St. Patrick's Day embraces a color that represents more than leprechaun garb. Green is a symbol of nature and treating the earth and our bodies with love and respect. This St. Patty's Day Avocado Banana Ice Cream recipe is a quick and easy way to satisfy your sweet tooth. Avocado lends a creamy, rich hand to the ice cream's texture, while the banana and honey keep things light and sweet. Enjoy!

There's no reason to hold back from enjoying a cupcake when there's a vegan alternative that is free of both white sugar and white flour. You get the best of all words with this vegan chocolate cupcake with chocolate coconut cream frosting recipe. The cupcake itself is sweetened with coconut palm sugar and is so moist that you'll wonder why milk and eggs were ever deemed necessary in the first place. The frosting is chocolate coconut cream that is sweetened with agave and whipped to a fluffy and light perfection. Enjoy!

Dessert pizza is the best thing to happen to pizza night! It's a fun way to keep the theme of the meal going into dessert and is terrific for parties (especially kids) or gameday noshing.  This dessert pizza recipe nixes the excess sugars and heaviness of those you'll find at fast food pizza joints by honoring the simple, yet shinng flavors of fresh fruits: bananas and strawberries, as well as using healthy coconut milk in place of dairy. The result is a creative and light pizza dessert that you can shamelessly go in for more, slice after slice. Bring a surprise to pizza night with a homemade dessert pizza, which is ready to eat within minutes.

Looking for something tasty and healthy that will take care of your sweet tooth? Take on this recipe for speckled acorn squash cookies that packs a punch of antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and fiber to your list of must-try desserts. Acorn squash is the base of this recipe, providing a nutty flavor and added sweetness so that you can cut back on the amount of sugar added to the recipe. Acorn squash is also full of vitamin C, which promotes healthy immune and skeletal systems, as well, it's rich in beta carotene, which reduces the risk of some cancers and keeps eyes healthy. Not to mention, a half-cup serving of this winter squash contains 13 percent of your recommended daily potassium intake and 11 percent of your magnesium, both essential minerals. What more of an excuse do you need to indulge?

If you're ever craving just a bit of sweet without all the heaviness, fat and calories of a cake or cookie, consider a meringue. These light-as-air confections are perfect for a bite or two of something sweet, and when you make this meringue recipe at home, they can be all-natural as well as low in calories.

It's easy to avoid the obvious healthy food offenders: greasy pizza and fast food, sugary sodas, the endangered Twinkie. But sometimes, you just want a snack that isn't an apple or a handful of nuts. And you know what they say: moderation keeps us from going psycho and smashing the vending machine into pieces to get to the Reese's Pieces. Or something like that, anyway. So, what do? How about bake your own superfood vegan biscotti? You're welcome.

On the 12th day of Christmas, my true love gave to me... a King's Cake. Though Christmas may already seem like a faraway memory, the traditional 12 days of Christmas actually begin on Christmas Eve and end on January 6th with Epiphany, the day traditionally attributed to the arrival of the three wise men at the birthplace of Jesus. In many Catholic traditions, this is the day that is celebrated with gifts and parties, as opposed to the 25th. While the French celebrate Christmas, much as we do in the States, the 6th is given its own special tradition... that of the King's Cake, or galette des Rois. Surprise your friends and family this year and make your very own King's Cake recipe.

"Oh bring us a figgy pudding..." Have you ever wondered what that lyric was about? When I was younger, I imagined something akin to a snack pack pudding with figs in it, which really couldn't be further from the truth.

Fruitcake has an unfortunate reputation. It’s the gift that keeps on giving – or getting given – as it’s passed back and forth between households as a hostess gift. In Italian families, panettone has a similar reputation: it’s said that the panettone that you give at Christmas will come back to you at Easter!

An explanation of Hanukkah Gelt, for those who only got one day of Christmas presents: Gelt is yiddish for money. It is customary on Hanukkah to give children a little money in the form of coins. Apparently the tradition started in 17th century Poland and the coins were intended for the children’s school teachers. I remember going as a young child to a family friend’s home on Hanukkah and a grandfather looking kind of man that was there pulled a silver dollar out of his pocket for every kid at the party, year after year. This moment of getting the silver dollar, from a man who seemed to gift them purely for the joy of watching children’s faces light up, is one of my indelibly printed memories of Hanukkah.

Nowadays, usually when we speak of Hanukkah Gelt, we are referring to those gold wrapped chocolate coins that everyone loves this time of year. These cookies are shaped like those chocolates, except the gold is on the inside in the form of extra virgin olive oil.