Refined Sugar-Free

Apple Butter Truffles

No-bake vegan apple butter truffles made with almond flour, warm spices, and dark chocolate. An easy gluten-free holiday dessert!

The house is slowly starting to feel like Christmas.

We’re in the middle of getting everything ready to host M’s parents and brothers visiting from Germany for the holidays, and I can already feel the anticipation building.

I’ve been deep-cleaning, arranging furniture, and making lists of everything I want to cook and share with them.

We don’t have our tree up just yet, but the stockings are already hanging, and I’m playing Christmas music every chance I get.

That means while cooking, cleaning, and recipe testing alike!

There’s something so special about sharing my American holiday traditions with M’s family for the first time, and it’s making this season feel even more magical.

In true holiday fashion, I’ve already started testing cozy, shareable treats for when everyone arrives, and these Apple Butter Truffles were one of the very first recipes I made.

They feel like the perfect welcome dessert: simple, festive, warmly spiced, and made for sharing from a platter by the fire with mugs of hot cocoa or mulled wine in hand.

If fall coziness could be rolled into a bite-sized dessert, this would be it.

These truffles are rich, spiced, naturally sweetened, and coated in a glossy layer of dark chocolate for the ultimate no-bake treat.

They’re everything I love about the season wrapped into one simple recipe: warm cinnamon, subtle nutmeg, and the slow-simmered flavors of apple butter in every bite.

These truffles are perfect for holiday gatherings, edible gifting, or a little something sweet to keep in the fridge for the busy days ahead.

Best of all, they come together with just one bowl, require no baking, and can easily be made gluten-free and refined sugar-free depending on your chocolate choice!

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SunButter Chocolate Chip Cookies

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Allergy-friendly SunButter chocolate chip cookies that taste just like classic chocolate chip cookies with no peanuts required!

Every year as the holidays roll around, I find myself back in the kitchen baking a familiar mix of cozy favorites and new treats to share.

It’s one of my favorite traditions.

Setting aside a day to make a variety of cookies, packaging them up, and delivering little bundles of sweetness to the people and places that make our days brighter.

This year feels extra special as we’re sharing these cookies not only with friends, but also with M’s family visiting from Germany for the holidays.

These SunButter Chocolate Chip Cookies made the list immediately.

They’re soft, chewy, warmly nostalgic, and a little different in the best way thanks to the rich, nutty flavor of SunButter.

They’re the kind of cookie that feels right at home on a holiday cookie plate, no matter where it’s being shared.

If you love classic chocolate chip cookies but need a nut-free, vegan, and gluten-free option, these SunButter Chocolate Chip Cookies will be your new favorite.

They’re soft in the center, lightly crisp on the edges, naturally sweetened with coconut sugar, and packed with melty dark chocolate in every bite.

These cookies come together in one bowl with simple pantry staples and are perfect for school-safe treats, allergy-friendly baking, or everyday dessert cravings.

Bonus: they’re made with almond flour and oat flour for a wholesome, tender texture that still feels indulgent.

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Applesauce Gingerbread Loaf

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Cozy up with this Vegan Applesauce Gingerbread Loaf that’s moist, warmly spiced, and naturally sweetened with a maple cream cheese frosting.

Dear friends, I have finally given up ice cream for the season.

I know, I know.

Ice cream is one of my top desserts and typically I eat it all year round.

But this time of year when I take staying warm as seriously as I do content creation, I have to ask myself, isn’t the ice cream a *little* contradictory?

If you can eat all of the cold things and stay warm this season, I envy you and you are magic.

But if you are like me and need to actively work to stay warm, let’s make a pact to not cool ourselves out unnecessarily.

So I’ve given up ice cream in an effort to eat seasonal warm baked goods, and, hopefully support my wallet (those vegan ice creams aren’t cheap!).

If you’ve been craving something warm, comforting, and lightly spiced, this Vegan Applesauce Gingerbread Loaf is exactly what you need this season.

