Amla Berry Energy Balls with Ginger and Flax

🌟 Spiced Amla & Date Energy Balls

Looking for a snack that does more than just beat the afternoon slump? This recipe combines the legendary antioxidant power of **amla powder** (Indian gooseberry) with a zesty kick of ginger, sweet dates, and creamy cashews.

They taste like a rich, spiced cookie dough—but they are 100% raw, vegan, and packed with cellular defense. 

Learn about AMLA and cholesterol, also there are currently 245 results in nutritionfacts.org for a search of amla (also here you can see a link to the HNTD documentary at the top). Preview of video: reduced cholesterol, arterial stiffness, and inflammation (CRP cut in half!).

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Equipment: Food processor

Yield: About 24 bites

🛒 Ingredients

1 cup Raw cashews

⅔ cup Pitted dates (if they're on the drier side, soak them in hot water for 5 minutes first!)

⅓ cup Ground flaxseed (ground required for nutrient absorption)

1 tbsp Amla powder (your daily dose of Vitamin C & antioxidants)

1 tsp Ground ginger (for a warm, digestive-boosting kick)

🥣 Instructions

Add the cashews, dates, flaxseed, amla powder, and ground ginger to your food processor. Process on high until the mixture starts clumping together into a cohesive dough. If it feels a little too dry to roll, add a teaspoon of water. Scoop out tablespoon-sized portions and roll them smoothly between your palms. Enjoy!

Tip: Put dough in plastic bag and form balls from outside the bag. Also, crumbly mixture is great stirred into oatmeal before or after cooking oats.

Why this Combo Works

Amla powder is naturally quite tart and slightly bitter. Blending it with sweet, caramelly dates and rich cashews completely balances the flavor, leaving you with a delicious, zesty treat that supports radiant skin and immune health!

Comment below or on FB if you whip up a batch of these superfood gems! 🌿✨

Try other Laraball (energy ball) flavors! Many flavors

Where to buy Amla Powder? Here is an option if you live on the eastside of Cleveland: Lakshmi Plaza. Otherwise, look for your local Indian food Grocer, or find on Amazon. Be sure to purchase as a food, especially on Amazon, rather than as a supplement/extract/capsule. Oddly, the product from our local shop was labeled as a supplement, even though it is clearly a food in powder form.

This is a great product I've purchased from Amazon: Amazon.com : Organic Amla Powder - 1.1 lbs or 17.54oz | Amalaki, USDA Organics, Non-GMO, Kosher, Halal - 100% Raw and Natural, by SHOPOSR : Everything Else 

(notice the label provides "Nutrition Facts" and it is an organic product)

Delightful Date Dip

As you may know, I like simple. So, this date dip includes 2 food ingredients plus water. I'm sure there are endless possibilities to explore. The way I've eaten most of my first batches of dip have been with apple slices. What ideas do you have?

Delightful Date Dip

2 c pitted dates

1 c water

1/4 c oats

Combine ingredients in high-speed blender to form a caramel-like consistency, remove mixture from blender, and chill. Slice green and red apples. Enjoy!

EXPLORATION IDEAS: cooking the mixture so it tastes more like caramel, cocoa, hazelnuts, cashews, miso, peanuts - yum!

DAILY DOZEN CHECK MARKS: Several fruit checkmarks, depending how much you eat! Probably no grain checkmarks though, unless you eat the whole batch!

Please share in a comment below if you have an idea of what you want in another post. I'm excited to share!
 

Lemon Lift Morning Muffins

My son said: "Mom, these are the best banana muffins you have ever made!"

My neighbor said: "Those muffins you made for us the other day were really good!" (this from a boy who eats very little at my house) Also, I made a batch with added blueberries as a bread, and this boy also enjoyed a piece of that, and asked for seconds!

My daughter ate a bunch of pieces after her soccer and cross country practices, and that's ok because it's a bunch of nutritious ingredients! Breakfast, lunch, any time!

It is simply Smooth and Sweet Banana Bread minus 1/2 c water + 1 whole lemon.

This photo is of the wet ingredients for a DOUBLE batch!

Lemony Lift Morning Muffins

4 ripe bananas
12 pitted dates
1/4 c milled flaxseed
1/2 c water
1 lemon, quartered, seeds and stem removed
1 c (240 g) whole wheat flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Combine top 5 ingredients (double batch pictured above) in strong blender such as our Blendtec blender. Measure dry ingredients, then add wet to dry. Bake at 350 for 30 min or so, let cool, and enjoy!

