Do not try this at home.

If you lack self control in any way, shape or form, do not try this at home. The recipe I am about to discuss could be hazardous to your health. It could kill you from yumminess. Seriously...this shit is good.

Here's the story...

I met a nice girl at a networking meeting a while back. She has a blog - http://www.dietfix.blogspot.com/. She is currently experimenting with eating raw. This is where you eat foods that are not heated over a certain temperature. It includes lots of fruits, veggies, nuts, etc. She posted some awesome recipes. One of these recipes was for raw carrot cake cookies. I LOVE carrot cake. I have been known to eat an entire one by myself. A real one, not the raw version.


Trevor and I have changed our eating while we are training for Ironman Canada. Right now we are getting all our carbs from fruits and veggies. I have fallen in love dates, I think they are a fruit, and I love them. They are really sweet and you can do a lot with them. They serve as a glue of sorts in many recipes. If you are familiar with Lara Bars, dates are the main ingredient in all of them. I also like to put goat cheese inside the dates and either just pop them in my mouth like Buddy the Elf did with cotton balls in the movie "Elf" or I put them on a salad. Anyway, the point is, I love dates.


So I see this recipe and it is pretty simple - dates, almonds, agave syrup, coconut butter...Did you know that they make lots of things out of coconut? coconut milk that comes in a container like regular milk or soy milk, coconut milk yogurt, coconut milk ice cream. I've had the milk and the yogurt and it is really good. It is mostly fat, so you really have to be careful with the rest of your diet, but its a great base for smoothies or to mix with protein. Really yummy. I had seen the coconut butter at the store, but didn't buy it. First because of the price - $13.99 for a jar the size of a peanut butter jar, next because it was the same amount of fat as peanut butter and only 2 grams of protein. Anyway. I bought it for this recipe. I tried a little bit of it on a spoon...this stuff should be ILLEGAL.

I mixed all the ingredients together, modified a bit for my tastes and had a hard time stopping myself. I wanted to eat the entire thing. Instead, I came up with a great variation that was peanut butter and chocolate. I used three ingredients for this one...dates, peanut butter and raw cocoa nibs. Now, these nibs were something I picked up on a whim....they are unsweetened and unprocessed. If you ate some, you would probably spit them out, but I have aquired the taste for them and when I made these peanut butter balls, the cocoa was a perfect addition.

Here are the recipes...

Raw Carrot Cake Cookies

1/4 cup slivered almonds
16 medjool dates
1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut and 1/4 cup for garnish
2 tbsp Agave Nectar
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsp coconut butter
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup raisins
1/4 cup carrots
1 tsp vanilla

Use a food processor. Blend almonds to a fine powder. Add in your medjool dates and blend together. Add in coconut, agave nectar, salt, coconut butter, vanilla, cinnamon and blend together. Remove and set batter in a mixing bowl. Add carrots to the blender until they are almost a paste like consistency. Pour the carrots and raisins into the batter and mix all together. Then roll them into little balls and you can roll them in coconut if you like.


Peanut butter balls

8 medjool dates
2 tbsp peanut butter
raw cocoa nibs

Use food processor. Blend dates until well broken down, add peanut butter and blend until paste like. Roll into balls and then roll in cocoa nibs.

Put them in the fridge, lock it and give the key to someone who won't give it to you under pressure. Because you are going to want to eat these until they are gone. I'm not kidding. Well, maybe I am biase because I haven't had sugar for three weeks - no cookies, candy, cakes, carbohydrate powders, hammer gels, bread, pasta, rice...maybe my mind is playing tricks on me. But seriously, I love these little balls. Isn't the word "ball" fun to say? I think I found a new valentine. We'll see what Trevor thinks of them...maybe he won't like them and then I can eat them all...