Chocolate fruit and nut balls

One of the first recipes or blog posts I saw from the sort of 'whole food' community was one about something called 'bliss balls'.  They were described as little balls of chocolatey heaven with none of the guilt. Or similar!  I rather liked the sound of that so I bought the ingredients and followed the recipe all excited.  Then, there they were, these little balls of loveliness all ready and waiting to pop into my eager and waiting mouth...

...I hated them.

And I hated the fact that I hated them.  I wanted to love them as much as blog poster did.  I wanted to feel a part of this wholesome whole food eating bliss ball rolling community.  

So I ate another.  Nope, still horrible.  They were just too sickly, a bit greasy, not quite sweet or chocolatey enough and just all wrong from my point of view.  A bit like nutella, or ferrero rocher...just not quite right if you ask me!

A while later, having seen about 85 billion more posts and recipes on these little balls of wrongness, I tried another recipe.  Still not buying it.

Then this evening I thought to myself, when I whizz up the dates and nuts and whatnot in the blender I always really like the taste of what comes out, and I'm pretty sure with a bit of tweaking here and there I could make the mixture into balls.

So, off I popped into the kitchen armed with my trusty hand blender (well, no, that was already there, but you know what I mean), rooted about in jars of stuff and came up with the following recipe which......I LOVED!! And so did Alex so there are now none left already.  Oops.

Here's what I did:

handful brazils

handful cashews

2 dessert spoons almond butter

tspoon or 2 date syrup

5 pitted medjool dates

1 table spoon raw cacao powder

You could use any nuts really but I just fancied this mix today.

Then all I did was whizz it up on full power for a bit until it resembled what I can only describe as crumbly soil!  There should still be visible bits of nut in it and it should be crumbly rather that gooey - add more dry stuff if not.

Despite being crumbly, it is also nice and sticky so then, just grab some in your hands and press it together into a ball shapes.  The mixture is enough to make 10 balls.

10 little balls of chocolatey yumminess I PROMISE.  Not too sickly, not oily, not sort of airy fairy chocolate, just yum with a nice consistency.

And whilst not the healthiest of all things ever, all whole foods, all natural ingredients and all yum.

I'd love to hear if anybody found another 'bliss ball' style recipe they liked or what you think of this one? Think I might experiment with a bit more fruitiness somehow next time.  Or dip them in molten dark chocolate and pop in the fridge to set. Or add some rose water. Or....

Avocado advocate

I LOVE avocado.

Ok, so for a fruit it is rather calorie and fat laden, but I don't care, it's not exactly a deep fried marsbar is it!? The fat in an avocado is the good kind, kind of like WD40 for the joints and any help I can get keeping my bits and pieces supple, I'm taking it.

Apart from having lots of vitamin C and E (good for skin), potassium, iron, folate etc, avocados are also a good way to get your vitamin B6 which is super handy for lots of reasons especially where the nervous system is involved, but the one I'm most interested in is the job it plays in mood regulation and mental function...avocado is a super happy fruit!

But apart from all of that it just tastes so yummy and is so versatile it can be used pretty much however you like.


I eat it for breakfast in my smoothies where it gives a lovely creamy thick texture without adding any weird veg taste;

I have it in salads; I spread it on toast instead of butter;  I mush it up to make a kind of guacamole;

I spoon it straight out of the skin with a squeeze of lemon juice (which tastes nice but also stops the flesh going brown.  What I had today for lunch as it happens).

I mixed it into scrambled egg the other day as well which worked surprisingly well.

 Even my most favourite sandwich ever has avocado in it.

This evening I was planning on making one of our favourite dinners.  This dinner sounds like the most boring random collection of stuff on a plate ever and I was very very dubious when I first made it, but it is so so yummy.  I don't even remember where I first saw the idea but basically all you do is this:
Chop up an avocado, a mango and a nice big beef tomato, put it on 2 plates, add some butter beans, sprinkle some light dressing over the top.

That's it.  I promise it is such a delicious combo and it is really filling despite not really having much actually in it.

Anyway, that's what I was going to make but I suddenly couldn't really be bothered.  I don't know why, it's not like it involves much of anything at all really other than throwing stuff on a plate, but sometimes I just don't really even feel like having to use a knife and fork!

So, I made our favourite sandwich instead.

Again, sounds completely rubbish and boring but is such a fab flavour combo:

Toasted wholemeal or granary or some kind of nice whole brown bread.
Whatever butter/mayo type spread you fancy (I used houmous tonight to add some protein)
Half an avo and half a big juicy tomato
sea salt & black pepper.

That's it! SO yummy. And no need for the knife and fork :).

Anybody else got any other handy avocado tips? I'd love to hear them...