Category: recipe

I received the below mentioned products in order to complete an honest review.  Any opinions expressed are my own.

NuNaturals seems to always be finding new ways to make your sugar free life tastier.  One of several things I like about NuNaturals products.  If you’re new to the sugar free world you know that stevia is a natural sweetner from the stevia plant.  Because it’s natural and not a man made sweetener, a lot of people prefer this as a healthier sweetener option. Another think I like about NuNaturals products is the variety of product they offer.  It’s not just powdered sweetener products.  One of my fave products is their liquid NuStevia products both flavored and unflavored. But now I have some new products to love!

One of my fave products is the pure liquid Vanilla NuStevia.  I like to put a few drops in my coffee to both sweeten and flavor my coffee. My kids were also introduced to the NuNaturals NuStevia Cocoa Syrup this year.  Honestly If I use it to make my son’s chocolate milk or put it on their ice cream they don’t even know the different between that and the popular name brand chocolate syrups that contain sugar.  One of the newest items in their line up is the NuNaturals NuStevia Cocoa Mint syrup and the NuStevia Simple Syrup.

Honestly the Cocoa Mint and Cocoa Syrup are so good.  You hardly know that it’s made with stevia instead of sugar.  Look at the ingredients for the cocoa syrup.  You know what you see? Four things: Glycerin, water, cocoa, stevia extract the end.  Nunaturals uses glycerin made from palm oil.  It’s also a gluten free and vegan.  The cocoa mint, my kids were excited to try since they liked the cocoa syrup so much.  My 10 year old wanted to make a mint chocolate milk shake.  So he did.  He told me it was really good.

My kids gave the mint cocoa syrup the thumbs up…well except my oldest son who doesn’t like mint chocolate anything.  Then we move onto the simple syrup. Simple syrup is a popular ingredient in a lot of mixed drinks.  This is a nother one with only 3 ingredients: glycerin, water, and stevia extract.  I’m pretty sure I’ve seen simple syrup called for in a recipe or two as well but I can’t remember.

So what kinds of drinks can you make with simple syrup: mojitos, mint julep, Tom Collins, Whiskey Sours, lemon daiquiri, …..we could really go on and on.  I actually took bartending classes years ago.  It was a sort of fall back thing in case the whole Occupational Therapy thing didn’t work out.  But I digress.  So I thought I’d show you one drink to make with the simple syrup.  A vodka collins.  Mostly because that’s what I had the ingredients handy for…errr mostly.

Ok so, for a Vodka Collins (or virgin collins) you need

• vodka (skip this if you want to make it non-alcoholic)
• soda water
• a lemon
• simple syrup
• tall glass (a highball glass is idea but a regular 8 oz glass is fine)
• spoon to mix it with

A fresh lemon is ideal because you would use a wedge for a garnish.  Also the flavor is better in my opinion.  Unfortunately I didn’t have any more fresh lemon sitting around so I had to use the lemon juice I had.   And no you don’t have to have the shaker and the bar spoon.  I have them so I used them.

Ok first, if you’re using ice you’ll want to put some ice in your glass.  If you’re using a shaker you want to put about an ounce of simple syrup, 1/2 oz of lemon juice and an ounce of vodka in the shaker and shake.  If you’re not using a shaker just go ahead and dump everything in the glass.  Dump the simple syrup mixture into your glass.  Fill the glass the rest of the way with your soda water.  Mix well.  Garnish with a lemon wedge. Seriously that’s it.  If you want to make it virgin (non-alcoholic) just skip the vodka and do everything else lol.

This is a very light drink. Actually refreshing if you’re thirsty.  Actually if you wanted you could add the pure liquid lemon Nunaturals Nustevia instead of lemon flavor.  Whatever, you’re into, if you feel that way lol.

So while the kids got chocolate milk and mint cocoa milkshakes mommy enjoyed a vodka collins after the kids went to bed.  If you’d like to try these products, they are offering Luv Saving Money readers a discount.  Use discount code: BLG0615 to get 15% off your entire order at nunaturals.com  Code expires June 30, 2015.

NuNaturals is also sponsoring a sweepstakes here on Luv Saving Money.  Enter HERE Sweepstakes ends 12/27/14 open Worldwide

Disclosure: I got this product as part of an advertorial.

Holiday candies, the kids love ’em and some times mom and dad do too.  In our house thought my kids get treats from all directions.  They get them in their stockings, they get candies and treats from relatives, and from parties at school.  After a while though everyone seems to get tired of them.  You can throw them away I suppose but I have some better ideas. Sometimes it’s just the form, people are tired of looking at candy canes maybe but changing their form might renew a interest in them. So what can you do with leftover holiday candy?

We received some awesome Wonka candies from Nestle. We received Gobstopper Candy Canes 12ct.
and some SweeTarts holiday mix around Christmas.  Every year we hand candy canes on the Christmas tree to add to the decor and the kids are able to take one off now and then to nibble on it.  Inevitably we find a few that people missed on the tree.

The Gobstopper candy canes had the typical candy cane shape but they were solid colors on the outside.  If you are familiar with regular gobstoppers, you know that as you suck on them there are different layers of color.  The candy canes are made similarly.

These candy canes went fast. Everyone loved them.  There were a couple hiding on the tree when we took everything down.  Crushed, the candy canes could easily a topping for cupcakes, cookies, ice cream and more.

Also, when kept at the right temp, candy canes will last a while.  The Gobstopper candy canes came in red, white, and green colors.  Did you ever notice that when you put the two hooks of the candy canes together they make a heart?  You could affix two candy canes to a piece of paper or tie them together to make a heart for little Valentine treats.  The Gobstopper ones would work great for that with the red and white ones.

We also had some leftover SweetTart holdiay mix.  They were red and gree holiday shops. Again, crushed you can use them as toppings on whatever you like.  Being that they are are…well..tart they do better with a sweet sour mix.  I had some granny smith apples in the fridge.  I personally love tart and sour things.  I thought I’d cut up some granny smith applies, dip them in chocolate then roll them in crushed SweeTarts.

Initially I wanted to use white chocolate but when I went to melt my white chocolate I realized it had expired so I used milk chocolate instead.  I still think white chocolate would have been better but they turned out good anyway.

Recipe for Sweet and Sour Granny Bites:

— About 1 cup chocolate to melt.  In my opinion white would be better but milk chocolate worked for us.  Could be baking squares or chocolate chips

— 3 Granny Smith apples

–1/2 box of crushed SweeTarts

Cut your apples up into slices removing core. Crush SweeTarts.  We Put them in a sandwich bag and smacked them with the back of a heavy spoon but you can do it how you like.  Pour crushed SweeTarts into bowl.  Melt chocolate according to package directions and then stir until smooth.  Dip half of your apple slice into the chocolat then roll in the crushed SweeTarts.  Allow to hard for about 20 minutes.

My boys all tried them.  They were a kit here.  In fact the next day my youngest son asked me “Mom do we have anymore of those SweeTart apples” lol:

I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.