Merry Christmas Eve, my friends! I hope that you’re tucked in at home and ready for a relaxing weekend. I can hardly believe how cold it is outside! I’m writing this while looking out at a white Christmas wonderland. We’re looking forward to a cozy day at home and then Christmas Eve service tonight. I’m wishing all of you a wonderful Christmas weekend.

ON THE BLOG this week:  Sweet, tart, and full of cranberries, apples, raisins, and spices, cranberry chutney is sure to become a must-have on the holiday table.

Chewy coconut oatmeal cookies are the ultimate five-ingredient cookie, irresistible to any coconut lover, grab a mixing bowl and get started. Did I mention that oatmeal coconut cookies are gluten and dairy free? This is an oatmeal cookie recipe without flour or dairy.

Creamy peppermint candy cane ice cream sprinkled throughout with candy cane pieces is perfect with a brownie or topped with chocolate.

Peppermint Marshmallow Fudge is rich and creamy chocolate fudge, flavored with peppermint, and loaded with bites of marshmallow. A sprinkling of crushed candy canes on top makes this an altogether perfect holiday treat.

Creamy goat cheese, spicy jam, salty ham, and peppery arugula are combined in the best ham sandwich you’ll ever eat. Packed with delicious fillings, this is not your ordinary ham sandwich recipe.

With all the flavors you love in loaded baked potatoes, this rich and creamy, this easy Baked Potato Soup will satisfy any hungry crowd that pulls up a chair at your table. 

And this spicy beef and three bean chili comes together quickly on the stovetop or you can simmer it all day in the slow cooker. My kids are already asking for chili again, so we will be making a giant batch of this chili this week.

What I’m CRAVING: all the vegetables! I had a lot of fun baking this week, but man am I ever ready to dive back into my produce-loving happy place. A display of on-the-stalk Brussels sprouts at Trader Joe’s last week caught my eye, so naturally, I need to try roasting them on the stalk now.

My FAVORITE THING this week is the game What’s Your Price? I played this game with friends and it was a huge hit. It cracked us up to see what some of us were will

Hi friends! I hope that whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hannukah, or a lovely Friday, that you have an amazing weekend. Please know that I’m grateful for you every.single.day and I’m sending you the biggest hug and lots of love. I pray that 2023 is a year filled with happiness, good health, and time surrounded with those you love.

Thank you for being here and being a part of this community. <3

xoxo,

Gina + the Pilot, Liv, P, Maisey, Cookie the hairless guinea pig, and Donut

Photos by Audria Abney

The post Have yourself a Merry little Christmas appeared first on The Fitnessista.

Creamy goat cheese, spicy jam, salty ham, and peppery arugula are combined in the best ham sandwich you’ll ever eat.

Packed with delicious fillings, this is not your ordinary ham sandwich recipe. I typically pile the fillings on a long French baguette and then slice it into small finger sandwiches. However you make this, it won’t last long.

I serve this ham sandwich for holiday get-togethers, family movie nights, easy lunches, and snacks throughout the year.

We’ve made this amazing sandwich so many times over the past couple of years, I wanted to share it again, to make sure you’ll have the recipe fresh in your memory and at your fingertips when you have leftover ham in the house after Thanksgiving and Christmas this year.

Best Ham Sandwich

While visiting Sioux Falls with The National Pork Board a few years ago, Chef Neel built a similar sandwich and he called it the “best ever ham sandwich.”

This post was originally sponsored by The National Pork Board and this ham sandwich recipe was inspired by that trip to Sioux Falls, South Dakota a few years ago.

While I expected the sandwich to be tasty, I’m reluctant to ever label anything the “best” of its kind. I took one bite and was sold. This was, indeed, the cream of the crop of deli ham sandwiches.

The creamy goat cheese and savory ham are a perfect combination. A spoonful of spicy pepper jam took the whole thing to sigh-worthy heights.

Ham Sandwich Recipe

I knew right away I’d be making my own version of that sandwich after I returned home again. The recipe I’m sharing with you today is one you’re going to want to make over and over again.

