PS: Shhhh…. there’s a big gorilla in the room, which explains why haven’t I been posting more as of late. It has to do with a big, fun project that’s been thrilling, and also excellent at eating up my time (gotta love the bad puns). I promise I’ll leak the big news soon, but in the meantime, let’s just say it’s delicious, healthy, and rhymes with lookshmook. Hmm. I’m not very good at this game, am I?

From time to time, I get this NEED to bake. It’s like a primal urge – and there’s really no stopping me. Deep down, there’s just something so satisfying about mushing things around in a bowl, putting them in an oven, then magically pulling out a tray of fragrant warm delicious comfort in less than an hour. Especially with the cool turn of fall nipping at our heels, I’ve got to admit: I’m looking at you, oven.

One thing I’m not so into, however, is comprising excellent energy, health, and the fit of my favorite jeans simply for the sake of being compliant to my flavor-fueled urges. So I cheat. I use a medley of tricks and sneaky substitutions to make my baked recipes something that are… dare I say… beneficial. One of my favorite baking facelifts is to replace eggs with “superseeds” like flax or chia, which are full of omega fats, fiber, protein and minerals. I swear: your muffins don’t know the difference.

The egg replacement formula:

2 Eggs = 1/3 cup water + 2 Tbsp ground flax seed powder or chia seed powder
Simply combine the water and the seeds, and wait for 15 minutes to form a thick gel.

Wanna see how it works? I made this little video with Navitas Naturals, my superfood company crush, who offers an organic sprouted flaxseed powder and sprouted chia seed powder.  Of course, using a coffee grinder to mill whole flaxseed or chia into a fine powder will work just as well.

When I need a sweet boost in recipes I’ll always turn to fruit or stevia first (whole natural foods = yay!), but when those foods simply can’t pull the weight, it’s palm sugar comes to the rescue. I teamed up with superfoods company Navitas Naturals a couple weeks ago — who offers organic palm sugar — and shot this fun Navitas-style video for their “Chef’s Notes” video series. In this video we discuss what makes palm sugar so easy to love, how to use it, and showcase my mini-recipe for Palm Sugar Limeade as well (it’s a winner). You can find Palm Sugar in natural food stores and also online.