Clean Eating Apple Pecan Protein Bar Recipe

Last weekend we went to the apple orchard with my husband's family. It was a beautiful day and the orchard was packed! I asked my husband to buy the smallest bag for apples. So what does he get? A full bushel!

Now I have a bushel of apples that I need to use in a week or two. The first place I turn for recipes? Pinterest! I found a Clean Eating Apple Cinnamon Raisin Pecan Protein bar recipe on Far Cleaner Life and made a few changes to create my own bars. Ingredients are as follows:

3 scoops of whey protein (I used 2 scoops of chocolate and 1 scoop of vanilla)
1.5 cups rolled oats
1 medium apple, cored and chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup of pecans, chopped
1/2 can of 100% pure pumpkin (make sure no preservatives have been added)
1/2 cup of natural unsweetened applesauce
3 egg whites
4 Tbsp of ground flax
1 Tbsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp allspice

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees
2. Combine all ingredients into a medium size bowl and mix well
3. Grease 8x8 baking dish (I used coconut oil) and pour mixture into dish and spread evenly
4. Bake for 20-25 minutes
5. Let cool, cut and serve! You can wrap bars in plastic wrap and store in refrigerator for later.

These turned out delicious. 1/2 can of pumpkin is just enough pumpkin flavor (any more than that can be a bit over bearing). I love these types of bars for traveling or a quick breakfast with coffee in the morning.

What's your favorite apple recipe? Please share below in the comments...I have a whole bushel left to go through!

Clean Eating Blueberry-Raspberry Jam

I've been on a huge fruit kick lately. I realized how cheap Costco is for buying fruit and I've been stocking up. I get 3x the amount of strawberries and blueberries at Costco for the same price of what I pay for a small amount at my local grocery store. Costco is the way to go! What we don't eat in a weekend I freeze for smoothies or parfaits for a later time.

I normally just buy strawberries and blueberries but this past Costco visit the raspberries were calling my name. They looked so perfect!

I've been wanting to make my own jam for awhile now. I don't buy it from the store because it contains so much sugar, and the sugar free jam, to me, tastes awful. I found recipes from two of my favorite food blogs, Oh She Glows & PaleOMG and used them both to make Blueberry-Raspberry Clean Eating Jam. Here's what I used:

2 cups of fresh raspberries
1 cup of frozen blueberries
1/2 cup of all natural honey
2 tbsp chia seeds
2 tbsp lemon juice (or a juice from one lemon)


1. Add blueberries to a small sauce pan over medium heat. As they defrost they will start 'popping' open, and juices will start to come out.
2. Add raspberries, honey, and lemon juice
3. Continue to stir and mixture should start to get thicker
4. Add in chia seeds
5. Stir until all fruit is broken apart. I kept mine over medium heat for about 25 minutes, and then 10 minutes over low
6. I let it cool and then put it in my one of my grandmother's mason jars :)

I used this jam on my toasted Ezekiel cinnamon raisin English muffins for breakfast on Saturday morning and it was delicious!

Dark Chocolate Espresso Granola Bars Recipe

Now that I'm back in Michigan I realized how much I missed my big kitchen. I love prepping clean meals and snacks on the weekends, to eat throughout the week. I get a lot of my recipes from the lovely Tosca Reno Eat Clean Diet cookbook and site and Oxygen Magazine. The latest snack recipe I tried was for  Dark Chocolate Espresso Granola bars, from Oxygen. I know, they sound sinful, but they are clean and so delicious!

1 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup whole-grain flour
2 scoops vanilla protein powder
1 tbsp raw honey
2 oz dark chocolate-covered espresso beans (70% or higher coca content).
1/2 cup canola oil
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 tsp sea salt (I left this out)
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp vanilla or almond extract

1 - Preheat oven to 325F
2 - Place all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Mix with a wooden spoon to combine.
3 - Spread mixture evenly in a 9x9 inch baking dish. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until golden around the edges. Let cool and slice into 8 bars. Serve or refrigerate for later.

These are perfect to grab on your way out the door for an early morning workout or a mid morning pick me up snack. Enjoy!

Beautiful Change Challenge #1 - Eating Clean

For almost 2 years now I've been following a 'clean eating' diet. It's not counting calories or carbs or any kinda crazy cleanse, it's just making sure what you put into your body is healthy and good for you. No preservatives, excess fats and oils. Just clean, healthy goodness here. 



Reading and studying about this diet helped me to realize that some of the food I was putting in my body was horrible. Even a few changes to your diet can help clean it up a bit and you'll feel great. Here are a few changes you can make in your every day meal plan to help clean up your diet. 


Cut out foods with preservatives. If an item from the grocery store has a year of shelf life, just think of all the junk they put in it to help it stay 'good' that long. Yuck! Look for items with less than 3-4 ingredients. 
Cut out sugary drinks, like pop and sugary juices, and replace it with water. LOTS of water! 
Eat whole grains. Whole wheat bread, brown rice, whole grain pasta, etc. are all delicious and quite frankly, I like them more and I think they taste better than regular white carbs now.




Some of my favorite clean eating essentials: The Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook by Tosca Reno, MaraNatha All Natural Roasted Almond Butter (you can find this at Costco), Dannon Oikos Green Nonfat Yogurt, Bob's Red Mill Whole Grain Brown Rice Flour, Spectrum Organic Coconut Oil)

Just to stress: Clean eating DOES NOT require you to starve yourself or count calories, it's all about eating good food. You can find tons of fun recipe books at your nearest book store (one of my favorites is The Eat-Clean Diet by Tosca Reno) or recipes online. 



Be kind to your body - it's the only you got! I challenge you to clean up your diet this Spring. Please comment and share your clean eating changes and/or recipes below!

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