To make this ham s

Hi friends! I hope you’re having a wonderful week! I’m so excited for today’s podcast episode because I’m chatting with Chef Whitney Aronoff about healthy cooking strategies, high vibration foods, her favorite healthy meals and more.

Here’s more about Whitney and her background:

Whitney Aronoff is a Health Supportive Personal Chef in Laguna Beach, California who attended The Natural Gourmet Institute and went on to work farm-to-table restaurants in New York City and Newport Beach. She is passionate about wellness, the vibration of food, and supporting others in living their best life.

As a personal chef Whitney prepares custom meals and dinner parties for her clients. She shares her seasonal recipes on Starseed Kitchen and in her eCookbook, High Vibration Cooking. In 2020, Chef Whitney launched a line of organic spice blends, graciously sharing the custom seasonings that brought her family around the table for years.

Knowing that a healthy diet is just one layer of being well, in 2021 she launched the podcast High Vibration Living With Chef Whitney Aronoff. She interviews experts on healthy eating, cooking, wellness, beauty, travel and spirituality to help others find the modalities and tips to help them feel their best and live in harmony with the world around them.

As the expert on high vibration foods, Whitney believes eating is a transfer of energy between our energetic being and the food we eat. She is an advocate for setting intentions that put the power of healing in our own hands through what she identifies as the four pillars – food, spiritual, emotional, and ethereal.

After all, only you know what your body needs!

Believing the healthiest meal you can eat is the one you make at home, Chef Whitney aims to invite people into her kitchen, feeling empowered to make healthy choices for themselves and their loved ones, and to experience high vibration living.

Resources from this episode:

The weather is cooling down, and I’m still obsessed with my sauna blanket. It feels even BETTER when it’s chilly outside and you can use the code FITNESSISTA15 for 15% off! This is one of my favorite ways to relax and sweat it out. I find that it energizes me, helps with aches and pains, I sleep better on the days I use this, and it makes my skin glow. Link to check it out here. You can also use my discount f

Chewy coconut oatmeal cookies are the ultimate five-ingredient cookie, irresistible to any coconut lover, grab a mixing bowl and get started.

Did I mention that oatmeal coconut cookies are gluten and dairy free? This is an oatmeal cookie recipe without flour or dairy.

Oatmeal Coconut Cookies

These cookies are so chewy, so irresistible, I actually burned my mouth eating a second cookie while they were still piping hot from the oven.

If you have a coconut lover in your life, you need these coconut lover’s cookies. This is the chewiest, most coconut filled cookie I have ever tasted.

With just a handful of ingredients, a bowl, and a spoon, you can stir these coconut oatmeal cookies together in about three minutes. They are beyond easy to make!

The only ingredients that you’ll need are:

• coconut oil
• light brown sugar
• egg
• old fashioned oats
• sweetened coconut flakes

If you truly love coconut, if you would happily eat shredded coconut by the spoonful, if you think there is no such thing as too much coconut, you’ll probably love these as much as I do.

True confession: I wound up eating these cookies for my lunch, dinner, and breakfast the following morning.

While I enjoy most desserts, my sweet tooth is usually pretty easily satisfied with just a couple of cookies. The oatmeal coconut cookies were so good that I found them completely irresistible.

Coconut Oil Oatmeal Cookies

I’ve made lots of coconut treats that use sweetened coconut flakes in the dough. Toffee Coconut Pecan Chocolate Chip Cookies combine some of my favorite things into one delicious cookie and I’ll never turn down Coconut Scone Cookies for breakfast.

For these cookies, I got even more coconut flavor into the cookies by using melted coconut oil in the dough.

Coconut oil acts very similarly to butter when baked resulting in a flaky, moist cookie. It also makes this recipe completely dairy free.

I love baking for people and knowing that I can share these favorite cookies with both my dairy free friends and wheat free friends is delightful! That said, most people would never guess these cookies don’t have any butter in them.

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