Clean Eating

Easy Healthy Snacks

8:00:00 AM


One of the hardest things about changing to a non-processed diet, was trying to kill my sweet tooth. Not grabbing a piece of chocolate for dessert was tough at first, but reaching for a clementine became a quick and easy solution to that. Another tough thing that I've always done is snack. I couldn't just snack on anything and logged onto the internet to find clean eating snack ideas. Here I stumbled upon a few, mixed them up, tweaked them a bit and now I think they're ready for you! 
If you're looking for a new snack fix while at work or out and about, I've got a few ideas for you!

1. Granola
  I love Trail Mix, last semester I went through 3 bags in 2 weeks. It was insane and made me feel really bad. Now that I'm clean eating, I can just make a batch at home when I'm there for the weekend. It's just oats, cinnamon, your choice of nuts (peanuts, almonds, pecans, walnuts). and either raisins or craisins if you'd like! 
( always use sallys baking blog. for ideas and how to's.) Just search granola and you'll come across plenty of quick recipes!
Trail Mix
(this was sallys Peanut Butter Granola, I used butterscotch chips instead). 

2. Power Balls
  These are a quick and easy on the go snack. You don't really need a recipe, just some oats, your favorite nut butter, some chia seeds (or hemp seeds), and dried fruit if you'd like! Depending on how much you would like to make, change up the amount of oats (i usually go for 1 cup, and 2/8 of a cup of chia seeds and 1/2 cup of cashew or almond butter). There isn't any baking involved, simply roll these into balls and store in your fridge for a simple pick me up! 

Easy Vegan

3. Freezer Bars
      While my body was adjusting to life without refined sugar, I spent some time on the internet (shocking I know) looking for granola bars. While many of them had protein powder, I did find some that were easy and quick to make. As long as you have a freezer, you should be good to go! I found this recipe on this blog. With just 2 cups oats, 1/2 cup nut butter, 1/4 cup coconut oil, 1/4 cup maple syrup, honey or agave and 1/4 cup chia seeds, these bars are full of natural sweetness and my mom loves them! I had to make them for her before I left for university again!
Freezer Bars


If you're struggling to find easy recipes that go with your new lifestyle, I hope you use some of these! Both the powerballs and the bars are vegan recipes as well as clean eating, you can always change the recipes to fit your needs for your diet as well. 

Have you discovered any new treats or entrees? I would love to hear about them in the comments! 
Thanks for reading, as always! 
xx Kenzie




Cookies

Banana Oatmeal Cookies

12:30:00 PM


You should probably, if you don't already, know that I love trying out new things. 
 As I was searching for new things to try, mostly cooking, I came across this recipe on Pinterest! It looked delicious and my massive sweet tooth definitely told me I had to try it out! Being on Spring Break this week gave me the perfect opportunity to give it a go!
There are a lot of ingredients in this one, but you don't use a big amount of them all. 
You'll need



 1.5 Cup of Flour
 1 teaspoon baking powder
 1 teaspoon baking soda
 1/2 teaspoon salt
 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 banana
1 egg
2 tablespoons oil
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup regular granulated sugar
1/4 cup plain yogurt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract 
1 and 3/4 cups old fashioned oats
1 cup chocolate chips

 First get two large or medium sized bowls. I used similarly sized bowls for this. In one bowl combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.

  Then set it to the side. 
In the second bowl mash the banana then add egg, oil, brown and granulated sugars, yogurt and vanilla then whisk the ingredients together. 
 After whisking, add the banana/egg mix to the flour mix and stir until combined. 
Then you get to have a little more fun by adding in the oats. This is where I decided to put in raisins and chocolate chips, splitting what would be the 1 cup of chocolate chips into 1/2 a cup of raisins and 1/2 a cup of chocolate chips!

  
On a prepared baking sheet, I placed the parchment paper before putting the dough on as it's easier to clean up after. The recipe says to space the dough 2 inches apart and the balls should be about a tablespoon. To get cookies that don't flatten, put the baking sheets into the oven for about an hour. 

  Then preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Then bake your cookies for 12 minutes, or until slightly golden. They smell amazing and taste great too! 
  

