From Nana’s Famous Egg Dish to Spiced Sangria and Bourbon Pecan Pie, these are our favorite holiday recipes that we enjoy every Christmas!

‘Tis the season for all of the festive eats and drinks. We’ve been enjoying this cozy week at home cooking our favorite holiday recipes and getting ready for the Christmas weekend

While most of the time I aim to eat nourishing recipes with greens and protein and fresh wholesome ingredients (like these spa cuisine recipes), I like to live by the 80/20 perspective, allowing plenty of space for special treats. I’m also a big believer of enjoying holidays, special food, and time spent together.

We have several traditional-to-us recipes that make an appearance on our table during the holiday season year after year; like it’s tradition to have Alton Brown’s Overnight Cinnamon Rolls on Christmas morning while opening presents. From brunch casseroles to spiced sangria and Ina’s rib roast, I’m sharing our favorite holiday recipes – enjoy!

Our Favorite Holiday Recipes

Nana’s Famous Egg Dish

This egg casserole is perfect for any brunch or holiday celebrations. It freezes beautifully to make ahead, and tastes amazing with pico de gallo salsa.

Greens Beans with Goat Cheese, Almonds & Cranberries

These green beans are bright and fresh, with creamy goat cheese, orange zest, crunchy slivered almonds and sweet cranberries. The recipe is gluten-free and only takes 15 minutes from start to finish.

The Ultimate Fall & Winter Salad

This salad is a fall dream come true. It has butternut squash, spicy arugula, a tangy vinaigrette, chicken, pumpkin seeds, goat cheese. It’s perfect for any holiday gatherings or parties and makes a veggie-packed side dish. My vegetarian friends can easily omit the chicken and it’s just as delicious without it.

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Sharing my top picks for the best hiking trails in Tucson. 

Hi hi! Happy Christmas week and hope that you all are having a lovely morning. We had a great weekend. It was Elf night with friends, we decorated gingerbread houses, and I taught a barre class. We’re headed on a little staycation later this week, and I’m definitely looking forward to it.

For today’s post, I wanted to share some of my favorite hiking trails in Tucson! We are in the middle of hiking season (I think the best weather is from late October until early May), and my top trails have been packed with locals and tourists, enjoying the gorgeous Tucson scenery. I’ve been a fan of hiking for many years, but really fell more in love with it over the past few years, because it was one of the only things we could do. We used the opportunity to explore some of our favorite trails, we visited Sedona a few times as a family, and the kids fell in love with hiking, too.

It’s become one of our favorite family adventures.

I wanted to post some of the best Tucson hiking trails, plus some of my tips for hiking with kids.

Best hiking trails in Tucson

Sabino Canyon

Sabino Canyon is the destination, but within Sabino Canyon, there are tons of trails. If you are a newbie or it’s your first time in Tucson, you can stay on the main tram road, which is about 7.3 miles out and back. It’s paved and heavily-populated. Within the canyon, you can use All Trails to discover so many different trails depending on length and your hiking level. If you want something more rustic but still populated, you can do the Bear Canyon trail.

For longer/sportier hikes, try Phoneline, Blackett’s, and Seven Falls (pack a lunch and lots of water for this one).

If you have kids with you, I highly recommend Bear Canyon to Sabino Dam. It’s short and there a ton of water for the kids (and adults) to wade and play.

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Hi friends! Happy Friday! How are you? What do you have going on? Our friends are having their annual Elf party tonight and we have the fighter group’s kids’ Christmas party tomorrow. I’m setting up a table for the kids to make snowman slime! I’m also teaching a barre class and finishing up holiday baking and prep so I can CHILL next week. I hope you have a lovely weekend ahead! This post is going live early, so when I’m awake and have the kids dropped off at school, I’ll put all of this year’s Favorite Things giveaway winners live here. (Yessss you can sneak in last-minute entries until I get the winners posted.)

Friday Faves

Some adventures from this week:

The most beautiful hike with the crew! They woke up and asked to go to Sabino Canyon, so we headed there for a family hike to the Sabino Dam. The water was freezing, but it didn’t stop all of us from getting our feet wet. 😉 I’m so happy the babies like to hike as much as we do! We capped off the afternoon with a trip to the dog park, Starbucks for pink drinks for the girls and a pup cup for Maisey, and smoked brisket with salad and homemade sourdough for dinner.

Can someone please explain to me how both of my babies are almost as tall as me?

Decorating nana’s house for Christmas. We were late on the boat this year, but better late than never, right? We took pizzas over and had a little front yard picnic while the Pilot strung the lights and the girls danced around to Christmas music.

