Do you have a blender? I think my blender is one of the most used kitchen appliances I own. Besides my blender I also use my food processor and rice cooker quite often. I don’t think I could live without them!

I make a smoothie pretty much every day of the week. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes later in the day as a snack. This strawberry coconut smoothie is extremely easy, but then again, every type of smoothie is for that matter. All you have to do is add the ingredients in your blender and pulse for a few seconds.

One ingredient that I always include in my smoothies is flaxseed meal. It is a great anti-inflamatory agent, contains Omega-3’s and also contains fiber. If you haven’t tried to add flaxseed meal to your smoothies before you should. It also lowers cholesterol for those that need lowering it.

I mixed my strawberry smoothie with coconut milk. We also love coconut milk so they both worked rather well. If you like you can freeze this mixture on popsicle molds. This is what I do many times and it works perfect. My kids enjoy them quite often and I don’t feel bad about them having these frozen treats, as they are healthy!

On another note, I am currently working on my upcoming cookbook that will be coming out next year. I am super excited for you guys to see some of the recipes I have been coming up wit. I will be showing you some of them very soon.

Until then,

Enjoy!

Strawberry coconut smoothie

Miryam's original recipe

Yield: 4 servings

Total Time: 5 minutes

Ingredients:

• 4 cups almond milk
• 1 cup coconut cream
• 12 oz organic frozen strawberries
• 1/4 cup flaxseed meal
• 2 tbsp maple syrup, or 1 full dropeer liquid stevia, optional

Directions:

Place all the ingredients in your blender and blend until you obtain a homogenous mixture.

The post Strawberry coconut smoothie appeared first on Eat Good 4 Life.

I made this no bake strawberry cheesecakes a couple of days ago. Not only they were super easy to put together but we really enjoyed them. For the base you can add a tablespoon of coconut oil with the graham cracker crumbs but I left the graham cracker crumbs by themselves. I actually like it like that.

I also used organic strawberries. Berries should be organic. It is one of the 12 foods to actually purchase organic. They are a bit more pricy but  worth it. They even taste better.

My strawberry cheesecake layer was not too dense. I use quite a bit of strawberries to make it lighter, which I liked. I don’t like the cheesecake layer to thick. If you do, just add less strawberries.

I think you can make these strawberry cheesecakes with other types of fruit if you like. Blueberries, raspberries and peaches would also be great.

Is anyone having a especial dinner or treat for valentine’s day? We have been sick with a stomach bug for days so we are not feeling too good. I wish I got the flu instead of the stomach virus…it is so much harder on me.

Anyhow, I wish everyone a great valentine’s day.

Enjoy!

No bake strawberry cheesecake

Miryam's original recipe

Yield: 6 servings

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

• 16 oz low fat cream cheese
• 1 cup Greek yogurt
• 1 cup heavy cream
• 4 tbs maple syrup
• 1 full dropper liquid stevia
• 13 graham crackers
• 12 oz organic strawberries

Directions:

In your food processor add the graham crackers and pulse until pulverized. Divide the graham cracker between 6 parfait classes or any other glasses of your choice (I didn't add any butter or coconut oil to the graham crackers but you could if you like, I like my graham crackers without it though)

Add the cream cheese, yogurt, 2 tablespoons of maple syrup, 8 oz of the strawberries and stevia to the food processor and pulse until combine. Divide this mixture between the 6 glasses.

In a medium bowl, with a hand stand mixer, whipped the heavy cream with the 2 tablespoons of maple syrup. Divide the heavy cream between the 6 glasses and decorate with the strawberries. You may sprinkle a little bit of reserved graham crackers over the strawberries if you like.

Place the cheesecakes in the refrigerator and let them cool for at least 2 hours before serving.

The post No bake strawberry cheesecake appeared first on Eat Good 4 Life.

Hello friends, today I am excited about two things.

First, this chia strawberry and raspberry mint popsicles, and second, another amazing giveaway thanks to my friends at Health Warrior.

I am not much of a protein bar or granola bar person, as I normally make my own, however, I was pleasantly surprised when I tried these chia bars. To be totally honest, I have not tried a bar that I really liked in a long time. I really got hocked with these bars the minute I took my first bite. The bars were so good I even had to hide some of them. For every bar I ate, my husband was eating at least three or four :-)

There were a few things that I really liked about these bars.

• Number one: The ingredient list was just plain and simple. No weird ingredients of any kind.
• Number two: These bars aren’t that sweet at all.
• Number three: The taste and the nutrition content was excellent.

But you may ask, would I try these Health Warrior chia bars again?

