Pampering4life Healthy Recipe:Sweet Potatoe Banana

Ingredients

5 medium sweet potatoes, scrubbed

4 bananas, unpeeled

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

¼ cup honey

Kosher salt

½ cup all-purpose flour

¾ cup dark brown sugar

1 ½ cups pecans, chopped

 

Directions

Prick the sweet potatoes all over with a fork, put them in a roasting pan and roast for 30 minutes. Toss the bananas into the pan and continue roasting for 10 to 15 minutes, until both the bananas and potatoes are very soft. Remove the pan from the oven but don’t turn the oven off.

When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, scoop out the flesh into a large mixing bowl. Peel the bananas and add them to the bowl along with 1 stick of the butter, and honey. Season with sea salt and beat vigorously with a wooden spoon until everything’s well combined and the mixture is fluffy. Spoon into an over-proof serving bowl and smooth the top.

In a separate mixing bowl, use your fingers to rub together the remaining stick of butter, the brown sugar, flour, and pecans until the mixture is the consistency of coarse crumbs. Sprinkle the crumb mixture over the sweet potatoes and return to the over. Cook for about 20 minutes, until the crumbs are golden

Serve hot.

Pampering4life Healthy Recipe: July 4th Dessert

        

Happy July everyone! Summer sure is flying by with our entrance into July, but with the beginning of this month comes the excitement of the Fourth. I can already smell the bbq’s and delicious fresh fruit. As I am sure most of you will be attending Fourth of July parties or just keeping it small with the family in the backyard I wanted to share with you an easy and of course healthy dessert recipe to share with family and friends for this holiday! It is Red, White, and Blue Fruit Skewers with Cheesecake Yogurt dip.

Ingredients:
For the cheesecake dipping sauce:

• 4 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup fat free Greek yogurt
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cup raw sugar

For the skewers:

• 14 oz angel food cake, cut about 1-inch cubes
• 72-84 medium strawberries (about 3.5 lbs) stems removed
• 1 pint blueberries
• 24 to 28 skewers

Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine the cream cheese with yogurt, vanilla and sugar. Mix well until sugar dissolves; set aside

Thread 3 strawberries and 2 cubes of cake onto each skewer, alternating between strawberries and cake. Finish each skewer with 3 blueberries. Place finished skewers on a platter and refrigerate until ready to eat.

Serving size: 1 skewer, 1tbsp dip
makes about 24-28 skewers

Enjoy this festive and healthy dessert on your Fourth of July!

 

 

Pampering4life Healthy Recipe: Heart Healthy Apple Pie

With the holiday season fast approaching. It is always everyone's desire to have a guilt free holiday. What if you could enjoy all the same recipes like apple pie, cookies, cake, that is full of taste but not full of calories? The most important process to transforming to a healthier lifestyle is to not deprive yourself of life guilty pleasures but simply to find alternatives. I have included another delish recipe to do exactly that... Enjoy!!!

Ingredients

Crust

1 Cup Almond Flour
1 Cup Coconut Flour
1/4 Cup Agave Nectar
6 Tablespoons Coconut Oil

Filling

1 Cup Almond Flour
1 Cup Coconut Flour
1/4 Cup Agave Nectar
6 Tablespoons Coconut Oil
4 Cups Peeled and Sliced Apples (loosely packed)
3/4 Cup Apple Juice (I used freshly juiced apples)
1/2 Cup Brown Rice Syrup
2 Tablespoons Lemon Juice
1/2 Teaspoon Guar Gum
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cloves
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Allspice
1/2 Cup Pomegranate Arils                                   

Directions

Crust
Preheat oven to 325 degrees Farenheit.
Mix all ingredients in a medium size bowl until thoroughly combined.
Divide mixture between individual pie pans (or pour into single 9″ pan) and press mixture on to bottom and up sides of pan. Make sure that crust is even in thickness.
Prick the crust, that is on the bottom of the pan, several times with a fork.
Place pie pans on a baking sheet and bake for 20 minutes or until crust is evenly browned.
Remove from oven to cool.
Filling
In a 2 quart saucepan, over medium high heat, add all of the ingredients EXCEPT the guar gum and the pomegranate arils. (Those will be added later.)
Continue to cook, and stir, until the apples begin to soften and the juice is reduced by half. The amount of time this will take depends on how thick you cut your apples.
Once the apples reach the texture you are looking for and the juices have reduced, lightly sprinkle the guar gum over the top of the mixture and stir thoroughly. Do not just drop this in directly from the spoon in one big clump. If you do this, you will probably end up with a big blob of congealed mess in the middle of your apple mixture. This thickening agent is far more potent than cornstarch and will thicken on contact. So sprinkle lightly and stir.
Once stirred in and you see that your mixture has thickened, remove from heat.
Let sit for 10 minutes then stir in the arils.
Assembly
Spoon the mixture into the pie shell.
I topped mine with chopped pecans, but you could use chopped almonds or walnuts or even nothing at all.
Serve