If you're looking for a festive dessert to make for Valentine's Day, you really can't go wrong with chocolate covered strawberries. I wanted to make something cute and fun for Mitch, but given that I have minimal time for baking these days (Noah's naps are lasting about 20 minutes, help!), I needed something super quick and easy. Chocolate covered strawbs were the perfect solution - they only take a matter of minutes and I love that you can make them more special and fun by adding a variety of toppings. I mean... how cute did these turn out!?

A couple things to discuss when it comes to making this recipe as healthy as possible. First, the chocolate. I always use chocolate that's sweetened with unrefined sugars like coconut sugar. My favorites are from Hu Kitchen and Thrive Market. You can use either chocolate chips or a bar of chocolate that you'll chop up. Next, the strawberries. Because strawberries are listed as on #1 on the EWG Dirty Dozen list, which means that conventional strawberries are highly sprayed with pesticides (eeek!), it's important to go organic when you're buying them!

A couple recipe tips... You'll want to make sure your strawberries are totally dry before you dip them, otherwise you won't get a nice even layer of chocolate. So wash them in advance and let them dry before dipping.

For the toppings, get creative and mix it up with a few different ones! I love them with some chopped nuts like pistachios, walnuts, or pecans, some dye-free rainbow sprinkles (like these), mini chocolate chips, shredded coconut, and flaky sea salt. 

Wondering what the best way is to melt the chocolate? After too many times burning chocolate in the microwave, I've found the best way is in a double boiler, or a make-shift double boiler if you don't have one, like me! Here's how:​

• Fill a small pot halfway full with water and bring it to a low boil. Reduce to a simmer.
• Place a large heat-proof glass bowl on top of the pot. You don't want the water in the pot to touch the bowl, so pour some out if necessary. 
• Add the chocolate chips or a chopped up chocolate bar to the glass bowl with 1 tbsp coconut oil and stir every minute or so until melty and smooth. Remove from heat and get dipping right away!

Ingredients
1 lb organic strawberries, cleaned and dried
1 chocolate bar, chopped (or about a cup of chopped chocolate or chocolate chips)
1 tbsp coconut oil
Toppings: get creative! Try chopped nuts, shredded coconut, flaky sea salt, mini chocolate chips, rainbow sprinkles

1. Melt the chocolate. Either melt with the double-boiler method mentioned above with 1 tbsp coconut oil or if you prefer to microwave it, add coconut oil and chocolate to a heat-proof bowl and microwave in 30 second bursts, stirring in between. Be careful because if you overdo it in the microwave, it will burn and you'll have to start over! 
2. While your chocolate is melting, prepare your dipping station. Line a plate with parchment paper and get your toppings ready.
3. Holding the strawberry by the leaves, dip it into the chocolate, letting the excess drip off, and then place on the parchment-lined plate. Sprinkle the chocolate with your topping of choice. Repeat with the rest of the strawberries.
4. Place in the fridge or freezer to harden. It should only take a couple minutes. Enjoy!

Tip: Once the chocolate has hardened, store the strawberries in a cool location on your counter or in the refrigerator if you're not serving them until later. Best to enjoy within 1-2 days! 

Happy Valentine's, loves!

I can't believe my favorite holiday of the year is just a couple days away! It's such a happy day full of family, traditions, catching up with everyone I love, and let's be honest ... eating ALLLL the food! While the average American apparently consumes 3,000-4,000 calories at Thanksgiving dinner (doesn't this make you think of Joey wearing Phoebe's maternity pants to Thanksgiving!? ha!), I've got a few strategies to share so we can all feel totally happy and satisfied at Thanksgiving, rather than being uncomfortably stuffed like a turkey after our feasts. Here's my top 8 tips:

I know, I know, this isn't your typical Weeknight Bite healthy recipe or nutrition post.  Today we're trading cauliflower rice for nipple cream, so read on with caution! 🤣I do think this is a topic that will be really beneficial for a lot of women because let me tell ya, behind every newborn cutie pie is a tired mama who is also wearing a diaper (for real, tho 😳).

I didn't realize how tough the recovery would be, and when I mentioned that the other day on my insta stories, I received countless messages from women asking questions and wondering what they would need for their own recovery. So I figured I'd put it all together in a blog post! That way, you can stock up on everything early and avoid frantically texting your mama-friends at 3am when you're back from the hospital and you realize you need way more comfortable pads, a better alternative to the hospital spray bottle, and something to heal your sore nipples (and fast!). I placed a lot of middle of the night Amazon orders those first few days at home, so I'm hoping this list will get you all prepped so you can just focus on healing and on your baby, rather than "adding-to-cart" all night long! 

You know that feeling after you've been traveling or you're just out of your routine and all you want is to hit the reset button with a giant bowl of healthy veggies? Well this soup is the perfect way to do exactly that! My brother and sister-in-law, Justin and Bridget, have been traveling a ton lately and whenever they get home from their trips, they always make a huge pot of this soup that's loaded with every single veggie you can imagine. Every time they'd post it on their insta stories, I'd immediately crave it. It just looked like the most nourishing, healthy meal you could eat - the kind of thing I should probably be having at the end of my pregnancy (to offset the ice cream trips, ya know?). I asked them for the recipe, and while they'd say "oh it's a little of this and a lot of that and a bunch of giant handfuls of all the greens you can find", I tried to narrow it down into a more specific recipe because I know it's exactly the type of meal so many of us crave to get back on track! So hopefully I'm doing J & B's soup justice and that it makes you feel super healthy and fab whenever you whip it up!  

As I'm approaching my due date (10 day countdown!), I keep thinking... I should make some delicious snacks that will be filling and satisfying when the baby is here and just freeze them so I have them on hand! Then I make them, and two days later, I realize I ate them all before I had a chance to even freeze them. That's exactly what happened with these banana protein muffins, oops! They're just too good, they never stood a chance of making it to the freezer! What I love about these is that they're packed with some extra goodies that make them more filling than your usual banana muffins, like flaxseed for fiber and collagen for protein, but they still taste like a decadent treat! Best of both worlds.

​I know I have a few banana bread/muffin recipes on the blog, but I have to say - these are my fave! Hope you love them as much as I do!