The recipe I made actually made 28 cookies. Which seems like a lot but maybe that's because they're small. I hope you get to try it out! :)
xx

dinner

Reliving NYC

4:28:00 PM

This past summer I was lucky enough to go on a trip for my graduation present. I could choose any place in the states, and I chose to visit New York City. I hadn't been there for 5 years and I loved it! So I thought why not go back! And as of now I'm looking for another opportunity to go back but that might be another 5 years ha.


While I was in New York, I made some pretty nice friends! One of them recommended a restaurant one night and I  had no idea how obsessed I would become with an appetizer. 
 At Hurley's in NYC, right off of Times Square (you can check out their menu and address here: ( hurleysnyc.com), they have these delectable Irish Cheese Fries! I'm not normally someone who chooses fries with a meal but there was bacon and cheese on top, and I like trying new foods anyway so I gave them a chance!  They also give you the choice to dip the fries in gravy! What?! I know sounds weird right? But trust me you'd be very surprised at how fantastic they taste! The place is set up to look somewhat in a different era almost, it had a really classy feel and it wasn't too pricey either!
 We don't have anything like them in Wisconsin so as soon as I got home I started missing them terribly! 
  So, recently I thought..how difficult could it be to remake them? Not very. 
  I looked on Hurley's menu online and saw the ingredients, cheddar jack cheese,bacon,scallions and of course fries! I didn't use any scallions on the fries I made but if you do I'm sure it'll taste great! They didn't have a recipe but I also compared a few of the recipes from allrecipes.com
I also used turkey gravy because I wasn't too sure which one would taste the best with them, so I encourage you to experiment a bit! 
The next step was baking the french fries, preheat the oven to 450 degrees Fahrenheit, and put the fries on a pan and bake for about 20 minutes. Then, spread the cheese( I used Mild Cheddar) over the fries, you can use as much as you want and then top it with the bacon bits, again using as much as you want! Put the pan back into the oven under broil. 
   While that's going, warm up the gravy in a bowl in the microwave. I put it in for about 2 minutes. 
 Then pull the fries out of the oven and the gravy from the microwave. Sit down and Enjoy! 

                                      
 You might also enjoy these with any other dressing, such as ranch too! 
They were excellent, and I'm so glad I tried the recipe! 
I can't wait to make some more! :) 
xx



Food

Mini Fruit Pizzas!

5:35:00 PM


In 2012 I went on a cruise, which is where my obsessiveness about Europe comes from, but on this cruise they had amazing little fruit tartlets and recently I had decided I needed to bring these back into my life!

 

 
So with some brainstorming from my mom, the easiest way to make this was to make a mini fruit pizza. They taste amazing and I thought I would share them!

First, I used a tube of sugar cookie dough so I could cut them into pieces that wouldn't go as big. One tube made the perfect amount. Place the slices on a tray,(I used parchment paper on top so I wouldn't have to clean it off). Bake the cookies for about 10-12 minutes at 350 degrees (or whatever it says on the back of the container) , I would suggest to keep checking the oven as I had sliced a few thin ones and didn't want them to get burnt so just look for the golden-brown color. The second thing, is to chop up a few slices of fruit. You can use any kind of fruit you like for mine I decided to use bananas, strawberries and blueberries. I used a full banana and it was perfect for the amount of cookies that were made( I think a little bit less than 20 maybe 18/19?)
 Then I put that aside. 
 
The frosting bit is made of crème cheese and yogurt, we used two cups of vanilla yogurt.We also used an 8oz block of crème cheese. Again, like the fruit,  you can switch up the flavor of yogurt depending on your own taste!. This made more than enough so maybe use a little less crème cheese!Wait for the cookies to cool off a bit before putting on the frosting!!

 
 You can add however much fruit you want and decorate to your own liking! I even did one with a smiley face ;)


It's really easy to make and doesn't take that much time at all! It's great as a little appetizer or a somewhat healthy snack! The best part is, you can change it up and make it your own! Go ahead and try it!
  Have fun! :)

Adventures

Hello Hi

5:13:00 PM

Hi! Welcome to my blog!

I've wanted to start my own blog for a really long time and now that I have some time I thought why not today? I've also been reading blogs like Niomi Smart and Zoella and Tanya Burr for a really long time and decided to finally sit and start this up!
First off, I'm Kenzie, I'm 19 and I live in Wisconsin. I take an obnoxious amount of pictures of my dog which you'll probably see a lot. My plan for this blog is to show off the amazing places I get to travel and about things I see and love!


I hope you enjoy taking time to read this! I'm really excited! :)



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