Moist, tender, and naturally sweet, it’s the kind of loaf that fills your kitchen with the smell of cinnamon and ginger the moment it comes out of the oven.

Whether you’re looking for a sweet breakfast, an afternoon snack with tea, or a cozy dessert to share with friends or family, this loaf has you covered.

The simple maple cream cheese frosting takes it to the next level, adding just enough sweetness to make each slice feel indulgent (without being overwhelming!).

It’s easy to make, forgiving, and entirely plant-based, so you can feel good about enjoying a slice (or two!) any time you need a little comfort and warmth.

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Rainbow Roasted Carrots with SunButter Sauce

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Rainbow Roasted Carrots meet a creamy SunButter Sauce in this easy vegan recipe. Perfect for weeknight dinners or healthy holiday sides.

As the days get shorter and the air turns crisp, I find myself slipping into full-on hibernation mode.

In mid-November.

Tell me, is it ever too soon for cozy sweaters, warm drinks, and anything roasted or comforting on our plates?

Speaking of soon, I do see a lot of people on social media already putting up Christmas trees, mistletoe, and stockings.

I’m not quite there yet.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I like to celebrate each holiday at a time.

After Halloween, I like to focus on Thanksgiving before we get to the Christmas decor!

But there’s something about this season that makes me crave simple, nourishing meals that feel like a hug from the inside out.

Rainbow roasted carrots feel equal parts cozy and celebratory.

You can bet that the day after Thanksgiving I’ll be rocking green and red, but until then, I’ll be roasting carrots.

Now that the weather is chilly, I love tossing a rainbow of carrots on a baking sheet and watching them caramelize to perfection in the oven.

Each hue, golden yellow, deep purple, and vibrant orange has its own natural sweetness and charm.

Drizzle them with a creamy Organic SunButter sauce, and suddenly your everyday side becomes something special.

These Rainbow Roasted Carrots with SunButter Sauce is simple enough for weeknights but beautiful enough for your holiday table!

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Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwich

By Flora & Vino 1 Comment

Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwiches made with cranberries, walnuts, and sliced celery. Add to sourdough bread with toppings!

The end of the year always feels like a strange mix of gratitude and burnout, doesn’t it?

Between yoga teacher training weekends, future wedding and family planning, and wrapping up business for the year, it’s been….full.

I’m feeling both super thankful and a little stuck in the messy in-between-ness.

Yoga has taught me that that both can be true; to feel joy and exhaustion at the same time.

I have to remind myself that balance doesn’t always come from doing more, but from pausing and nourishing myself in small, intentional ways.

Something M is constantly reminding me is that when life serves us chaos, I don’t need to serve us a five course meal.

So on weeks when life feels full and I’m craving simplicity, I turn to recipes like these Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwiches.

It’s easy, protein-packed, and ready in minutes.

A simple sammy can be a gentle reminder that feeding yourself well doesn’t have to be complicated, even when everything else feels like it is.

So if you’re feeling that same end-of-year overwhelm; that delicate pull between slowing down and showing up, I see you.

Let this simple sandwich be a moment of reprieve from the holiday happy and haggard.

Take a deep breath, step into your kitchen, and make something that nourishes you without asking for much in return.

Let’s make Cranberry Chickpea Salad Sandwiches!

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Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal

By Flora & Vino 3 Comments

Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal for a breakfast that tastes like the classic cookie. Meal prep a pan and reheat for an easy breakfast!

This is the story of my engagement.

On Halloween last week M and I hiked into Great Falls National Park where he got down on one knee and presented me with a diamond ring and a question.

“Would you like to marry me?” he asked, the midday sun creating fiery colors in the pear shaped diamond in yellow gold.

“Yes!” I said immediately, wondering if I had responded too quickly.

We kissed and M slid the diamond onto my ring finger as people I didn’t know were there gave their congratulations.

So, friends, I am engaged.

