"Truffles"

Sometimes a girl's gotta have some chocolate and today is just one of those days. The weather's gloomy, the kids are cranky and all I want is to cozy up on my couch and eat my bonbons. But I won't 'cause the bonbons no longer cut it. It's funny the food I once enjoyed just doesn't taste all that great anymore. I can taste "fake" now and I can't tolerate the sugar laden "chocolate" anymore. I actually get a buzz from that stuff and trust me, it's not a good buzz!

So when the chips are down, I turn to these decadent little "truffles," packed with all the good stuff but taste like a little piece heaven!

These are super easy to make and require less than a handful of ingredients. You'll have to plan a bit ahead, as my recipe requires soaked nuts, which I normally soak overnight.  Otherwise you can whip them up within 15 minutes and the best part is that there's no baking required! You simply place all the ingredients in a food processor and pulse away, until everything is fully incorporated.

The ingredients you'll require for this recipe are quite simple and common to the average pantry.  You'll need raw almonds, pitted dates (I use deglet noor dates, these are small dates commonly found in grocery stores), cocoa powder, coconut oil and vanilla extract.  You can also add some chocolate chips, protein powder to increase the protein content, as well as ground chia or flax or avocados in place of the coconut oil. The recipe I'll be providing just includes the basic ingredients that I normally use, but you can play around with the recipe and include some super foods to beef up the nutritional content of the recipe. You can then adjust the thickness of the recipe by adding some water if your mixture gets too thick.

I send these off to school with my kids all the time.  They're actually a favorite of my younger daughter, she absolutely loves these. Occasionally both my kids will have a few of these for breakfast when we're in a rush, with absolutely no complaints!  When I prepare these for school I replace the almonds with raw sunflower seeds for a nut-free version.  They taste pretty much the same as the almond recipe, although we all prefer the almond version.

Before I share the recipe let me share a few of the reasons why I love almonds:

• A good source of essential vitamins and minerals.  In a 1/4 cup of almonds you'll obtain B7 or biotin 49% of DV (essential for fat and sugar metabolism), Vitamin E 40% of DV (an antioxidant which whelps prevent free radical damage), manganese 27% of DV (essential for bone, skin and hair formation), copper 26% of DV (antioxidant and essential for formation of collagen) also a source of phosphorus and magnesium.
• Help stabilize blood sugar, by stabilizing a rise in blood sugar and insulin levels after a meal. A study was posted in Metabolism which documented this finding.
• Aids in weight loss and wards off weight gain.  In one study performed by International Journal of Obesity individuals eating a restricted diet with added almonds lost more weight than those on the same restricted diet with the same calories of complex carbohydrates. In fact, the almond enhanced diet was 39% total fat (mainly monounsaturates) while the complex carbohydrate diet was only 18% total fat.
• Essential for cardiovascular health - lowers LDL cholesterol and reduces the risk of heart disease. Various studies have been performed to document this - here's one performed by the American Heart and Stoke association.