Briana Thomas

Dreamy Dairy-Free Chocolate Shake

May 16, 2018 By Briana Thomas 35 Comments

What's spiral bound and sports 400 original recipes and pictures? My cookbook, Necessary Food. Click here for details.

This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.

Are you ready for a creamy, dreamy chocolate milkshake? I’ve got something special for you today! This Dreamy Dairy-Free Chocolate Shake is (duh!) dairy free, low in calories (a THM Fuel Pull!), high in protein…and it’ll give you a solid dose of veggies! I’m not talking about okra, believe it or not.

I first experimented with using frozen cauliflower in a milkshake when I made this Pumpkin Pie Milkshake. (My mom couldn’t even taste the secret ingredient!) Immediately I saw a new world of possibilities, and because of how creamy the cauliflower made the shake, I toyed with the idea of trying a completely dairy-free milkshake using the concept. Unfortunately it was a very long time before I got around to testing my hypothesis. So many recipe ideas, so little time. #lifeofafoodblogger

When I did try it, it worked! Amazingly well! Now let me get this straight: this recipe is not just for the dairy-free peeps. It’s for anyone who wants 1) a creamy chocolate milkshake experience, 2) a dose of non-starchy veggies, or 3) an very low-calorie, protein-rich snack.

You kind of need a pretty good blender to pulverize vegetables into unnoticeable smithereens if you plan to turn them into milkshakes. I was blenderless for a long time after I got married, but I finally bought myself a used Vitamix off of Ebay! I’m not sure how long it’ll last since it has quite a bit of wear and tear, but it works for now! The tamper was busted when I got it so I made this shake thinner than I normally would with my mom’s Vitamix with tamper back home. If you have a working tamper, you may want to decrease the almond milk just a tad and/or add a little more ice. I made the shake thin enough that it would blend on its own in the blender without my having to take the lid off and keep scraping down the sides to get things to blend smoothly.

PS – While this recipe doesn’t have a fat source itself, it’s THM Deep S compliant! Add a fat source on the side and you have a Deep S meal….

A THM Chocolate Bar Giveaway for Mother’s Day!

May 11, 2018 By Briana Thomas 39 Comments

What's spiral bound and sports 400 original recipes and pictures? My cookbook, Necessary Food. Click here for details.

This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.

This post actually isn’t sponsored. I just like you guys.

In honor of Mother’s Day and all the lovely women who read my ramblings and enjoy (or are at least brave enough to try) my recipes, I am giving away 10 of the new THM chocolate bars – 5 milk chocolate and 5 dark chocolate! Confession: I haven’t actually tried these yet, but I’ve heard rave reviews and I’m sure that as with all the other THM products I have tried, they’re high quality.

Check out the Trim Healthy Mama website for more information on these delicious chocolate bars! CLICK HERE to check out the Milk Chocolate Butterfly Bar, and CLICK HERE to check out the Dark Chocolate Butterfly Bar.

Have you tried the new THM chocolate bars? What did you think? Please share in the comments below! I’d also love to know what your ideal Mother’s Day gift would be – whether or not you’re a mom. 😉

And now, the part you’ve all been waiting for! One winner will receive 5 Milk Chocolate Butterfly Bars and 5 Dark Chocolate Butterfly Bars!…

“Brown Sugar” Glazed Ham

May 9, 2018 By Briana Thomas Leave a Comment

What's spiral bound and sports 400 original recipes and pictures? My cookbook, Necessary Food. Click here for details.

This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.

Woohoo! I finally published a new recipe! Sorry folks…I posted teaser photos of this a few weeks ago and was planning on publishing it to the blog long before this, but life happened, and being married takes a lot of time. 😛 Let me rephrase that: keeping a house running takes more time than being single and living at home does. I wouldn’t trade my husband for all the new blog posts and cookbooks in the world, though, and I really enjoy having my own kitchen! Ryan and I have settled into married life well, and I like to tell people that marriage has been the most refining yet the most rewarding experience of my life so far (aside from salvation, of course).

But you came here for some “Brown Sugar” Glazed Ham. It would make the perfect Mother’s Day centerpiece! (Or Thanksgiving, or Christmas, or Easter…all depends on when you find this post and read it…haha.) The combination of flavors in the glaze reminds me of a honey- or brown sugar-glazed ham. Absolutely delicious! I love the Dijon mustard paired with the other flavors and don’t recommend omitting or substituting for it. It doesn’t make the glaze taste mustard-y, but it does add a nice mellow flavor that adds to the whole effect.

I used my favorite versatile sweetener, THM Super Sweet Blend, to sweeten the glaze, but you can use your favorite low-glycemic sweetener to taste. Here’s a conversion chart to help switch between sweeteners.

