Amaze Balls

As a vegetarian with aspirational vegan tendencies coupled with a serious liking for chocolate, and a desire to give my toddler healthy snacks I have been coming up with ways that I can enjoy the taste of chocolate without having to spoil it with cow pus or exorbitant quantities of sugar!  I am a fan of Nakd bars which are made with raisins and nuts and stuff and I thought I would have a go at making my own using the ingredients listed on the pack.  

Here is my first attempt at a chocolatey vegan homemade snack, I call them Amaze Balls because you will be amazed at the flavour (and they are ball shaped!(and it sounds awesome!))

This is how I made them:

In a blender place 5 dates, 50g raisins, 2tbs coca powder, 50g cashew nuts and 1/2 tsp orange essence. 

Blend until they become a thick paste,

Roll into beautiful shiny balls,

EAT!

(Warning these are addictive! They won't be around for long!)

Habas Fritas

As you know I am lucky enough to have rental of a 30 foot by 15 foot allotment 4 miles from my home, I go there as much as I can, though that is getting less and less with my expanding belly.  Recently we harvested our broad beans.  I love broad beans, I know some people hate them, but I am of the opinion that it is how you cook them that counts.  So whether they are young and tender or mature, fat and soft, broad beans make a great ingredient to many recipes and they also make a fantastic snack.

We first discovered Habas Fritas at a farm shop near us, they are baked and seasoned Broad beans from Spain, we loved their salty crunchiness, they are high in calories which is excellent for me being pregnant and breastfeeding, and a great dairy free snack for Boris (not his real name!).  I was convinced that I could make some myself with our over-abundant broad bean crop, so googled to find a recipe.  I found a couple of recipes saying how to make Habas Fritas from deep fried dried broad beans, but none for fresh broad beans, and none with a healthier alternative to deep frying, so I set about coming up with my own recipe.

I began by taking the beans out of their fluffy pods and boiling them for about 10 minutes till their skins started to wrinkle.  I left them to cool then peeled their skins off, (the skins can be tough on more mature broad beans and for this recipe you need them to split so you need the skins off).  Next I put the beans on a baking tray with a few tablespoons of organic unfiltered olive oil and baked them in a hot over for about 20 minutes till they were dried and crispy, yum!  After they had cooled I put a teaspoon of salt over them (you could take some out for you toddler before adding salt if you are worried about it), and we enjoyed them with our lunch as a delicious crunchy side and stored the rest in an air tight container.

On this occasion they were slightly (imperfectly) overcooked!!  But I can assure you that, in spite of their somewhat questionable colour, they were still delicious. 

Check out more of my delicious recipes by clicking on the Recipes tab at the top, or HERE

UPDATE:  I have made these again since and steamed the beans which works fine.

Hope you have a go at these, they really are a tasty treat, let me know how you get on, or what other home-made snacks you enjoy?