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Pineapple Coconut Energy Bars
It’s quite fitting that my fifth and final recipe for this series of healthy travel snacks, I created with Albertsons, is being written from around 37,000 feet in the air. I am flying from California to the East Coast where I will be spending a total of 10 days between Maine and New York. As usual, I have a large selection of healthy snacks packed away for my travels. While I find when flying I have to be a bit more selective with my snack choices, homemade energy bars are always a must. They are super travel-friendly and so simple to whip up the night before my trips.
By now I am sure you’ve caught my tutorial on how-to make your own homemade energy bars, but if you haven’t get to it. It’s the perfect formula to create the perfect bars for your favorite flavors. These bars were one of the few that I have made more than a few times and inspired the ideas of the adaptable tutorial.
These tropical-inspired bars are a great, healthy snack for bringing along on your vacation, but they are also a wonderful way to bring the vacation to you at home. Coconut and pineapple always summons the tropics. Think fancy frozen drinks with umbrellas on the beach.
These particular energy bars are made nut-free, but you can certainly add nuts to fill them out a bit more, if you prefer. Almonds, walnuts, pecans – these are all great options.
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Dark Chocolate Bark Bites
To know me, is to know my insane love of dark chocolate. As long as I am not on any elimination diets or protocols, it’s nearly always part of my daily routine, whether I am on the road or at home. In the freezer, I nearly always keep a bar or two of the best, darkest, organic fair-trade chocolate that I can easily get my hands on. It’s rare you’ll see me crushing on a cake or cookies, but if I pass by a good bar of dark chocolate, it will most certainly stop me dead in my tracks. Generally, I simply need a square or two of the good, dark stuff and I am a happy girl.
Naturally lower in sugar than milk chocolate or other candy and certainly less than most baked goods or other treats, it’s just the right amount of flare at the end of a well-made savory meal. Besides being the most perfectly created food, chocolate with a cocoa content of 70 percent or higher contains resveratrol, which has been found to lower blood sugar. Dark chocolate also has positive affects on lowering “bad” cholesterol levels. Dark chocolate is rich in Flavonoids that help protect plants from environmental toxins and help repair damage. You only need about 1 to 1.5 ounces dark chocolate per day to see the heart healthy benefits.
Flavonoids, which can also be found in green and black teas, cherries, apples, red grapes and other deeply colored fruits and vegetables, have also been known to help with digestion, improve kidney, bowel function and sexual performance, and treat anemia and gout.
If I am traveling, you better believe that dark chocolate is my co-pilot. An integral part to any good trip, it’s an instant way to bring a smile to your face amongst the crazy hustle and bustle of an airport and the long and sometimes tiring long drives.
Surely you can just pack a dark chocolate bar, but I find these Dark Chocolate Bark Bites are a fun way to indulge in additional superfoods, your favorite goodies or just the stuff in the pantry you need to use up. Dried nuts or seeds, dried fruit, spices, sea salt – if you like salty or savory, add some crispy bacon, crushed pretzels or potato chips.
These little bark bites travel so well and you can really have fun with the toppings, making a little something for everyone.
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Honey-Sweetened Strawberry Fruit Leather
As summer winds down, I am clinging to every last bit of the season that I can. I refuse to acknowledge it’s almost over. Keeping with the theme of healthy summer road trip snacks this Honey-Sweetened Strawberry Fruit Leather is the perfect way to take the sweet tastes of summer with you, wherever you go.
This fruit leather recipe calls for strawberries but you can use this as a guide to create fruit leather with whatever fruit you have an abundance of. Peaches, apricots, apples and so on. You can even create a blend of your favorite fruits.
Fruit leather gets a wrap for being a kids-only snack, but I can tell you, adults truly love the stuff, too. This could partially be the fact that it will instantly transport you to being a kid. It’s also great for travel and being on-the-go, just roll it up with a little parchment paper and pack it into your bag and you are ready to go. Sweet, summer berry goodness, wherever you are. Try out different berries or other seasonal fruit for additional variations. For a smoother leather, you can strain the seeds or any pulp before dehydrating, if you’d like. You can cook the fruit first if you’d like to intensify the flavor a bit.
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Curry Popcorn Snack Mix
As far as my husband is concerned, no summer road trip is complete without some popcorn. Though if he had it his way, he’d be eating popcorn daily. This man and his stomach of steel LOVE popcorn and he constantly begs me to make it for him. Left to his own devices in a previous life, I have a feeling he would select some of that electric orange colored “cheese”-flavored stuff at the gas station, so this is a perfect compromise.
Though popcorn and I (aka my digestion), we don’t always see eye-to-eye, I am very aware that not everything has to revolve around me and my eating, so when it comes to creating road trip snacks I try to be a team player and bring a little for everyone. This popcorn creation is the perfect example of just that. A snack created with my tastes in mind, so I can sample a small amount and be happy, but still something that will make hubby (and any others along for the travels) happy. While he snacks away in the drivers seat on this popcorn mix, I’ll be crunching away on my Salt and Vinegar Kale Chips and we are both content.
I actually packed this snack mix for a recent drive to Santa Barbara when my parents were in town. As we headed of to wine country, the inside of car sounded as if we had a crew of squirrels chomping away, everyone was so furiously munching on this stuff! I’d say that’s a win.
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Moroccan Chickpea Stew
Surely I can’t be the only one that randomly craves stews and soups in the summer, right? There is something about a meal that requires you to just dump everything into a pot and walk away, that’s just so enticing about the busy, summer months. Obviously, I really love comforting warm meals like this in the winter month, the perfect hearty meal in a bowl, but there is also something about enjoying them in the summer, maybe on an unseasonably cool or rainy day or maybe just because those are the flavors I am currently wanting. I say give into the cravings, who cares if a hot stew seems like a crazy idea! It never is.
You guys know that most times when cooking, I opt for fresh, but when you plan to cook with beans just before mealtime and you just don’t have the time or energy to soak, cook or sprout them, good quality organic canned is always an amazing, quick option. A well stocked pantry, in my mind, is having those staple canned goods, the ones you know always work for you in a pinch. There is comfort in knowing you can always go to the pantry, grab a few items, perfect for making a wholesome, healthy and nourishing meal. Pair them up with whatever is in the fridge that needs to be eaten up and voila! If a few canned goods now and again means you actually opt for a healthy meal versus take-out, hitting a drive-thru or opting for a microwave meal, I am all about it.
Safeway and Albertsons have an amazing initiative, “Cans Get You Cooking“. Delicious recipes and meal solutions to nutrition and sustainability information, Cans Get You Cooking showcases the nutrition, freshness and flavor canned foods offer. With a well-stocked pantry —or “Cantry” (see what we did there?) — you can get through the week with creative healthy, homemade meals.
This Moroccan Chickpea Stew is a perfect weeknight meal. You can walk through the door and dinner will be on the table in just about 30 minutes. This stew has so many deep, rich aromatic flavors going on without any spicy heat. I always have homemade preserved lemons on hand, these, in my opinion are a must anytime you make Moroccan-inspired food, bringing a beautiful tangy, bright, zesty citrus flare. I also recommend adding golden raisins, when serving, their sweetness is a beautiful compliment to the spices and the tart preserved lemon. You can serve this stew over rice, quinoa or cauliflower rice, or just as is. This makes a great meatless weeknight meal, but you could also serve it as a side dish with roasted chicken, lamb, beef or some baked fish.