For sure I would. I think these bars are great for on the go, as a snack, which I added to my son’s lunch for a week, and as a healthy sweet treat. If you are looking to buy a healthy bar, look no further, you will love these Health Warrior bars.

Another one of their products that I was able to try was their white and black chia seeds, also awesome.These chia seeds were the ones that I used for the strawberry and raspberry pospsicles. Chia seeds are a great power food. Adding them to sweet treats is a great way to increase nutritional content by increasing omega-3’s and protein, very important components in the diet.

My kids didn’t notice anything weird when consuming these popsicles, so I was very pleased with that. I hate when my kids reject any new healthy treats I come up with.

Let me know if you try these chia strawberry, and raspberry mint pospsicles. Don’t omit the mint because it makes it extra refreshing and unique!

Enjoy and stay safe!

Now onto the giveaway. GIVEAWAY IS NOW CLOSED.

So today, I am having a giveaway which includes one full box (15 bars) of each flavor Chia Bars and one bag of loose Chia Seeds from Health Warrior A fantastic assortment of their products worth $75.

• Anyone that lives in the US can enter.
• Entries must be submitted by Tuesday, June 18th 12:00pm EST. A winner will be randomly chosen. I will announce the winner in my following post that week and on facebook.
• You must include your first name in at least one of your comments. The winner will have 2 days to respond to my email or another winner will be chosen.

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Health Warrior. This post contains affiliate links. Health Warrior provided  me with their chia seed bars as well as chia seeds to write this review and all opinions are my own. I speak from personal experience. The end. :-)

Chia strawberry, and raspberry mint popsicles

Miryam's original recipe

Yield: 10-12 popsicles

Total Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 lb fresh organic strawberries
• 6 oz fresh organic raspberries
• 2 Tbsp chia seeds
• 0.5 oz fresh mint
• 2 Tbsp maple syrup

Directions:

In a blender add all of the ingredients. Pour onto popsicle molds. Insert a popsicle stick into each mold and freeze until firm.

The post Chia strawberry, and raspberry mint popsicles appeared first on Eat Good 4 Life.

I could not believe how moist, light and tasty these Strawberry Cupcakes were. I actually got the recipe from the orange and cranberry cupcakes I made a few weeks back and changed a few things, AMAZING……

I am thinking about using this batter for my son’s birthday party cake coming up in April and frosting it some other way.

I have seen a lot of strawberry cupcake recipes out there but this one I think tops them all. You don’t miss the butter and all of the sugar that are in other cupcake recipes and let’s just say that the fact that these cupcakes have the whole wheat pastry flour, SUPERB…and most importantly, you can’t even tell it is whole wheat.

This is how I trick my friends and some family members. First they have a taste and then I tell :-)

I bet you can even use maple syrup or honey instead of sugar for the batter. Something to think about….Also if you don’t feel like you want to bother with the frosting or want the cupcakes to be even healthier, you can just skip the frosting all together and sprinkle some sugar on top of the Strawberry Cupcakes before baking.

Enjoy!

Here you can appreciate the strawberry pieces. You can leave as is and just sprinkle some sugar on top of each cupcake before baking.

I think this batter can be made as a cake and will do that next time as I have been looking for a strawberry cake for quite some time. I am so glad I made this, super happy :-)

 Here you can see the strawberry chunks. These cupcakes are just out of this world…..

Out Of This World Strawberry Cupcakes

Yield: 18 cupcakes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup unrefined sugar, if frosting 1/3 cup will be sufficient
1 1/2 teaspoon aluminum free baking powder
1/2 teaspoon aluminum free baking soda
1 organic egg
1 1/2 cup diced strawberries, organic are better
1/4 cup olive
1 cup almond milk
2 teaspoons strawberry extract, try not to leave it out it makes a huge difference although you can still use vanilla extract

Frosting

8 tablespoons butter
8 oz reduced fat cream cheese
4-5 cups confectioner's sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped strawberries

 

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350F. Line a cupcake pan with cupcake liners.

In a bowl beat, with a wire whisk, mix egg, oil, milk, strawberry extract, and sugar. Add flour, baking powder and baking soda. Fold in the the strawberries.

Spoon batter into cupcake liners 3/4 of the way. Bake for 18-22 minutes until golden and tester comes out clean. Remove immediately from the pan after baking and let cool completely on a wire rack.

For the frosting, mix all of the ingredients ( I normally use a hand mixer when doing this) and frost cupcakes. Use whichever pattern you like!

Left nutrition facts label calculated based on the recipe giving 18 servings using frosting. 1 cupcake = 1 serving

Right nutrition facts label calculated without using frosting.

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