fruit – meg.antinucci

Smoothie Season…

Spring and summer are quickly approaching and I can’t wait until the weather stays warmer! Smoothies and fresh juices are my favorite things to eat/drink when it’s warm out. This is one of my fave recipes that is delicious, vegan, and low-cal!

Recipe

1c Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Milk

1/2c Frozen Mango

1/2c Pineapple

1/2c Frozen Strawberries

Another delicious treat that we have been loving lately is frozen yogurt. Surprisingly our local fro-yo spot always has a dairy-free option and they have been so good! My fave flavor is pomegranate raspberry sorbet topped with some fresh fruit. This is a great low-cal treat on a hot day! -Topped with a little granola, peanuts, and sugar free 100% dark chocolate
The last and in my opinion best snack no matter what the temperature is would be fruit. Lately I have been loving pineapple it has the perfect sweetness and a perfect snack for anytime of the day!

xo Meg

March 17, 2014March 16, 2014 by bellanoochi

Snack Attack…

I love snacks salty are the best but I have to watch myself because they can get me into trouble. There is nothing wrong with having a snack like pita chips, or tortilla chips, or even popcorn. You just have to be aware of how much you are eating, something I never used to do. A serving size of tortilla chips is about 10 chips and can be around 140 calories which isn’t too bad for a chip, but I would catch myself blindly eating handfuls of them and then you have to guess as to how much you are really eating. So I started to literally count them out and that way I know how many calories I am eating.

This is one of my favorite snacks, guacamole and reduced fat tortilla chips. I usually just make my own guacamole because I usually always have avocados. For some reason they are never ripe when I want half of one and then I have 3 ripe at once so this is a great way to use up ripe avocados and its delicious!

Recipe

3 Ripe Avocados

1-2 Small Vine Ripe Tomatoes

1/2 Lemon Juiced

Garlic Powder, Salt, & Pepper to taste

*Mash it all up in a bowl to your desired consistency! Another one of my go-to snacks that I eat several times a week is popcorn. This is hands down my fave snack of all time. If you get the urge to snack on something at night like I do then this is perfect because it can be very low in calories and you can flavor it however you like! I always use an air popper to make mine from white corn so there is no added fat or oil. After it’s done popping I use a misto olive oil sprayer to add a little extra virgin olive oil. Then I top it with sea salt and a little cayenne pepper for a little kick! My husband uses a non-fat butter spray and white cheddar flavoring powder that has like no calories. There are so many different options and for about 7 cups of popcorn its under 150 calories.

Fruit is the fastest food and best snack you can have in my opinion. If I am starving or I will be out all day I always make sure to grab an apple, banana, or grapes. They aren’t that messy to eat in the car and can be very filling. A medium apple, cup of grapes, and banana are all around 100 calories and make a perfect snack on the go!

Happy Snacking!

xo Meg

January 16, 2014 by bellanoochi

Chocolate Cheesecake with fruit…

This was one of the best treats I have come up with in a really long time! I make these protein muffins for my husband all the time and he seriously loves them! This is shocking because he usually thinks I am crazy for some of the protein powder treats that I try. I think he doesn’t really get it because he just drinks protein powder the way it was intended to be used with water and good old fashion blender bottle! Anyway I got him to try one a while ago and now he wants me to make them pretty much every week for him!

I originally saw the recipe from a YouTube video a while ago on Leanbodylifestyle for a high protein chocolate protein cheesecake. I thought could this be real? So I tried the recipe and ended up tweaking it to my personal taste. I find that in a lot of high protein recipes they call for a lot of added truvia and other types of sweetener, but personally I don’t have that big of a sweet tooth, I would rather have something salty! So I usually skip the extra sugar substitutes. I highly recommend checking out the video if you want to see the original recipe, and he has a lot of other amazing treats on his channel as well!

Here is my version of a cheesecake protein muffin…

1 Package Fat Free Cream Cheese

3/4c Fat free Vanilla Greek Yogurt

1 Egg

1 Scoop Chocolate Protein Powder (you could use any flavor you like)

1 T Unsweetened Cocoa Powder

*Use a muffin tin and bake for about 20 mins @ 350F mine usually make about 9 muffins at around 105 calories each depending on what type of protein powder you use it will vary.

What I love about these types of recipes is that you can really use whatever you have on hand and customize the flavors to your taste-buds! One time I only had black cherry yogurt and used that instead of plain and my husband loved them! Another good combo would probably be lemon yogurt with vanilla protein powder and a little lemon juice. The possibilities are really endless and completely up to you!

I love to eat these when they are still warm but we usually keep them in the fridge so when I ate them I tossed them into the microwave for about 30 seconds and then topped them with fresh fruit and a little light cool whip. This was seriously out of this world delic!

xo Meg

August 8, 2013August 7, 2013 by bellanoochi