I was hoping to make some treats for our daughter, who is visiting for Thanksgiving and is vegan. When our adult children visit we are always trying to show our love by feeding them. Before she announced that she was coming, I was planning to mail her a treat box, so I’ll have to do that another time.

Her brothers will help eat her treats as well, but they’ll eat anything! My first attempt at treats was something involving ingredients I had on hand. I always have dates as my husband eats them daily for good digestion. I had pecans leftover from my fruitcake project (more about that in another post). So I decided to make date cocoa power balls. There are lots of versions of recipes for these treats all over the internet. The key is finding one that tastes sweet enough with things I have on hand.

Ingredients:

1 Cup Pitted Dates

1 Cup Chopped Pecans (or Walnuts or Almonds)

1/2 Cup Pure Cocoa

1 Tsp Vanilla

1 Tsp Cinnamon

1 Tbsp Peanut or Almond Butter

1 Tbsp Liquid Honey – (I know a lot of vegans do not eat Honey, but mine does, but you could substitute a splash of maple syrup)

I added the peanut butter and honey to make the balls stick together a little more and to add a bit more flavour. They are optional!

Put all the ingredients into a blender and pulse till well blended. Remove from blender and roll into one inch balls. Refrigerate.

This only produced 10 powerballs for me, but that was enough! These can be rolled in coconut flakes, cocoa powder or powdered sugar to fancy them up a bit, but they won’t last in my house just as they are.