Cooking for Happy Hormones: 3 personal creations + 3 tried-and-loved recipes!

My first post of the year! 👀👀🤣

WOW…that took a while, haha, but I’m back! and with HORMONE-HEALTHY RECIPES of course! I’m sharing 3 of my own creations as well as 3 additional recipes I’ve recently tried (and enjoyed enough to make multiple times 😅).

Here ya go!

Cait’s Hormone-healthy Popcorn

I LOVE popcorn…

Like LOVEEEEEE it. But, ever since my eczema breakout and my gut-healing journey, I haven’t been having it nearly as often (popcorn can be tricky to digest). However, I still occasionally enjoy a bowl, and there’s really no better (and healthier) way to make it than at home on the stovetop! Here’s the thang though…I’m always making an effort to make any and all snacks just as hormone-healthy as my meals and that means – they’ve gotta be balanced with some protein and healthy fat. So, here’s my stovetop popcorn recipe (with some protein and healthy fat) for happy, healthy hormones!

Ingredients:

• ½ cup organic sprouted popcorn kernels 

• 2 tbsp coconut oil 

• Nutritional yeast (I add a lot lol) 

• Celtic salt (to your liking) 

Instructions:

1. In a large pot (or Whirley Pop) on medium heat, add the coconut oil and 2 popcorn kernels. Once the oil gets hot enough, the kernels will pop. 

2. Once they pop, remove the pot off the stove so the oil doesn’t get too hot, and add in the remaining kernels. 

3. Put the pot back on the stovetop with the lid and shake it around a bit so the kernels move around (or start to turn the knob slowly on your Whirley Pop). 

4. Once the kernels are popping, tip the lid a bit to let the steam out. If you’re using the Whirley Pop, continue turning the knob. 

5. The popcorn is finished once you stop hearing the kernels pop as often. 

6. Add the popcorn to a large bowl and top with nutritional yeast and sea salt. If you’re using a Whirley Pop, add the toppings straight in and continue turning the knob so they mix evenly. 

7. Enjoy!

Cait’s Lemon Blueberry Oats

If you know me, you know I love a warm bowl of oats and I also happen to love lemon blueberry flavor. Aside from dark chocolate, both lemon and blueberry are my fave flavors for sweets or baked treats, so I decided to combine them and create these lemon blueberry oats. 

Ingredients:

Base

• 1 cup oats

• 1 cup water

• 1 cup cashew milk

• 2 scoops collagen

• Zest of 1 lemon

• ½ banana mashed

• Sea salt

• Cinnamon

Topping

• ½ cup frozen wild blueberries

• ½ lemon juiced

• Raw pecans

• Maple syrup

• Cinnamon

• Hemp seeds

Instructions:

1. In a small saucepan on low heat, add the oats, water, cashew milk, collagen powder, mashed banana, lemon zest, cinnamon, and pinch of sea salt. 

2. Mix around and continue to cook on low heat, stirring often, until the oats are creamy and soft. 

3. In a separate saucepan on medium/high heat, add frozen blueberries and lemon juice. Once they’re bubbling, turn down the heat and bring to a simmer until the blueberries have all burst and you have what seems like a sauce. 

4. While this is cooking, toast your nuts. Add chopped raw pecans to a baking sheet and toast until you smell them (should be really quick like 5 minutes). I usually just turn on the toast setting on my Cosori oven and that works. 

5. Bring the nuts out and add some maple syrup & cinnamon over the top. Mix them around until fully coated. (P.S. You can also toast the nuts in a small pan on the stovetop with butter if that seems easier). 

6. Once everything is finished, it’s time to assemble your masterpiece! 

7. Pour the oats into your bowl and top with the blueberry lemon “sauce” and toasted maple-cinnamon pecans! I also added some hemp seeds on top for additional protein and fat 😉 

8. Enjoy!

Cait’s Strawberry-Date Smoothie

I’m not typically a fan of strawberries in my smoothies. I pretty much NEVER put them in and you’ll also NEVER catch me ordering a smoothie with strawberries in it (like ever), BUT I did create this recipe because strawberries were all I had on hand and I was also missing bananas. I wasn’t expecting this at all, but I really liked it and was very pleasantly surprised by the outcome. Here it is for you!

Ingredients:

• Organic frozen strawberries

• 2 dates

• 1 scoop collagen powder

• 1/4 -½ cup yogurt (I used sheep’s yogurt)

• ½ cup raw walnuts

• ¼ cup pumpkin seeds

• Coconut water

• Dash of vanilla extract

• Cinnamon

Measurements are rough because I usually just eyeball, but these should work (you can adjust it to your liking on the next one haha)

Instructions:

1. Add it all to your blender and let it rip!

In addition to my delicious creations above hehe 😆, I also wanted to share three hormone-healthy recipes I’ve recently tried and enjoyed! Here they are below (with some of my tweaks & add-ons).

Italian Meatballs with Tomato Sauce

This is such a hearty, yummy dish to prepare and it’s also relatively easy and quick to throw together. I do want to add to this though because my sides of choice turned out to be SO YUMMY with these meatballs. Here they are below:

Side of Grilled Zucchini

Ingredients:

• Organic zucchini

• Grass-fed butter

• Sea salt

• Garlic powder

Instructions:

1. Chop your zucchini into spears (I usually cut the spears again down the middle so they’re shorter and fit in the pan)

2. Melt some butter in a pan on medium heat

3. Once it’s hot, add the zucchini (skin side facing up). Sprinkle with salt and garlic powder. 

4. Once one side of the spear has a nice brown color to it, flip it until the other side is also browned.

Side of Garlic Toast 

Ingredients:

• Sourdough bread

• Grass-fed butter

• Garlic

Instructions:

1. In a pan on low/medium heat, add your slices of bread (with butter).

2. While it’s toasting, peel your garlic (I use about 1 clove per slice of bread) and mince or use THIS THING to mince.

3. When your bread is just about finished toasting, take it off the pan and spread the minced garlic over the top.

Creamy Zucchini, Sundried Tomato and Lemon Pasta 

I’ve made this a handful of times because after making it once, I realized it was really simple and I could recreate it much faster on the next go around. You could always add some animal protein to this to make it more filling and/or replace the cheese with nutritional yeast if dairy ain’t yo thang! I personally used Jovial Foods gluten-free pasta!

Buckwheat Waffles

If you’re having store-bought frozen waffles for breakfast in the morning, I highly recommend batch-cooking these and storing them in your freezer instead! Buckwheat is a VERY nutritious whole grain packed with fiber, protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants! It also has a low glycemic index which keeps it from spiking your blood sugar (very important for hormone health and your health overall too) and it’s gluten-free!

After making the first batch of these waffles, I tweaked and made a second batch which came out perfect! I kept everything in the recipe the same except for a few things:

1. I put A LOT of cinnamon in the batter

2. I used organic brown sugar 

3. I added some maple syrup (maybe like ¼ cup) to give it the perfect amount of sweetness!

4. Oh, and I threw in some blueberries once the batter was ready for the waffle iron.

That’s a WRAP!

Six hormone-healthy recipes for you to cook and enjoy! If you make any of these, please comment below with your thoughts! I’d love to hear from you 🤗

Mucho love,

Cait