Welcome!
Hi, I'm Tori! Welcome to Healthy Plate Happy Family!
I am a fun-loving, healthy-eating, wife, mom, holistic
nutrition student, aspiring yogi, SUP-enthusiast, living
and loving life on the beautiful coast of West Michigan.
Here you'll find all of the whole foods, clean-eating recipes
that I am cooking up to keep my family happy and healthy!
Thanks for stopping by!
We woke up to lots of new snow and a snow day for the kids this morning. Luckily, the sun was shining and it was such a great day to be outside playing.
Waist deep in snow!!
We have a pretty big hill in our front yard, which is great for sledding.
After many trips down the hill, a snowball fight with friends, and some snow angels, it was time to come inside for hot cocoa.
How do you make your hot cocoa?? Are you more of an instant packet type or do you make it from scratch? Do you jazz it up with little marshmallows or a candy cane stirrer???
For the past couple of years, I have been making hot cocoa for the kids by slightly modifying the recipe on the side of the Hershey’s cocoa powder container. There are a few simple upgrades that you can make to the recipe to make it a little healthier.
Start with some milk (your preference, we use non-dairy almond milk), either traditional cocoa powder or raw cacao powder, maple syrup or Stevia, and pure vanilla extract.
Cacao is the original source of chocolate and cocoa. It is processed very carefully at low temperatures so that it retains the vitamins and minerals and contains more antioxidant flavonoids than red wine, green tea and blueberries
In a small pan, mix 4 tsp. cocoa powder, 3T. maple syrup, and 1 T. water. Whisk over medium heat until it is bubbling, being careful not to scorch it.
If want an all natural zero-calorie sweetener, you can swap out the maple syrup for Stevia, which comes from a plant native to South America. It does have a unique taste but I don’t mind it in small doses. (swap out the maple syrup and water for 2 packets of Stevia and 2 T. of water).
When I am making hot cocoa for other kids though, I use the maple syrup for a sweet taste that they are more familiar with.
Add in 2 cups of milk and stir to combine. Gently heat milk to desired temperature but do not boil. Remove from heat and stir in 1/4 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Enjoy all of the beautiful snow this weekend! Stay warm and stay safe!
Hello there! I work with you mom at premiere and she clued me in to your blog. I recently started reading the eat to live book. I started a vegan- ish diet about a week ago. I had a 2 crab legs, a sandwich with mozzarella cheese and a pat of butter this week. Hence why I say vegan ish. Trying to do this for 6 weeks and then determine how I feel. Look forwarded to learning some tips. Also I was wondering if the vitamix blender was worth the cost. Also there are so many and I don’t know which to get.
Hi Cari – Its nice to “meet” you! I’m so glad to have you here reading my blog and that you are finding some of the information useful! I’d love to send you some of my thoughts on eating clean to maybe make it a little bit easier for you. I’m glad to know that these are the types of recipes that my readers are looking for! In regards to the blender, I love my Vitamix (the standard 5200 model) and wouldn’t consider anything other than a professional grade blender for us. But that being said, my husband and I each make a smoothie every day so we were going through a blender every 2 years or so burning up the motor on them. We were able to get ours at Costco a couple of years ago for quite a bit less. I’ve also seen the Blendtec there before which is a comparable professional blender, and still very similar in price. I think there are some pretty good blenders on the market now but I haven’t done much research on them. I’ve also heard that you can buy refurbished Vitamixes for around $150 if thats anything you’re interested in.