Fitness + good eats:

Here’s what this week’s workouts looked like! I don’t typically count walks as my workouts (since we don’t move very quickly and I think of it more as a mental health break than a workout) but included them below.

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This podcast episode is sponsored by Nutrisense! I’ve been a huge fan of Nutrisense for over a year and am wearing a CGM right now 🙂 If you’d like to join me and get insight to your habits, your body, and make some healthy changes, sign up here. Use this link and the promo code TFP (stands for The Fitnessista Podcast) to get $30 off and 1 month of free dietitian support. 

Hi friends! I’ve got a new podcast episode up today and I’m chatting with Julie Davey about gut health, GI map testing, and food sensitivities. She’s a Nurse Practitioner and GI Mapping Specialist with so much knowledge and experience to share.

119: Gut health, GI map testing and food sensitivities with Julie Davey, RN, MSN, ACNP-C, ANP-C, IBBFA

Here’s what we discuss:

– How GI map testing works and who might benefit from it

– How our gut health affects many processes in the body, including our immune system function

– Food sensitivities and the difference between an IgE and an IgG reaction

– and so.much.more!

Here’s a bit more about Julie:

Julie is a nurse practitioner with over 20 years of experience in healthcare. She received her undergraduate degree from the Medical College of Georgia and graduate degree from Emory University.  She holds a faculty position at Emory University educating future nurse practitioners.

In 2013, Julie became interested in a more holistic approach to wellness.  She began educating others on the power of food and natural medicine to heal the body. Today,  Julie owns a virtual consulting business helping clients get to the root cause of their symptoms through innovative clinical testing.  She is passionate about gut health and is the co-founder of Mastering GI MAPPING, a course teaching medical practitioners how to incorporate GI MAP testing into their practice. She takes a holistic approach to healing the issues uncovered through proper testing in order to restore energy, mental clarity, promote better sleep, skin, immunity, weight loss, and so much more! Julie is the co-host of the podcast “Take the Upgrade” which allows her to share her message with the masses.  Julie loves empowering others with the necessary tools to live a healthy and vibrant life. She believes that with the right support and daily habits, you will experience real progress and lasting change!

Connect with Julie on her website, listen to her podcast here, and find her on Instagram here.

Resources from this episode:

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This raw chocolate tart, made with cashews and cocoa and an almond coconut crust is a decadent gluten-free dessert that doesn’t require any cooking!

What if I told you that you can make a decadent chocolate dessert that doesn’t require any cooking?

This raw chocolate tart is one of my favorite chocolate-y desserts. Not only is it made with real food ingredients, but it is also vegan, gluten-free, and raw-diet friendly. Remember when I got certified as a raw chef? (It feels like a lifetime ago) I actually posted this recipe years ago, but the pieces were hidden amongst random blurry photos and word soup and it really, really deserved its own post. It’s one of my top recipes I’ve posted on the blog ever!

Note: this tarte is not nut-free, but the nuts and coconut give it that decadent flavor.

This recipe can also be made ahead of time if you’re making it for a special occasion – simply store it in the fridge!

You can top it with fresh raspberries, sea salt, or coconut whipped cream – whatever your heart desires. Enjoy 🙂

The Best Raw Chocolate Tart

Ingredients for the Crust:

• 1 1/2 cups almonds
• 1 1/2 cups coconut
• 1/2 cup maple syrup
• 2 dates, pitted
• 1 Tbsp. coconut oil
• 1 Tbsp. vanilla
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. almond extract – optional

1. Measure the almonds, then in a Vitamix or a food processor, grind into a fine flour.
2. Add the dates and chop with the almonds.
3. In a large mixing bowl, add the maple syrup, almond/date mixture, melted coconut oil, vanilla, coconut, sea salt and extract (optional – I used almond). Add in about 1/2 cup more coconut if you need it – this mixture was a little too wet.
4. Press the mixture into a large tart pan, or mini tart pans and dehydrate for 1 hour at 105 degrees. If you don’t have a dehydrator, place the tart crust in the oven on the lowest setting for 30 minutes.

Ingredients for the Filling:

• 2 1/2 cups soaked raw cashews
• 1 1/2 cups cacao powder
• 1 cup maple syrup
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/3 cup water
• 3/4 cup melted coconut oil

1. In a Vitamix blender, add the cashews, maple syrup, honey, vanilla, sea salt and water. Blend well until smooth and creamy.
2.  Add the cacao powder and blend until mixture is