Super Healthy Peanut Butter Treats!

Just thought I'd share a recipe that has been well received in our house.  These peanut butter balls are healthy and full of yumminess :)

 

Peanut Butter Yummies~

I was inspired by a recipe I saw (a long time ago) on another blog...MckMama (back when she blogged) and then I found that there are a million different variations on Pinterest.  I knew I wanted a snack that was healthy, full of protein, low in carbs, a good source of healthy fats, and gluten free or very low in gluten...and it needed to taste great too.  I also needed it to be "low texture" because Gracia didn't care for the nutty texture of my first couple of batches.

Here's what I came up with.

Ingredients:  One 26 ounce jar of creamy natural peanut butter.
1/2 cup of raw cashews, chopped or ground
1/2 cup of raw sunflower seeds, whole or ground
1/2 cup of pistachios, chopped or ground
8 Tablespoons of flax meal
4 scoops of chocolate whey protein (I use a gluten free brand)
6 ounces of bitter-sweet chocolate chips
4 Tablespoons of hemp hearts
4 Tablespoons of PB2...a peanut butter powder you can find at more health conscience or natural grocers.

To make:
I heat the peanut butter in my microwave for 1 minute to make it more mixable.  I use a coffee grinder to grind my nuts and seeds into a flour...remember, I needed mine to be "low texture".  Add all the ingredients together and mix well.  The heat from the warm peanut butter usually melts my chocolate chips...perfect!

Sunflower seed "flour"~

Ready to mix, mix, mix~

Roll into round balls and then roll in hemp hearts.*  Mine are probably about an inch and the batch made 83.  I have also rolled them in coconut, flax seeds, and chia seeds.  I personally prefer the hemp hearts and coconut...the flax and chia seeds seem to get stuck in my teeth and mouth.  I want to try cocoa powder sometime.  Store in the fridge.

*You don't have to roll them in anything.  I left some plain for Gray because she has some "texture challenges".  But if you don't coat them with something, make sure they are not touching when you first put them in the fridge...otherwise they'll stick together.  Now that I'm writing and thinking and since I've done some "plain" ones for her, I'm considering just smoothing out a whole batch using parchment paper and a cookie sheet...then I could cut it like fudge after it chills...because I will admit all that rolling is a bit labor intensive.

As I'm sure you can tell, you can add just about anything to these to modify them to your taste and preferences...not a fan of raw cashews, use almonds instead...not a fan of raw nuts, use roasted if you prefer...sunflower seeds not your favorite, maybe walnuts or pecans would be perfect for you...never even heard of hemp hearts, you should remedy that...you get the idea ;)  I added natural coconut flakes to a batch once and they were awesome...but somehow Gray managed to spit out each.little.bit.of.flake...that was messy :)

I did a nutritional breakdown of my last batch...they are not for the low cal, low fat crowd...but that whole low fat, low calorie nutritional "advice" is proving to be not-so-good-for-you after all...remember, these are full of monounsaturated fats and that kind of fat is good for you.

Anyway, here's the scoop.  I measured as well as I could and tried hard to be accurate, but these numbers could always be off by a bit.  The breakdown per peanut butter ball is...

Calories: 88  
Fat: 6.5 grams  
Protein: 3.25 grams 
Carbs:  4 grams

We eat them as a snack and even enjoy them as part of our breakfast.   

Just another shot of the peanut butter yummies~

Hope you try them...let me know what you think or what you variation you come up with :)

Blessings...here's to happy, healthy snacking~

Rach