Healthy Snacks & Desserts

Now for the good stuff!! I get bored easily with food and really try not to eat the same thing all the time, so I take great pleasure in finding new and different HEALTHY snacks. I'm not really a sweets person either but every now and then, I gotta have something. And short of driving over to Menchie's or any other self-serve frozen yogurt place, I like eating my own sweets that are better for me. We'll start with the snacks!

I love me some potato chips! But regular potato chips are way to fattening and greasy. So my go-to chips for snacking are the Kettle brand Baked Chips. They still have that awesome kettle cooked crunch, but without all the grease and not nearly all the fat. And for 120 calories for 20 chips, I'll take it! All the flavors are good, but the Salt and Vinegar and the Barbeque are my faves!! Check out all their baked flavors: http://www.kettlebrand.com/our_products/baked_chips/?pid=19#/our_products/baked_chips/?pid=19. You can get them at Whole Foods and Target. Haven't seen them in Publix, sorry.

Another food I like to snack on is rice cakes! But not the flavorful kind. I like the plain jane, salt free rice cakes. But not by themselves (cuz that's really not appetizing), I like to lather them bad boys up with some all natural peanut butter or (my favorite) Dark Chocolate Almond Butter! Publix makes their own peanut butter. Also, you can make your own peanut and almond butter at Whole Foods and Fresh Market. And if you keep them refrigerated, the oil doesn't separate, by the way. I really love the almond butter and it's super smooth. It's also great paired with apples. Just an FYI, all natural peanut butter, or almond butter, should really only have 1-2 ingredients in it. And the first one should be peanuts or almonds. There shouldn't be sugar in it. That's not all natural. Peanut butter should be just mashed up peanuts. Keep that in mind.

A new snack that you can make at home is roasted chickpeas. Found the recipe on Pinterest (of course) and its super simple.

Roasted Chickpeas

2 cans of low sodium chickpeas

1 1/2 tsp of cinnamon (or whatever seasoning you'd like)

2 tbsp of extra virgin olive oil

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Rinse the chickpeas well and place them on paper towel lined cookie sheet and dry them thoroughly. Once dried, place them in a bowel and add the olive oil and cinnamon (or whatever seasoning you want). Toss them chickpeas to thoroughly coat. Once coated place them on a cookie sheet in a single layer and bake for 45 mins. Stirring once. Now, if you're gonna use a spicy seasoning, you're probably not gonna want to use 1 1/2 tsp, unless you want it extra spicy. These are awesome because they're nice and crunchy and chickpeas are LOADED with fiber! 1/2 cup is a serving, so eat 'em up!

Now for the sweets! I'm not a huge fan of cookies, but I really love these:

They're gluten free, dairy free, AND nut free. But they aren't flavor free ;) These cookies are crunchy but they taste delicious. Totally not what you'd expect from something gluten free. They also come in sugar and chocolate chip flavors. Again, I get these at Whole Foods. Not sure if they sell them at Publix, cuz I've never checked. But they're awesome, nonetheless. They were created by a doctor. Check out the website for other locations to buy them: http://www.drlucys.com/.

As far as ice cream goes, I recently fell in love with almond milk ice cream. The So Delicious brand is AMAZING! They also make these little ice cream sandwiches that are only 90 calories and they're just the perfect amount of junk food.

This is great because it's dairy free for all those lactose intolerant peeps out there. It's also soy free for those that stay away from that as well. Plus, almonds pack all those good fats. You can't burn the bad fat without the good fats folks! I hope you enjoy these snacks and desserts as much as I do. There are tons more out there, but these are my faves. All you have to do is look. Thanks for snacking healthy!
 

Balsamic Chickpea Salad

I know it's been a while but I finally had the time to add this one! Made this one while on vacation a couple weeks ago and my brother Ty loved it! This salad is loaded with fiber and best served chilled. Plus, it's got a nice little kick to it!

Balsamic Chickpea Salad

1 can of low sodium chickpea's

1/2 of a seedless cucumber, skinned and cut into cubes

1/2 of an orange bell pepper, cut into cubes

5 grape tomatoes, sliced and seeded

1/8 cup of extra virgin olive oil

1 tbsp of rice wine vinegar

1 tbsp of balsamic vinegar

1/4 tsp of cumin

1/8 tsp of cayenne pepper

 

After cutting the bell peppers, cucumbers, and tomatoes, place everything in a bowl, including the seasonings, olive oil, chickpea's and vinegar's, and stir. This is good served immediately, but it's better served after being chilled for an hour or two. 

Now, you don't have to use an orange bell pepper, you can use whatever color bell pepper you have or want, but it gives the salad a nice color. I just like this because of all the fiber from the chickpeas! Plus, there's some protein in there too! Hope you guys enjoy this as much as my brother and I did! Thanks for being healthy!