also nut free, cholesterol free, non GMO, trans fat free, MSG free and dairy free. Now that is a list!
The gluten free flavours are:

original

salt and vinegar (my personal fave!)

salt and pepper

luscious lime

fiesta salsa

The low calorie line (and by low calories I mean roughly 75 calories for two cups! Yup two cups! That is a lot of snacking) is compromised of seven flavours:

triple cheese (my boys fave flavour!)

Each wheel like piece of potato puffed CheeCha Puffs are lightly seasoned and popped to make that healthy and delicious treat. I find these make the perfect snacks for school lunches and I regularly bring them to soccer games and the team cheerleaders “aka the little brothers and sisters” love to snack on them throughout the games!

CheeCha Puffs are sold at many locations across Canada and the United States. I personally purchase my own at Sobeys and Walmart.

What I love the most about CheeCha Puffs is their story. They are a Canadian owned business that started in Elaine Cadrin’s Calgary kitchen. She took a traditional family snack that was deep fried and popped it to create what would become CheeCha Puffs. She started selling them at a local farmer market where they soon became a huge hit. Now alongside her daughter, Tracey, they manage the CheeCha factory in Calgary bringing families all across Canada healthy goodness!

CheeCha Puffs have generously sponsored a great giveaway for you! They would like to give one Canadian reader a case of CheeCha Puffs so you can taste for yourself how fantastic they truly are!

Enter the Rafflecopter form below. The giveaway is open to Canadians, 18 years of age and older.

GOOD LUCK!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Disclosure: I received no monetary compensation for this post. All thoughts expressed are my own. The only compensation is the giveaway for you my readers!

November 11, 2013

Hemp Heart Balls

My co-worker recently introduced me to the world of hemp hearts and chia seeds. She has been on a clean eating diet and has done so well with weight loss and a healthy living lifestyle. I am slowly following her wisdom and getting on board with a cleaner way of eating.

She created a super tasty “protein” ball recipe which I altered to suit my own personal likes. It is an excellent afternoon pick me up or even an after work snack (I am always starving when I first get home from work but I am still in the process of cooking so the only thing to munch on is unhealthy snacks in the house!). The recipe is so simple and involves no baking.

You can add in chia seeds or flax seed if you want to or even substitute dried cranberries for the chocolate chips.

Ingredients:

– 1/2 cup of oats

– 1/2 cup of hemp hearts

– 1 tbsp of honey
-1/4 cup of natural peanut butter

– chocolate chips (enough for two to three pieces a ball)

Directions:

1. Combine all ingredients into a ball. Mix together until mixture is well mixed and is able to stick together.

2. Form the mixture into balls. Place in fridge and enjoy!