Baked Sweet Potato Chips with Yogurt Mustard Dip

Finally. Yes, finally. I am so excited about this. Literally, I smiled so much. I purchased sweet potatoes and made my own homemade sweet potato chips out of them. Is that lame? Of course not. I will never be ashamed of being excited about something little like this. I am, after all, a big dork 🙂 I don’t mind it.

Truth is, I have never bought sweet potatoes before. My parents have. My mom loves them. I love them. She makes them all the time as a side (savory) to dinner when I still lived at home and sometimes when I come to visit. I haven’t ever bought them for myself though. Not sure why. I’m not a big starchy fan overall, I can go months without any pasta or rice or potatoes. It’s just not that special to me. I’m sure the fear of gaining weight has a lot to do with it though. I guess I’d rather not like them to be safe. But it’s okay.

Clearly, though, I haven’t sworn off starchy foods and I am open to eating them. I just don’t do it that often. But when I do, oh baby, it’s on- I might as well make the most of it and make it deeeelicious. Well, duh. 🙂

This is barely even a recipe. But it’s so good it deserves it’s own post. Mmm. I decided to add a yogurt dip on the side so that the protein offsets the high GI of the sweet potato and therefore the combined GI index is smaller.

PB&J parfait (high protein/lowfat)

I have a big love for PB2. I actually prefer it to regular peanut butter. Yes, the main reason is because of its caloric value. But another reason is that I’m actually not a big fan of peanut butter itself. I prefer almond butter. I always have. While peanut butter is alright (but not super high) in my book, I still like the flavor of PB&J. I mean, what’s not to like? I even made vegan chocolate PB&J cupcakes before!

Anyway, this peanut butter and jelly pudding parfait is a healthier and lower fat alternative to your favorite peanut butter and jelly snacks or desserts. It is high in protein thanks to the use of cottage cheese and peanut flour. The crunch from the granola is perfect and gives an ideal combo of textures. Additionally, the use of cinnamon helps regulate blood sugar levels from all of that delicious sweetness that’s going on here. And you wonder why I add cinnamon to all my desserts? 😉 I love me some great health benefits, duh.

I also recommend finding a lower sugar or no sugar added jam variety. Fruit are sweet on their own, I don’t think it’s necessary to add any additional sweetners to the mix. Thankfully, I still have some jam from May’s trip to the Amish country.

Apple Pie Parfait (nonfat/high protein)

Today is the day to find out if you’ve won the Arctic Zero giveaway… please head on over to the post to see if you’ve won or watch this video 🙂

I’ve been eating this parfait for a few years now. I’ve made various alterations to it from month to month. I used to add almond butter and honey to it but I later realized it contain far too many calories that way and the combination of nut butter + honey is a trigger food for me, so I’ve been doing my best to avoid the combo lately. I don’t want to trigger my body to go into overload/binge mode.

So this is a lighter version of the apple pie parfait. It’s still delicious. It’s just less calories and fat than the way I used to make it. It’s a wonderful autumn snack although I enjoy it any day, any season (clearly).

Looks so pretty in a glass doesn’t it? I usually just eat it out of a bowl, but I’ll do anything for the sake of good pictures 😛

Beet & Tomato Spring Salad

My mom is a great cook. But a thing I really love is that she makes her recipes healthy, like me. In fact, she’s the person where I got my healthy living inspiration from. She’s the one that taught me to appreciate whole and clean foods. So she rocks, pretty much.

She made this salad and it’s delicious. She always throws just a bunch of random stuff together in a bowl and it always makes a delicious salad. Might as well give her the credit and share this recent one with you guys.

She was making beet soup (my favorite) and we had some beets left over. Perfect idea for a salad add-in, no?

What I Ate Wednesdays #12: Father’s Day

I’ve gotta say, not that much snacking was done on Father’s Day. Sorry Jen. I thought Father’s Day is a perfect day to record my day’s eats though. Any holiday is fun to record the day’s eats. Without further ado, here are my eats that took place on Sunday, Father’s Day.

Raspberry Mint Yogurt Bites

My parents’ garden is filled with raspberries. I love how easily they want to grow. Every day there is a ton of new ones ripening and they are simply delicious! No pesticides here, oh no. Why would we want to sacrifice taste to make sure a fruit is bug-free? Who cares if there’s a bug in there or if the raspberries come out big or small? I think flavor is what really matters in a delicious fruit.

Take non-organic strawberries for example – they barely taste like anything. Regular strawberries seem to have no flavor to me, similarly to many other berries as well as cherries. But try an organic berry and your world will be blown. The flavor is so intense and complex it simply bursts in your mouth and your tastebuds dance in joy as they have never danced before! Now that’s a celebration of fresh fruit!

Combining raspberries with fresh mint leaves seemed like a great idea. Adding yogurt to the mix, similarly how I did with the chocolate-covered yogurt bites a while back was the basis for the creation. This delicious snack does a great job at cooling you down on a hot summer day all while delivering important antioxidants and protein from the yogurt.

Gotta love quick (kinda) and easy summer desserts. This is why summer is my favorite. Nothing in the world beats fresh home berries. Yum!

Chocolate-Dipped Yogurt Bites & This or That Quiz

I love quick and easy snacks. I especially love when they are healthy. ESPECIALLY when they also taste sinful. Like these little babies.. I used to make frozen yogurt bites all the time. I usually used Yoplait flavored yogurt though. That was before I realized the horrible additives pretty much everything has. So this time I used plain Greek yogurt.

The beauty of plain yogurt is that you can flavor is however you want. Want to add honey? Go for it. Cinnamon? You got it. And thanks to flavored liquid Stevia, you are able to flavor your yogurt whatever you want while adding sweetness without the calories of processed sugars.

Now take it a step further and dip the creation in melted chocolate. Can you say healthy heaven? Mmmm..

And then there’s one of those “This or That” quizzes on the bottom of the post. I’ve been seeing them around quite a bit and I thought, might as well.

Chocolate Chia Pudding + SweetLeaf Stevia

Today I am sharing something that tastes so indulgent but is actually really good for you. Don’t you love those treats? They are just the best. I sometimes get random night cravings – they suck. I’ll eat perfectly well all day but then as soon as night hits, I get cravings. It might be partially because I start getting bored – and food thoughts creep into my mind. So sometimes I ignore them successfully. However, sometimes they are so loud, I am unable to. I must satisfy that darn craving. Chocolate.

So why not satisfy it guit-free? Chocolate pudding. You could make the Chocolate Pudding with avocado. That one is delicious… but you don’t always have avocado on hand. So then you could make something else – chocolate chia pudding. Chia has wonderful properties which soak up the liquid they are in, making it into a gel/pudding consistency. This one was simply perfect.

Plus it was perfect for the new Chocolate SweetLeaf Stevia liquid drops I got in the mail recently. Good way to try them out, they were the perfect addition to this recipe. By the way, I was pretty excited when I got this in the mail – I got both the chocolate and root beer flavors. I’m psyched for the chocolate – it gives the perfect chocolatey flavor with sweetness of stevia. I’m totally sold on liquid stevia products by SweetLeaf – they don’t leave a weird aftertaste and taste delicious.