Daily Dozen Checkmarks: flax, grain, and 3 fruit (dates, bananas, and lemon)

Chocolate Cherry Torte Energy Balls ~ Laraballs (Revised)

4 Checkmarks from Dr Greger's Daily Dozen!

Note: Kirkland cherries have added sugar...but I still like the pic :)

(I LOVE BERRIES AND CHOCOLATE)

Chocolate Cherry Torte Energy Bites ~ Laraballs
(Original Post)

1 c walnuts

1/2 c dried cherries, unsweetened
1/2 c dates, pitted
1/2 c cocoa, unsweetened
1/4 c flaxseed, ground
1/2 Tbsp water

Blend well with a food processor (set a 90 sec timer) and shape how ever you like! Larabars are a favorite treat in my house and super-healthy (read more here).

Transfer the mix in a resealable sandwich bag and shape into balls from outside bag. They can be stored at room temp or in the frig. Easy as that!

Check out this Google Image Search to get the idea of the flavor I was going for - healthy style ;)

Use a quart sized bag for this recipe since I doubled the original,
...or you could follow the photo and use two sandwich bags.

Good for the Naughty (I'll take this coal any day!)

Good for the Nice (give as a gift, even send in the mail!)

Cherry Lemon Bars (New Laraball Recipe!)

OMGosh! These Cherry Lemon Bars are the bomb! So good I could eat a whole batch at once! In fact the first time I made them, I did! I never even had a chance to give my kids a taste! I have been envisioning this recipe for years, as the idea sat on one of my many lists. Lemon and berries are fabulous! Also, I added a few ingredients to bump up the Dr Greger Daily Dozen check marks! 

Check marks: 1) nuts, 2) fruit, 3), flaxseed, and 4) spices
Here you go!

Cherry Lemon Bar Laraballs
3/4 c unsalted cashews
1/3 c pitted dates
1/4 c dried cherries (try for unsweetened...I found sweetened with juice from Whole Foods this week)
zest of half a fresh lemon (actually I just trim off the lemon peel with a knife like this)
1 Tbsp ground flaxseed
1 tsp arrowroot
1 tsp vanilla

Blend ingredients in a food processor, until dough begins to fall away from edges, to desired consistency, and form into balls (the photo shows bars, but they are actually much more time consuming than balls), and enjoy!

Put all ingredients in a resealable bag and form dough into balls, so you don't get "food hands". Sorry to Laraball fans to be redundant, but I want everyone to know our easy tricks!



What the Health
This movie was AMAZING! I highly recommend you watch ASAP! Not surprisingly, the website looks like a fabulous resource as well. For example, the FACTS page :)You can stream and download any time for just $9.99!

I was lucky enough to attend a Q and A with the funny, sweet, and knowledgeable Caldwell, Ann, and Jane Esselstyn :) They are an amazing family!

Special thanks to Plant Based CLE (on FB) and Jane Esselsyn's Health Care is Self Care, the awesome organizations responsible for the fabulous event!

Coming soon: some of my favorite lessons from Dr Esselstyn, as well as some great nuggets from What the Health!

If you like what you find here, please "like" the fresh-you FB page, and share with your friends and families. Thank you!

New Laraball Flavor: Crunchy Pumpkin Spice Cookie Dough!

This delightful recipe was inspired by a Laraball recipe, No-Bake Carrot Cake.

This recipe doesn't make a pretty picture, but it sure is tasty! It also has about 5 check marks on Dr Greger's Daily Dozen checklist from his awesome book, How Not to Die. He provides a list of the healthiest foods to eat every day, according to the best available nutrition evidence.

You'll get 1) nuts, 2) fruit (dates, raisins, pineapple), 3) other vegetables (carrot), 4) spices (turmeric, and more!), 5) flax.

Crunchy Pumpkin Spice Cookie Dough
1 c walnuts (2/3 + 1/3)
1 Tbsp ground flaxseed
2 tsp pumpkin spice
1/4 c raisins
1/4 c pitted dates (5 pieces)
1/2 of a large carrot, chopped in a few pieces
1/4" fresh turmeric
1 piece unsweetened dried pineapple

Simply blend all ingredients (except 1/3 c of walnuts) in a food processor until they stick together like a gooey dough. Add 1/3 c walnuts, and blend a bit more, so you have some extra crunch! Then put the whole dough ball into a resealable bag and make into balls from outside the bag without getting gooey hands. Really, you can just pull/pinch out a piece of the dough, and pop it in your mouth. We refrigerate the dough because it is moister than other Laraballs. Enjoy!

You can also try Skinny Mints which are chocolate-mint Laraballs; they are like Thin Mint Girl Scout cookies and PB and J Poppers!

