Healthy Snacks I Love

Hi everyone! With the upcoming spring (here in the northern hemisphere at least) I thought I should share some of my favorite healthy and yummy snacks for a new spring cleanse. I tried to chose a variety of types of snacks so that all of you would find a couple you would like to taste!

1. Homemade fruit granola yogurt parfait: Easy and well known. Your favorite PLAIN yogurt, not sweetened with dried apricots, frozen berries or fresh strawberries (my favorites) and a simple granola mix.

I used THIS granola bar recipe the other day and broke the bars up after cooking them and put it with yogurt. Everyone loved it, the yogurt takes away from the sweetness.

2. German whole wheat farm bread with melted Jarlsberg cheese and pastrami: very "earthy" solid bread with the mild cheese goes perfectly with the subtle taste of roasted smoked beef. Also works well with canadian bacon which is not fatty at all, more like ham. I like to fry it first (no oil) and then add it to the sandwich.

3. Frozen fruit smoothie: I always grab a bag of mixed frozen berries from Costco. They are perfect for desert toppings as well as a summer smoothie. Blend the berries, yogurt, milk, banana and I like to add some vanilla ice cream and vanilla extract (only a drop or two of extract--it's strong!). You will love this after a long sweaty days work or walking around your school campus on those sunny days.

4. Fruit fruit fruit: the simplest snack and probably one of my favorite. I LOVE fruit! And if you do too (even if you don't) there are a couple things you can add to your daily fruit diet to spice it up a bit. Every morning I have grapefruit with a sprinkle of sugar, peeled pomellos are also delish with a touch of sugar. If you're more of a spice girl, sliced banana and apple with a slight sprinkle of cinnamon is also great (not too much though, just a very very light dusting-especially for those of you that are acne prone like me). I find that clementines (aka Cuties for my US readers-I know we all love their stickers, and the fruit is tasty too!) and oranges go great with shredded unsweetened coconut. Mangos are amazing too and they don't need anything added! Though some of my friends love mango thats a little unripe with salt and pepper...umm not sure about it but try if you want.

5. Cottage cheese with tinned lite peaches: simple light snack and very healthy. I like to drain the syrup that the canned peaches are preserved in and make sure you get the "Lite syrup" version too!

6. Omelets: a couple eggs with some veggies and cheese is always a good breakfast or light lunch. Hard boiled eggs are good too, on salad!

7. Summer salad: my favorite simple summer salad is super easy to toss together. The basic greens including lots of baby spinach leaves. Add a dried fruit (I usually use dried cranberries, but sour apricots and blueberries work great too). Last but not least, slivered almonds. Almonds are super good for you and great in any salad.

8. Greek yogurt: this has been "in" for a while now and I finally picked some up at our local Trader Joe's, of course being me I got the whole fat one, I know, but there is also 2% and 0% available which I might try next. I've already finished one container and just got a second! Super yummy and creamy, the most creamy yogurt I've ever had! I just have a small bowl each day.

9. Toast with fruit butters: another amazing thing from Trader Joe's are their fruit butters. They have fig, honey apple, apple cranberry (my favorite and I can't find it anymore!! :( ), mango, pumpkin and I'm sure there a a few more I don't know about. But anyway, why butters? So I read that butters have more fruit than they do sugar unlike jams and Kelly's which are least much all sugar. I know the Trader Joe's ones have twice as much fruit as sugar which I love and it makes it so much more flavorful.

10. Frozen veggies: this is a great way to get in veggies to your diet. I like getting the mixes with broccoli, peas, corn etc just the usual, then I usually choose a more "exotic" (not really) like grilled asparagus. Frozen spinach is always in freezer, great to add into so many good recipes.

Yay! So that is all..hope you got some ideas from this list. Have fun and eat well!!

Xoxo

~M

PS: I will add pictures as I make the above this spring!