The funny thing is that I almost didn’t want to go on this hike that I realize now M was carefully planning.

There was really high winds forecast for the day and that felt like reason enough to curl up at home and read under blankets.

I’m forever grateful that we ended up going and I braved the discomfort.

Great Falls has always been a special place for us in our relationship.

It’s the first place M taught me to climb outdoors in the height of the pandemic, and a place we kept coming back to for hiking, climbing, and nature.

Standing on top of Sandbox Overlook with my new fiancé, my best friend, this man who has chosen me forever, I didn’t feel the windchill a bit.

The last week has been a bit of a blur with engagement announcements, living in our own “honeymoon” bubble, and making tentative plans for the future.

Being newly engaged, I’ll admit, I haven’t been the most creative with food.

However, I did come up with a new baked oats recipe for you that’s essentially a cookie in baked oats form.

Can you tell that I was craving cookies when I created this Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal?!

Cinnamon Raisin Cookie Baked Oatmeal that tastes like the classic cookie for breakfast.

It’s easy to meal prep a pan and reheat for an easy breakfast all week long!

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Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake with SunButter Frosting

By Flora & Vino 2 Comments

Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake with a gluten-free oat crust, dairy-free coconut cashew cream cheese filling, and a SunButter frosting.

These past few weeks have been different settling into a routine with M home from work due to the government shut down.

Flora and I have loved having him home more, despite the circumstances at hand.

This means I have a built in taste tester, and, of course, Flora thinks she has a 24/7 playmate.

When friends ask how M is spending the time off, I respond, “Oh, doing a lot of training (read: PLAY) with Flora…”

“What do you need?” M asks Flora with her piercing blue gaze, and she immediately runs to grab her most beloved toy, Frisbee.

Frisbee, a yellow silicone disc that has survived over a year of tugging, throwing, dirt, and dog slobber, is an adored member of the fam.

Round and round main level they run, Frisbee flying and narrowly missing lights, furniture, and, my face until I scold that someone (read: ME) is going to get hurt.

It’s times like this that I wonder exactly what I was thinking putting an Australian Shepherd in a two level condominium.

But aside from the play sessions with our energizer bunny Aussie, I decided that it was a great time to make a cheesecake.

Cheesecake is M’s favorite dessert, and I realized that I don’t have a pumpkin pie version on the blog yet.

This Pumpkin Pie Cheesecake is made with a gluten-free oat crust, dairy-free coconut cashew cream cheese filling, and a SunButter frosting.

It’s a beautiful tribute to Fall in a fun dessert that’s worth sharing!

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Pumpkin Turmeric Waffles

By Flora & Vino Leave a Comment

Pumpkin Turmeric Waffles made with oats, pumpkin purée, and Navitas Organics Turmeric Powder. Serve with melted cacao for breakfast!

Two weekends ago I had to miss my yoga teacher training because I was sick with the first cold of the season.

It’s been an ongoing goal of mine to connect with more local yoga studios in the area.

The hope being that I find a place that I can practice regularly and perhaps even one day teach at.

Ever since the pandemic, I’ve been all too comfortable practicing yoga from the room I fondly refer to as…the yoga room.

I am so fortunate that I have a space to work out at home, but, as my teacher said when encouraging me to connect locally, the energy just feels different in the studio.

So I’ve been pushing myself to get outside of my comfort zone and take classes with the public.

After the third class, I started to feel a connection to the community and myself I hadn’t felt in years.

It was like realizing a version of myself that I’d forgotten; a Lauren that went out for evening yoga regularly because it lit me up.

However, with the public yoga comes the public germs.

I remember looking askance during my third class at the girl next to me, sniffling heavily in downward facing dog.

She sounds unwell, I thought to myself, and then went on with my practice because what else can you do when you’re flowing next to a germ monster?!

So now I’m on the upswing of a bad cold, sitting with the irony that a public yoga class potentially caused me to miss my yoga training weekend.

However, I have to believe that that striving for connection, community, and movement outside of my house is worth the risk.

