I have had many requests for the recipes of the oatmeal cookies and dark chocolate brownies, so I will share them in this column. Also, if you want to see the holiday issue of Salisbury the Magazine, you can view the e-edition at www.salisburythemagazine.com/issues and click on the holiday issue.

Back to the healthy snacks. Many people are worried that if they mess with their recipes, they won’t taste good. That can be true, however, there have been many people who have come up with great healthy recipes that taste very good. One of those people is Beatrice Hair, a local 2010 North Carolina small business person of the year and author of “Natural Health in You, Body Wisdom.” She has dedicated her life to help and achieve breakthroughs in health and education. She was, and still is, a competitive soccer player and through the YMCA. We have been friends for a long time, as she has always been a big supporter of the YMCA and of health and fitness. She hosted a great healthy educational program at her Salisbury Tutoring Academy about 6 months ago, and I was invited to speak on the exercise part of a healthy lifestyle. Maia Smith was there for healthy skin products and a local chef came and made the recipes that she has come up with for a healthier lifestyle. It was wonderful! Needless to say, I bought the book which not only has amazing recipes, it has behavior modification tools, detoxification of your home and environment and so much more. It is on sale for less than $30 on Amazon or at her place of business on 818 Corporate Circle in Salisbury. My favorite part of this book is the amazing and very tasty recipes, including pictures! I have made some adjustments since I don’t do well with almonds or almond milk, but as Beatrice will say, “it’s your journey.” So here you go for two amazing healthy recipes:

Brownies

2 tsp. vanilla extract

6 drops of food-grade orange essential oil (I use doTerra)

¼ cup chopped prunes

2 cups of walnuts

¾ cup cacao powder (Cacao is the purest form of chocolate you can consume, which means it is raw and much less processed than cocoa powder. I used cocoa powder since I didn’t have cacao powder. Cocoa is the term used to refer to the heated form of cacao that most of us buy at the store in the form of cocoa powder.)

8 large dates

¼ cup of almonds (I left those out)

Put all in food processor except for half a cup of walnuts. It should make a mixture that looks like cake crumbs. Place them in a glass Pyrex dish and mix with water for desired moisture. Add walnuts last.

Topping: (I didn’t do topping)

½ cup maple syrup

4 Tbsp. cacao powder

2 Tbsp. of olive oil

1 tsp. vanilla

1 Tbsp. coconut manna

3-4 drops of food grade peppermint essential oil (optional)

Mix topping ingredient and cover brownies with this icing. Chill for one hour. Preparation time is 20 minutes.

Oatmeal cookies

3 ripe organic bananas (mine were not organic)

¼ cup organic almond butter (I used real butter)

2 cups steel cut unprocessed raw oats

1/3 cup unsweetened organic apple sauce

1 tsp. vanilla

¼ cup organic cocoa powder

Optional: add salt, cinnamon, or shredded unsweetened coconut.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use fork to mash bananas and then add all the ingredients. Let dough sit for 25 minutes. Then drop by the teaspoon on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 10 minutes. Serve as snack, dessert or breakfast. Preparation time is 40 minutes.

I highly recommend this book as it helped me on my journey to eat healthier. I ate pretty healthy but didn’t realize how much sugar and preservatives I was still eating. I am far from eating clean, but my journey has begun. Beatrice also offers classes on how to reverse Type 2 diabetes. I wish you well on your journey to a better you!

Ester Marsh Associate executive Director JF Hurley Family YMCA