Tag: nutrition

Weekly Menu: April 16 – 22, 2018

This weekend has flown by! (Yes it’s still my weekend.) Saturday morning I took my very first spin class! And Saturday night I had my girls over for a game night and we made homemade nachos. I had a lot of leftovers, so I decided to turn those into taco salads for lunch this week! I’ve been craving meatball subs so I’m going to make a meatball flavored meatloaf and serve it as an open faced sandwich with tomato sauce and mozzarella.

Dal Makhani is black lentil curry and I’m serving that with naan. I’ve got the Peanut Butter & Jelly Steel Cut Oats in the crockpot right now for breakfast tomorrow and boy am I excited!

Here’s my menu for this week:

What does your menu look like this week? Let me know in the comments!

Recipe: Protein Coconut Breakfast Cake

HEY LOOK, GUYS, A RECIPE. I know I’ve been quiet lately. I’ve moved into a new apartment and I’m still kinda figuring out my personal schedule and getting back on track. But I know I owed you a delicious recipe so here it is!

I’ve been obsessing over coconut cake lately. It haunts my dreams: a light, fluffy white cake with a thick, ultra sweet frosting studded with sweetened shredded coconut.

Pure. Sugar. And. Carbs. SO GOOD.

But I can’t really indulge in those things too often anymore, and now that I’m living alone, me baking a whole cake is a dangerous idea. And of course I need new breakfast ideas full of protein all the time! I recently made some delicious banana protein muffins and figured I could adapt the recipe to a coconut cake! It’s even pretty easy.

The ingredients list is short: egg whites, plain Greek yogurt, coconut extract, unflavored whey protein, whole wheat flour, baking sugar substitute, baking powder and unsweetened coconut flakes.

You need to whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. It should take less than 10 minutes with a hand mixer, and egg whites whip better when they’re room temperature.

Next you fold in the Greek yogurt, being gentle so as not to break up all of the bubbles in the egg whites. Carefully stir in the dry ingredients, mixing until it’s *just* blended. If you overblend it the bubbles will disappear.

Pour the batter into a pan coated with cooking spray and make sure it’s evenly spread. Sprinkle the coconut on top in an even layer, then pop into a 325 degree oven. It’s going to rise a LOT, so you may want to put it on a baking sheet to catch any rogue flakes of coconut that might fall off. It’s going to take about 35-40 minutes, and will be done when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

Look at that amazing golden brown deliciousness!!! Allow me to even give you a CLOSE UP. Mmmm. Allow it to cool thoroughly then slice into four generous pieces. This is really good reheated gently in the toaster oven in the morning too.

 

Protein Coconut Breakfast Cake

  • Servings: 4
  • Difficulty: easy
  • Print

A mildly sweet, protein rich cake with the flavors of coconut.

NUTRITION PER SERVING: 230 cals, 10.3g fat, 271.3mg sodium, 14.1g carbs, 22.2g protein.

Ingredients

  • 6 egg whites
  • 1 tsp coconut extract
  • 1 cup plain Greek yogurt
    • – 42g Isopure unflavored whey isolate protein powder (or 1 1/2 servings of your brand)
  • 1/4 cup whole wheat flour
  • 12 tsp sucralose
  • 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and spray a loaf pan with non-stick cooking spray.
  2. In a medium bowl, whisk egg whites and coconut extract until stiff peaks then fold in yogurt. Add in the Whey Protein Powder, flour, baking powder and Splenda and mix gently until just combined.
  3. Spread the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Sprinkle the coconut evenly on top and bake for 35 – 40 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. The cake will rise considerably, so you might want to set a baking sheet underneath to catch any spills.
  4. Allow the cake to cool thoroughly (it will lose volume as it cools). Slice and serve!

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Healthy Desserts with Surprising Ingredients

No one really wants to give up dessert when they choose a healthy lifestyle. Desserts are often high in sugar, fat and carbs, while also being nutritionally void, so we’re advised to skip them if we can, or replace them with fruit. But what about boosting the nutritional value of desserts while reducing processed sugars? That’s where these delicious recipes come in! Each one of these recipes contains a VEGETABLE surprise. Enjoy!

Sweet Potato Brownies (V, GF)

These are, in short, incredible. This recipe calls for the larger, more expensive Medjool dates, but I’ve made them with regular dates and they are so deliciously textured. I use brown rice flour instead of buckwheat flour and honey instead of maple syrup and get wonderful results every time. They’re rich, fudgy and sinful feeling without using any processed sugar.

 

Chickpea Blondies (V, GF)

These are good. Dangerously good. As in I ate the entire pan by myself in 2 days good. The best part is they’re not overly sweet, and there’s something really satisfying to me about the slight graininess of the finished product. It feels like it’s loaded with sugar while being totally natural. As usual I subbed out the maple syrup for honey and used regular non-vegan chocolate chips. I’d love to make these again next week but to be totally honest with you I don’t need a binge food just lying around the place. They’re THAT good.

 

Not Quite Banana Bread (GF, DF)

I adore parsnips. They’re sweet and floral and might just be perfect for dessert, and apparently during WWII bananas were scarce and housewives used parsnips as substitutes! Maybe I can adapt this to be pure parsnip bread someday. This recipe is dairy free and gluten free but not vegan as it does contain eggs. Although perhaps flax eggs could be substituted to convert this recipe to full vegan. I haven’t given this recipe a shot yet but I’m super excited about trying it!

Cauliflower “Rice” Pudding (Paleo, GF, DF)

I need to try this, for serious. Growing up, rice pudding was a regular staple in our house. My Gran’s rice pudding was always warm and rather thin, spiced with cinnamon, and often made with raisins. But rice pudding made from CAULIFLOWER?! Is there anything cauliflower can’t do? This rice pudding does contain egg to form the custard, but it’s dairy free. And it sounds SO GOOD. Can’t wait to try it!

So there are tons of interesting vegetable dessert recipes out there that are healthy for you to try! I even left over a beet cake because honestly I don’t like beets very much, but a quick Pinterest search will reveal plenty!

Even when eating healthy, you CAN have dessert!

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