Don’t forget to save the ham juice and leftover ham bits for another recipe! You’ll be able to find this glazed ham in the new cookbook I’m working on right now, along with some recipes that use leftover ham…Ham & “Potato” Chowder, Breakfast Burritos, and Slow-Cooked Ham & Collards (some Louisiana influence there).

Stay tuned, because tomorrow I’m launching an awesome giveaway for Mother’s Day! Hint: it involves chocolate.

And, as of today, my already-released cookbook, Necessary Food, is on sale at 15% off for Mother’s Day! The sale ends Monday night, May 14th, 2018. The price is already changed in the checkout, so no coupon code is necessary. (Not valid on wholesale quantities. Sale price applicable through my USA distributor, BookCentra, only.) CLICK HERE for more info!…

Trim Healthy Chocolate Bars and a Mega Sale!

May 1, 2018 By Briana Thomas 12 Comments

What's spiral bound and sports 400 original recipes and pictures? My cookbook, Necessary Food. Click here for details.

This post may contain affiliate links. Click here for my affiliate disclosure. If you purchase items through my affiliate links, I receive a small commission but your price doesn't change.

Hey y’all! Trim Healthy Mama just released some new products – including CHOCOLATE BARS! They’re also having a huge sale on many of their top-selling products. In the video below, I’m telling you about some of my favorite products that I use all.the.time. Keep scrolling to get a master list of all the items on sale right now (and how much they’re being discounted)!

This sale ends Wednesday, May 2nd, at midnight CST.

New Products Being Released:

THE FOUNTAIN: BAOBAB & ROSE ANTI-AGING CREAM ($3 off as an intro price!)
CHOCOLATE BAR (dark)
CHOCOLATE BAR (milk)
TRIMMACCINO 12oz MUG

I can’t wait to try the new THM Butterfly Bars (chocolate bars)! I know that a LOT of people are super excited about the milk chocolate because it’s so hard (maybe impossible?) to make or buy good sugar-free milk chocolate that’s sweetened with an on-plan sweetener and doesn’t have a bunch of fillers. I’m more of a dark chocolate fan myself. Can’t wait to taste them both!

Food Items on Sale:

Collagen is one of my favorite ways to add extra protein to my diet. Have a carb source all set for your THM E meal but need some lean protein to round things out and stabilize your blood sugar? Add a scoop of collagen to a Fuel Pull drink and you’re all set! I love that collagen doesn’t have any flavor so it can pair well with anything. (Sometimes the flavor of whey protein stands out too much in recipes that don’t have strong cover-up flavors.)

Try one of the THM flavored protein powders stirred into a glass of almond milk for a quick, protein-packed pick-me-up!

SUPER SWEET 16oz ($2 off) – PERSONAL FAVE
SUPER SWEET 3lb ($5 off) – PERSONAL FAVE
SWEET BLEND PACKETS ($2 off)
GENTLE SWEET 16oz ($2 off)
GENTLE SWEET 3lb ($5 off)
GENTLE SWEET XYLITOL FREE ($2 off)
GENTLE SWEET PACKETS ($2 off)
STEVIA 1oz ($1 off) – PERSONAL FAVE
STEVIA 4oz ($4 off) – PERSONAL FAVE

As I said in the video above, I use Super Sweet for most of my baking. It’s so versatile, and it’s easy on the budget since it’s fairly concentrated. Gentle Sweet is a great sweetener as well and isn’t so concentrated, so it’s perfect if you need a lot of bulk from the sweetener in a recipe in order to achieve the right texture. Since it doesn’t have as high a concentration of stevia as Super Sweet does, it’s a better option for baking if you like your desserts really sweet or find most alternative sweeteners to have an off taste. I try to use THM’s Pure Stevia Extract Powder wherever I can because it’s the most concentrated, and therefore the most budget-friendly, of all the sweeteners. Stevia does especially well in things like oatmeal, hot drinks, shakes, and puddings, and I often use it along with another sweetener to add that extra punch of sweetness while keeping a balanced sweetness profile. (I do this in ice cream frequently.)

Skin Care Products:

ORANGE SILK CREAM ($3 off) – PERSONAL FAVE
COCONUT DREAM HYDRATING CREAM ($3 off)
LAVENDER & CHAMOMILE CREAM ($3 off)
EXTRA MILD CREAM ($3 off)
ULTIMATE RELIEF CREAM ($3 off)

THM’s creams are very high quality. I love that they don’t leave my skin feeling greasy! And they have a lovely natural smell; they don’t smell like chemicals.