"Like" my FB page to see on your home page when new posts show up here!

PS- if you haven't, please check out the previous post! Free Naked Food Subscription AND Vegan/Vegetarian Stuff Popping Up Everywhere! It was so fun to make! It's about how we keep hearing about vegetarian, vegan, tufu, organic, etc in shows and books and magazines. I think it's a good sign that more and more people are becoming aware of this healthier way of life! Also, you can subscribe to a new PBWF magazine for free! It's called Naked Food, and it was created in association with The China Study.

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Tell me in a comment below!

Sugar-Free Cranberry Sauce!

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite days. Imagine - one special day for all Americans to really appreciate all that we have and spend time together with our loved ones. Here are 7 Awesome Benefits of Gratitude!

Plus, the food is the bomb! I can't get enough! Thanksgiving seems to be a meal when even the picky, veggie-haters have a favorite veggie or two on their plate, and aren't the colors lovely!

Tangy Cranberry Sauce is perfect for the holidays, or any time!

Stock your freezer with cranberries now, to enjoy all winter long!

Tangy Sugar-Free Cranberry Sauce

Tangy Cranberry Sauce
3-4 cups cranberries
1 orange
1/2 c (10 pieces) pitted dates
1/2 a cinnamon stick

Prepare the zest of half an orange. I do this by cutting away only the orange layer of the peel*. Cut the orange up in wedges**. Combine dates, orange wedges, peel, and half of the berries (or all) in food processor until desired consistency. Wrap processor rim with a towel, in case juice leaks out. At this point, you can be finished, with a very tasty, crunchy, raw cranberry sauce (shown in bottom middle photo).

OR: combine mixture, remaining berries, and a cup or so of water in a sauce pan. Bring to a boil, then lower heat, and simmer to desired consistency, around 30 min. It's delicious when hot! And lovely cool. Enjoy it any way you like!

*You can use extra orange peel for Orange Almond Biscotti Laraballs!
**I've cut the orange using lots of the white part, and I've done it cutting away most of the white. Both ways are delicious, latter is sweeter. Note that the white parts of citrus fruits provide significant cancer-protection.

Sauce in left corner has been cooked, sauce in bottom, middle photo is Raw Tangy Cranberry Sauce.

Don't you just love Thanksgiving leftovers?!

Quick and Creamy Kale Couscous Gets 9 Check Marks off Dr Greger's Daily Dozen!

Quick and Creamy Kale Couscous is super easy, nutritious, and delicious! Prepare the dish in 5 minutes and enjoy it all week!

Quick and Creamy Kale Couscous gets 9 Check Marks off Dr Greger's Daily Dozen!

Quick and Creamy Kale Couscous

1 cup whole wheat couscous

2 handfuls kale, ripped, stems removed

1/4 cup walnuts, broken in small pieces

1/4 cup flaxseed, ground

6 dates, pitted, chopped

1 cup black beans, in juice

3 Roma tomatoes, chopped

tsp black pepper

1/2 lemon, squeezed

balsamic vinegar (optional)

Start with dry couscous in your serving bowl. Cover couscous in bowling water, top with kale, cover, and let sit for at least 3 minutes (this will cook the couscous!). Chop dates and tomatoes. Combine all ingredients, and enjoy!

Serve with a side of blueberries and a glass of water, and follow your meal with a brisk walk for a dozen check marks from Dr Michael Greger's Daily Dozen!

I'll also share here, one of Dr Greger's newest videos, which by the way made me cry! Tears of complete admiration and gratitude for all that Dr Greger and his nutritional research team do for the health of the world!

BEHIND THE SCENES AT NUTRITIONFACTS.ORG

Chocolate Brownie Muffin Top Cookies!

Chocolate Brownie Cookies



These butter-free, sugar-free, and guilt-free snacks are so delicious! They are a great sweet for school lunches, or a couple of these cookies are so healthy that they can serve as a quick on-the-go breakfast!

2 c pitted dates (40 pieces)
2 and 1/4 c hot water
1/4 c ground flaxseed
2 c whole wheat flour
3/4 c unsweetened cocoa
1 tsp baking soda
1 Tbsp baking powder

Heat oven to 375 convection (400 conventional). In a food processor, chop dates into a sticky ball. In mixing bowl, stir dates, water, and flax, until well mixed. In separate bowl, mix dry ingredients (flour, cocoa, baking powder, and baking soda). Mix wet and dry just until dry is wet. Put scoopfuls onto cookie sheet (I love silicon my bakeware). I get two sheets of 12-13 cookies per recipe. If you enjoy pecans, add a few on top before baking. So pretty! Bake about 20 minutes and enjoy!

