Peanut Butter Energy Bites, Recipe and Photos

Hi Steemit! These are one of my favourite easy and healthy snacks. Peanut Butter Energy Bites. They're vegan, sugar-free, gluten-free, organic and whole 30.

I've been making this recipe for the last several months and experimenting with different flavours. Above (from top to bottom) is cinnamon raisin, black chia and banana oat flavours.

It's a fairly quick recipe and it's very easy to have fun with trying different flavours. These are great for a healthy snack and they're not very sweet and have no added sugar.

(Below are pictures of the banana oat flavour.)

Personally these are my favourite kind of snack. And I prefer to make things like this myself because that way I know what all the ingredients are in what I'm eating. I prefer this to picking up a healthy snack bar. That's not too say that healthy bars are bad. But I find it really difficult sometimes to find ones that aren't too sweet, and that don't have a million ingredients that I can't even pronounce in them.

(Below is a picture of the black chia flavour.)

I'm very big on whole foods with minimal processing (which is largely what the Whole 30 diet is comprised of). In fact, this is how (for the first time!) I'm handling acne breakouts. So there are obviously certain ingredients that I have a reaction to. And by minimizing and keeping track of what's in my food, I'm avoiding these things, and therefore avoiding breakouts. And I may honestly never know exactly what all of these ingredients are that I'm having this reaction to. But what I can do is eat foods that have only a few whole ingredients in them (making sure that I know what these are and how they're processed). This way I figure I’m avoiding much of the "unknown" and overly processed in my diet.

(Below is my morello cherry jam glaze flavour.)

So anyway, these are some photos of the different flavours I've tried over the last little while. I really like this snack and any recipe I can get my hands on that are made up of whole ingredients with very few sweeteners. Anyone else feel the same?

I'll be trying my hand at some other baked snacks over the coming weeks. I'll be using organic whole ingredients with very few sweeteners. Wish me luck!

(Below from top to bottom are the cinnamon raisin, white chia, and banana oat flavours.)

This is a recipe that I've developed from trying and testing many recipes for energy bites, balls and bars. And I've come to like this combination of ingredients the best, and it's quite easy and fast.

Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Peanut Butter
2 - 3 Tbsps Maple Syrup (2 for less of a sweet flavour)
3 Tbsps Coconut Oil (I used Bulletproof XCT Coconut oil)
1 Tsp Vanilla
2 Tbsps Milk (can use any milk alternatives here, such as almond milk)
1/4 Tsp Sea Salt
1 Tsp Cinnamon
1 1/2 Cups Oats Ground (measure before grinding) (I used gluten-free oats)

Directions:
In a mixing bowl, combine all ingredients except the oats. Grind 1.5 cups of oats in a food processor. Then stir the ground oats into the mixing bowl gradually. Line a container with parchment paper. Then use your hands to form the batter into balls and place in the container. At this point you may also choose to coat the balls with chia seeds, raisins, cacao nibs, oats (unground), cinnamon, nuts, or any other toppings of your choosing. You could even mash a ripe banana or two for a banana flavour. Then place container in the freezer for 30 minutes or until fairly firm, and enjoy! You can store them in the fridge for up to a week.

Thanks for listening! I hope you enjoy this recipe as much as I have.

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