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Nothing better than freshly picked  strawberries in the spring. These Balsamic Infused Strawberries are a healthy way to satisfy your hunger after an outdoor activity.

Each day I try to make a conscious effort to live a more balanced life. Balanced to me is…  doing work I enjoy, spending time with family and friends, and me time, (my me time is spiritual, physical and mental health, although not always in that order). I try to make smarter choices. So today I want to share with you ways that I balance my life.

1. Make exercise fun. I like to walk and hike for my exercise. I take my dogs Emma and Lily. They love being outdoors, and I like their  company. I am always out and about by the crack of dawn.

2. Spend more time with family and friends. Finding time when we can all be together, now that can be a challenge. We all have busy schedules. Here are three of my busy friends.

3. Have a good balance of the foods that I feed my body. I consume to much sugar, it’s a problem for me, it always has been. So I swap out SPLENDA® for sugar in some of my recipes. I was surprised to find out that swapping just one cup of sugar with one cup of SLENDA® No Calorie Sweetener, Granulated can save more than 600 calories!

I found a way to combine all three at the same time. I invited a few friends to take a walk with me in my neighborhood and then afterwards came back to my house for a light snack on my sun porch. I haven’t done something like this in a long time. I was so excited. I texted each friend to ask if they would like to come over for a walk and sample a recipe sharing that I was going to put on the blog. Getting 3 busy ladies together on a Saturday would be a challenge. Luckily they all agreed. I love my friends!

They all arrived around 7:45 am. I had already gotten the snack set up on the sun porch so it would be ready when we finished our walk. I made a recipe that is served at room temperature, this way I could have it set up on the sun porch and it’s ready to eat when we finish our walk. No fuss.

I found the recipe on the SWEET SWAPS website. It’s a website that has a ton of different tips and recipes swapping out sugar with SPLENDA^®. It makes doing the sugar swap on your recipes a breeze. I’ve always had a hard time knowing how to substitute sugar in a recipe. SPLENDA® makes  it so simple with Sweet Swaps. As you know I like simple and easy.

I prepared Balsamic-Infused Strawberries.

To make the recipe you’ll need:
4 cups sliced strawberries, rinsed and sliced
2 SPLENDA^® No Calorie Sweetener Packets
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
10 leaves basil

Place the sliced strawberries into a large bowl and toss with the balsamic vinegar and  SPLENDA^® No Calorie Sweetener.

Set the bowl aside for at least 40 minutes at room temperature so the flavors can marinate.

Roll and slice your basil leaves with a sharp knife, making thin strips.

Divide the strawberries into 4 bowls with juices and top with basil for garnish. I set up the table on the sun porch. Look how pretty it looked. I put the strawberry lemon-aide I had made in the refrigerator so it would be ice cold when we got back from our walk.

After my friends arrived they all took a peek on the sun porch at what was waiting for them when we finished our walk. An incentive. 🙂 We took our walk in my neighborhood. We were glad to have started early it was going to be a warm day. We chatted the whole time you hardly even noticed you were walking. We had a great time.

My friend Lisa wasn’t to keen on strawberries, but she was willing to give my recipe a try and give me her honest opinion. She was so surprised at how delicious they tasted.

My sister Linda decided she wanted to sweeten hers up  a bit, so she sprinkled on a little more SPLENDA®.

My sister-in-law Marti thought the strawberries tasted delicious, she loves all sorts of fruits and vegetables.

The vote was unanimous, everyone loved the strawberries. I loved how simple it was to prepare. You can find a wide variety of recipes on the website SWEET SWAPS.

Balsamic Infused Strawberry Recipe

What are the things you do to live a more balanced life?