One of my biggest goals this holiday season is to have our home open and ready to host impromptu guests at any point. We love to host friends and family, spending time connecting with loved ones is so important to us this time of year. Being the type A person I am, I normally like to have any type of gathering organized well in advance. This past year, however, we’ve really worked on keeping our calendar open to allow for spontaneous plans and always saying yes to impromptu hangs with friends and family. So it’s my goal not to stress that the house isn’t spotless or that I have to make something elaborate but instead to have ingredients on hand to throw in a last minute pot of soup with a side of (Pillsbury) rolls, and pull out some Christmas baking from the freezer. This way, instead of fussing in the kitchen, I am spending more time connecting with the people around me while still serving delicious food that everyone will love.

One of our favourite soup recipes that I generally have most of the ingredients for, is this loaded baked potato soup. It’s basically like eating a loaded baked potato in liquid form (ummm yes please!!) and it’s just one of those cozy comfort meals I know I’ll make multiple times this season. And I’m so excited to share how I use our Vitamix E310 Explorian Series Blender to whip it up in no time! We haven’t stopped using our Vitamix since we got it. Morning smoothies, Lara Bars, hummus and soups are just a few of our most commonly made recipes using our Vitamix, but it’s greatest contribution will be during the holidays to whip up fast and delicious recipes to be shared with family and friends!

Soooo now to get to the recipe…

What you need:

5 large potatoes (peeled and cubed)

4 cups of chicken stock

1/2 an onion (chopped)

2 cloves of garlic (chopped)

1 cup cream

1 cups milk

salt and pepper to taste

parsley

1 stick unsalted butter

toppings of your choice

Directions:

In a large pot on stove, melt the butter and cook the onions and garlic until softened. Add in the potatoes and chicken stock. Cover and simmer until potatoes are soft, about 30 minutes.

Using your Explorian Series Blender, pour in the milk and cream and than add in the mixture from the pot.

Puree the soup at speed level 6 for approximately 20 seconds or until it gets to the consistency of your liking. Sometimes we like to leave a few big pieces to give the soup a bit of texture in which case we’d blend for less time on a lower speed.

If it is still too thick, keep adding a little more milk or cream until it’s reached desired thickness. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Heat the mixture on the stove again and serve with toppings of your choice! We like to top it with sour cream, bacon bits, grated cheese, and green onion!

The Vitamix E310 Explorian Series blender is so simple to use and so versatile too. It’s made cooking more enjoyable and cut back on time as well. Win AND win! Any mama would be grateful for this gift this holiday season. Would love to hear if you have a favourite Vitamix recipe! Share in the comments below if so!

Thanks so much for reading you guys!

This muffin recipe is one of our absolute favourites! It’s one a friend sent me a while back and it’s right from the Ambitious Kitchen ! They’re so moist and delicious and the best part is that they’re HEALTHY (minus a few chocolate chips of course!) Like most toddlers, the twins LOVE to bake with me. They’re always asking me what I’m up to in the kitchen and whether they can help or not so I try to intentionally plan a few meals through the week that they can help with. We had a play date yesterday afternoon so we made a batch of these muffins together in the morn!

Enjoy!! And thanks so much for reading! xo

It’s FRIDAY and that calls for some tasty chocolate chip cookies! This recipe is from one of our favourite snack cookbooks Super Healthy Snacks and Treats and I actually LOVE how they turned out!!

Here’s what’s in em:

1/2 cup of almond milk

2 tablespoons ground flaxseeds

2 cup spelt flour

2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1 1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 cup sunflower oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup of granulated sweetener of your choice

1 cup of dark/bitersweet chocolate chips

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix wet ingredients (almond milk, sunflower oil, vanilla extract) and flax seed in one bowl and set aside to thicken.

Mix dry ingredients in a separate bowl.

Combine everything together and roll dough into golf ball size balls. Flatten them to about 1 cm thick and arrange on greased cookie sheet.

Bake the cookies for around 7 min and gently transfer onto a cooling rack.

Happy cookie baking!!

Since I’ve gotten on track with my own health, I’ve become a lot more conscious about what I’m feeding my kiddos too! It’s so easy to grab a granola bar or some cookies for a snack when running out the door, but all that sugar adds up so fast and I think it’s so important that we teach our kids about proper nutrition from a young age! I’ve been telling the twins that when they eat their veggies and fruit, it will make them big and STRONG and they associate that with being able to ride a skate board (since I told them it’s for big kids when you’re older and stronger) so it seems to be working! 😛 But seriously, with two VERY picky toddlers, I’ve been trying to be creative and find things that they enjoy AND are healthy. With park season in full swing, I was looking for healthy snack ideas I could grab and go with. Because I don’t have time to make homemade muffins every day, this easy snack mix was the next best thing and the boys LOVE it! I think they’ll always love cheerios and dried fruit is like candy to them so win and win!  So here we have:

• pretzels
• dried peaches
• dried apple
• regular raisins
• yogurt covered raisins
• cheerios

You can be so creative with what you include but I’ve seen so many on pinterest with chocolate, marshmallows etc., and while thats ok for a treat once and while, I tried to keep this one as healthy as possible! 🙂

Baking is something I love to do (I’m a lot better at it then cooking…ask my husband! haha). But I stopped for a while because I didn’t trust my self-control after a batch of cookies or muffins exits the oven! :S

Lately I’ve been focusing a lot on finding balance in my life. You need to be a little stricter with yourself when you’re aiming for big goals but once you reach them, it’s all about maintenance and balance. I have to remind myself that its OK to have a muffin – especially when it has no flour or sugar! This recipe was super easy to throw together and SO yummy! Not to mention HEALTHY.

• 3 banana’s (ripe)
• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cups quick oats
• 2 scoops of vanilla shakeology (if you don’t use shakeology, you can use another vanilla protein powder or substitute with 2 tsp vanilla extract)
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 tablespoons chia seeds

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, line with silicone or foil liners, or you can use coconut oil to grease the muffin tin.

Place all of the ingredients in a blender and blend until mixture is smooth.

Divide mixture evenly between 12 muffin tins.

Bake for 18-22 min.