Healthy Valentine's Snacks

One of my favorite things about eating more naturally is making special treats on holidays. I had so many exciting plans for Valentine's Day this year, only to have my entire family get hit with the flu this past week. (Yes, even though we eat healthy, we still get sick sometimes!) Yesterday I managed to put a couple of my plans into action, and the rest will have to wait until next year.

Tomorrow, my kids will be eating Heart-Shaped Chocolate Covered Marshmallows and Frozen Strawberry Cream Hearts.

To make the marshmallows, I used the Agave Marshmallow recipe from Volcanic Nectar, but also added a bit of natural pink food coloring, then spread the marshmallow creme onto a large, rimmed cookie sheet rather than a 9x11 pan. After they were set, I used heart shaped cookie cutters to cut out the hearts. (Make sure to wet the cookie cutter in warm water before cutting for a nice, clean cut.)

Then, I made the chocolate coating. Inspired by Lauren of Healthy Indulgences and her ice cream bar chocolate coating, I melted 8 Tbsp. grain-sweetened chocolate chips with 2 Tbsp. extra virgin coconut oil and a shake of stevia powder. (This coating is amazing!) Once it was all melted and cooled, I dipped the marshmallows in and then laid them on foil and refrigerated them until the chocolate hardened. I used a knife to gently pry them off the foil and placed them in a sealed container until tomorrow.

To make the frozen strawberry hearts, I used the recipe for "Frozen Strawberry Cream" from Jeffrey Goettemoeller's Stevia Sweet Recipes cookbook. This is one of my favorite uses for stevia. This is a quick and simple ice cream recipe (you don't need an ice cream maker to make it), but this time I poured the mixture into this cute heart-shaped gelatin mold that my mother-in-law recently gave me.

It took about 4-6 hours for the mixture to freeze, then I unmolded them and put them in a container. They'll stay in the freezer until tomorrow night's dessert! (They need to be removed from the freezer one hour before serving so that they're soft enough to eat.)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Stevia approved by FDA!

It had to happen eventually. The sugar industry and artificial sweetener industry were no doubt dreading this day, but it has finally come. As of December 2008, the FDA has "no objection" to stevia. They didn't take it further and give it the GRAS (generally recognized as safe) rating, but "no objection" means companies can now use it without labeling it as a "natural supplement" and stores can carry it in the sweetener section instead of the supplement section (some stores were already doing this anyway, at least in my city). I'm very excited about this! Hopefully this means we will start seeing more and more stevia products on shelves. I'm hoping we'll start seeing stevia packets at coffee shops and restaurants right along side the sugar packets and Splenda packets (better yet, the Splenda packed will get tossed).

Mike Adams has an article about the FDA's decision over at NaturalNews.com. He discusses some of the reasons behind the FDA's ruling (hint: it had nothing to do with health and all to do with money).

Coca-Cola is already rolling out its natural soda that contains stevia. Sprite Green will be on a store shelf near you soon. I don't know what all the ingredients are, but I'll be sure to take a look at it.

I'm reminded of the letters I sent to Coca Cola and Wrigley's years ago, asking them why they didn't use stevia in their diet drinks and gum instead of artificial sweeteners. Maybe those letters really did make a difference. It was because of big companies like Coca Cola that the FDA finaly approved of stevia, after all!

Homemade Agave Marshmallows

I've looked for a marshmallow recipe that uses unrefined sugar for YEARS. About five years ago, a friend and I tried a recipe that called for brown rice syrup. We were disappointed by the result. It was a gooey, sticky, brown mess that didn't resemble marshmallows AT ALL.

Yesterday, while searching for something totally different, I stumbled across Volcanic Nectar's link for an agave marshmallow recipe, complete with instructional video. I couldn't believe how easy it looked, so I tried it immediately. It worked beautifully. Last night we had stevia hot chocolate, and each of us got an amazingly delicious marshmallow in our mug.

In the past I've wanted to make fudge, but have found that many of the best recipes have marshmallows or marshmallow creme in them. Now I can try making fudge thanks to this fantastic marshmallow recipe!

Check out the fluffy goodness!

Too Many Pumpkins

Chrissie over at flipflops and applesauce recommends wonderful kids books. Every book she has ever mentioned has been a gem. Too Many Pumpkins, by Linda White, is no exception. We checked it out from the library after reading about it on Chrissie's blog. That was at the end of October. We have renewed it two times since then because my kids love it so much. It's such a fun, bright book with great illustrations and a charming story, and it's perfect for fall, especially with all the yummy baking that takes place this time of year. Be prepared to want to make lots of pumpkin treats after reading it!

Halloween Candy

This year I've been working on some special treats for my boys that they will enjoy on Halloween. We will have candy bars and taffy, made without any refined sugar. They've already sampled the goods, but the bulk of it is packed away until Halloween.

For the candy bars, I used the Legally Raw Bar recipe from The Daily Raw Cafe. I had to make a few changes, the biggest being that I used peanuts instead of the mixture of cashews and almonds, since my son is severely allergic to cashews. I used agave instead of honey, and I didn't put any sweetener in the caramel part, since I thought it was already sweet enough with the dates. These bars taste like a cross between a Mounds bar and a Reese's peanut butter cup. They're great! I think if I made them again, though, I would melt grain sweetened chocolate chips mixed with some coconut oil and use that for the chocolate coating. The coating in this recipe is very tasty, but it doesn't harden up even after being in the freezer. If you want your bar to have a solid, non-messy coating, you might want to do the same.

For the taffy, I used a really neat recipe using brown rice syrup found at HeidiLogic. Some friends joined us and we had our very own Taffy Pull. It was so much fun. We made three different flavors - peppermint, almond, and orange. I recommend using a lot of flavoring if you really want to taste it. We did small amounts of each and wished we'd added more. I'd say a tablespoon would be a good amount.

I'm storing the candy bars in the freezer and the taffy in a glass jar on the counter. It will be fun to give the boys some special candy on Halloween!

AC article - "Healthy Halloween Snacks"

You'll see some familiar ideas in this article, and a few new ones too. With October almost here, don't miss my new "Healthy Halloween Snacks" article!

AC article - "Making Healthy Eating Fun for Kids"

This Associated Content article provides some general guidelines for making healthy eating fun for kids. It also includes a couple recipes. Check it out here!