Being sick, I’ll admit, I haven’t been the most creative with food.

However, I did come up with a new waffle recipe for you that’s perfect for upcoming “spooky” season.

These Pumpkin Turmeric Waffles made with oats, pumpkin purée, and Navitas Organics Turmeric Powder.

Serve them with melted cacao drizzle for an elevated breakfast!

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Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes

By Flora & Vino 2 Comments

Super fluffy Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes with buckwheat flour and apple pie compote. Perfect for a weekend breakfast topped with SunButter!

This season has been all about healing for me.

Right now, I’m attending physical therapy two times a week to work on healing my chronic back pain.

It’s a commitment, right? In time, energy, and physicality.

Two days a week in my very adept physical therapist’s office releasing tension, increasing mobility, and building strength.

Not to mention the homework exercises that I do religiously (because I’m a good student, y’all!).

It was humbling to realize after my the first evaluation that despite being highly active, I have areas that are *extremely* weak.

And of course that imbalance and weakness is a contributing factor to the pain I experience on a daily basis.

The other cause most likely being the strange and incorrect form I use to capture all of the delicious food that I share with you all.

Yes, food photography is probably ground zero for the back problems that started a few years back.

I ignored it for so long, thinking, “Eh, it’ll just get better on it’s own, it’s just from holding the camera in a weird way.”

Spoiler alert: it did not get better and in fact, got more and more pervasive to the point that day to day activities became painful and challenging to perform.

A lot of my healing has been self-awareness of certain body patterns and motions that I’m doing that will trigger the pain.

As a yoga teacher, I know how important balance and harmony are in the bodies, so it’s kind of ironic that I couldn’t see that dissonance in myself.

So, consider this your PSA, friends: if anything is bothering you, take the time, the energy, and the resources to get it looked at.

Our bodies are our one amazing vessel to carry us through this life, so let’s take care of them as such.

Which is part of the reason as to why I love a plant-based lifestyle, because it’s good for us and the planet.

No one can argue that these Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes that I’m sharing today aren’t healing from the inside out.

These super fluffy Vegan Apple Pie Pancakes are made with gluten-free flour and apple pie compote.

They’re perfect for a fall weekend breakfast topped with SunButter!

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Apple Butter Crumble Bars

By Flora & Vino 1 Comment

Easy apple butter crumble bars made with just 6 whole food ingredients. Perfect for a quick breakfast, snack, or healthy dessert.

Where did August go, friends?!

I just chastised M after I saw that the calendar in his room still read, “April”.

But I feel like that 5-month gap in page turning is a pretty good representation of 2025 so far.

It started out slow, and now here we are somehow barreling into Fall.

This month, we took Flora to the beach for the first time.

We were surprised to find Flora initially terrified of the roar of the tide and the consistency with which it threatened to wet her paws.

It chased her back and forth until finally, on our last day there, she got brave and walked in salty water.

We cheered and praised her and my heart swelled because she looked like such a small animal standing in such a large ocean.

And that’s really all that can be said for any of us, right?

Just drops in an ocean, but, just like Flora, we can do hard things!

Speaking of hard things, this month I also completed another weekend of my 300 hour YTT program.

This weekend we started to learn how to cue a mandala-style vinyasa class, where you turn students on the mat.

The back of the mat becomes the front of the mat and visa versa so you’re shifting directions and perspective while you flow.

It’s this shift in perspective that makes it fun to adopt a beginner’s mindset, or allowing each experience to stand on its own as a fresh start.

And that’s really what Fall feels like for me.

A fresh start, a chance to make new routines, an opportunity to set new rhythms, an invitation to grow, learn, change.

My favorite foods are full of seasonal fall favorites, like these Apple Butter Crumble Bars.

These easy apple butter crumble bars are made with just 6 whole food ingredients.

They’re perfect for a quick breakfast, snack, or healthy dessert.

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Refined Sugar-Free

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