I live in a house where every one of us is a snacker, and mostly for some kind of crunchy snack. Over the last couple of years, as I have tried to eliminate all of the junky foods out of this house, I have been on the ever evolving quest to find healthy things to snack on that everyone will eat. We love all kinds of chips and tortillas and salsa. Now I mostly shop at Vitacost.com, for snacks, because the prices there are so much cheaper than your local health food store and they offer free shipping on every order over $49. I have noted that I save between $1-4 (sometimes more depending on what I am buying) per item over buying it at Whole Foods or Chamberlains. Vitacost makes it so much more affordable to be able to purchase healthy foods for my family. They offer tons of food items that are gluten free and non-GMO and a wide variety of healthy chips!

One item that I purchase often are these rice cakes. I used to only be able to find them at WF, but, on my last order to Vitacost, I realized that they carry them there now.  I prefer these because they are very thin and when you top them with something, you don’t feel like all your eating is a rice cake.I usually eat these topped with Cashew Butter, but on my last visit to Vitacost, I found this walnut butter. I absolutely fell in love with the taste of it and it has become my new favorite.

I also use a lot of coconut oil. If you haven’t researched the benefits of coconut oil for your health, you should! I used to pay quite a bit for the small 14 oz jars at my local grocery store, so this last time I decided to check out what Vitacost had. I found this 54 oz container for $21.49. It is organic and extra virgin, and the flavor of it is so fresh and delicious. I love it, especially the price!

Ok, so I share all of that with you to get to my favorite evening snacks. I love to take some of the walnut butter (you could use almond or cashew butter too) and mix it with a little bit of the coconut oil and then spread it on the rice cakes. The flavor is so good and it really satisfies my need for snacking in the evenings, and I don’t feel guilty about what I am eating.

Last night I decided that I needed something just a little bit more than that. So, I grabbed a few things and threw this together. You could add in so many other ingredients to this and change it up so that you would always have some variety. I am not usually very big on sweet stuff, but last night I had a chocolate craving and I love the flavor of chocolate and pineapple together. This made one serving.

*This recipe is gluten free, just make sure your chocolate is.

**This recipe is vegetarian.

• 2 Suzie’s rice cakes, chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh pineapple, chopped
• about 2 tablespoons shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup walnuts, chopped
• about a 1/4 cup dark chocolate (I used the chips I had, but you could use a bar of chocolate and chop it up)
• coconut oil

Add all the ingredients to a small bowl and drizzle about 1 – 1.5 tablespoons of coconut oil over the top and mix well.