Healthy Holiday Treats
It is inevitable . . . with the Holidays comes tastey cookies, cakes, desserts and more! But, this doesn't mean you have to let a few notches out of your belt, or worry about gaining the awful "Holidays Pounds".
I spent some time in the kitchen this season, playing around with a few "healthier" options for the typical Holiday treats. Here are a few that I tried:
Quick "no bake" protein fudge bar. For the Vanilla Protein choice I used Healthy Skoop B-Strong.
This was a very simple recipe. Throw the ingredients in a bowl, stir and throw in the fridge. I used Lily's Dark Chocolate chips (sweetened with Stevia) for the topping and instead of drizzling the chocolate on the bars, I used it as frosting to coat the entire pan (that's how much I like chocolate).
Grain-free chocolate chip cookies. This was another super simple recipe and one of the best chocolate chip cookies I've ever had. My cookies didn't look like the photos in the link, but they tasted amazing. To add a protein punch, you could easily throw in some protein powder.
Almond Flour cut out "sugar" cookies. These were a bit more of a challenge, but 110% worth it if you like "sugar" cookies. The biggest pain was keeping the dough cool enough so you could work with it.
Frosting: 5-minute healthy frosting. This was a very easy frosting to make. I'm not sure it's the best type of frosting for a sugar cookie as it gets really soft when out of the fridge. I used Ghee in place of the coconut butter (because I didn't have any CB), which I don't recommend as it gives the frosting a different taste and texture AND isn't as healthy in my opinion.
Grain-free no "oatmeal" creme pie cookies with marshmallow fluff. As stated in the link, this isn't the healthiest of treats, but we can splurge once in awhile and who doesn't like oatmeal creme pies!!!! Yum, yum . . .
These are delicious Holiday candies. Pomegranates are very sweet, so you can imagine this is a very rich dessert. Once you figure out how to get all the pomegranates out of the "shell", it's a very easy recipe to whip up. I used the Lily's Stevia sweetened chocolates for this recipe.
Cheese"cake" cups. With all the left over Pomegranates I had, I needed something to use them for. So I used a boxed gluten free chocolate cake mix along with a boxed cheesecake mix for my last Holiday treat. I sprinkled the Pomegranates on the top to give it that "festive" look and sweeter taste.
Happy Holidays from Fitness & Sport Evolution. May your 2016 be a healthy and happy year!