If you choose to make cupcakes, recipe should make about one dozen.

For the last batch I made, I added 3 pecans per cookie, coming together in the middle in a "Y" shape, for a very pretty presentation. Plus, the pecans get toasted, really adding to the flavor :)

Other similar recipes include:

Banana Breakfast Cookies
Peanut Butter Banana Crunch Breakfast Cookies
Pumpkin Spice Cookies

3-Ingredient Pecan Pie Bites!

I have now made these Snickerdoodle Laraballs (or No-Bake Cinnamon Pecan Pie Bites) several times in the last week or so. I just can't get enough, which is ok since they are super-healthy! I hope you LOVE them too!

ALL YOU NEED:

2/3 c PECANS*
1/2 c DATES (10 pieces)
1 Tbsp CINNAMON

I usually TRIPLE this recipe!

Blend everything in your food processor for a few minutes, until the dough begins to fall away from the outside walls. Form dough into balls (or bars or whatever shape you like) and viola! I always put my dough into a large plastic bag and form balls from the outside of the bag (I don't like food hands!).

*Toasting is a great addition! Toast pecans in a single layer on a baking sheet at about 400 for about 8 min. Watch closely, let them darken, taste for doneness, they should sizzle when you bite!

This mixture is super tasty with cereal and almond milk for breakfast! It's like the Apple Cinnamon Cheerios I ate as a kid, or just like when I added cinnamon sugar to cereal, another childhood memory. Only this mixture is so much healthier, adding vitamins, minerals, fiber, phytochemicals, and best of all, yumminess!

As with all Laraballs (lots of yummy flavors at bottom of this link), there is no gluten, dairy, sugar, butter, or oil, so they are truly a guilt-free pleasure. I don't think anyone should ever feel GUILT about food, and, most of the time, I enjoy practicing what I preach about this :).

After I made them, I remembered a delicious recipe I had made and loved from Melissa's My Whole Food Life, No-Bake Snickerdoodles. Her recipe is also very tasty!

COMMENTS: What healthy options do you make that remind you of something you ate when you were a kid? And who else likes (or ever liked) Apple Cinnamon Cheerios? Happy Lunar Eclipse! Did anybody see it? My family tried, but I guess it was too cloudy :(

Crazy Cool Costco Catches

Costco could probably keep my family happily fed, and nourished with just these few favorites!

Organic frozen raspberries

These are one of the most delightful foods in my whole world!  A bowl of these berries is a wonderful dessert, with a happy aftertaste and after-feel (like no bellyaches or yucky feelings).  They just melt in my mouth!

Organic frozen broccoli

A pound or two each day has become a staple for my family.  We all happily eat them up each night for a powerful daily dose of cancer prevention and we love it!

Organic Garofolo whole wheat pasta

I normally get WHOLE WHEAT pasta from Costco, and ORGANIC whole wheat pasta from Trader Joe's. Now, I can have ORGANIC WHOLE WHEAT pasta from Costco, for $1.30/lb!  It tastes great too!  Here are some yummy pasta alternates and recipes!

Unsalted cashews

These are delicious! I do enjoy salted cashews, but after a bite or two, that saltiness is too much for me, and it makes stinginess on my lips, and of course who needs all that sodium?!  Try some Cashew Cookie Laraballs or Tasty Tofu Stir-Fry or Lemon Bar Laraballs or or some Morning Power Smoothie!

Hass Avocados

Avocados are such a favorite that I must give them a quick shout out!  Just remember to buy them hard, set them out until softened, but still firm, and then refrigerate them until you are ready for their delightfulness!  Some avocado recipes are here (don't mind the posts without avocado recipes).

Deglet Noor Dates (restocked after a long wait...again!)

This is the ultimate sweetness!  Fiber, no refining, no artificial sweeteners, AND this particular brand is pitted (huge time-saver) and cheap (little over $2/lb)!  Check out these sweet date recipes!

Here is another post about other things I like from Costco!

This Dude is Awesome!

I love how science and research can answer many questions, and I base my nutrition, fitness, and wellness advice on hard data! Dr Michael Greger, MD, of www.nutritionfacts.org is AWESOME! Dr Greger concisely and visually convinces his viewers of the often fabulous benefits of whole foods, and also dispels harmful, and often all too common myths about health and nutrition.

Here are Dr Greger's more than 1500 health topics! Watch some videos and be motivated to make some changes! Enjoy! And thank you kindly, Dr Greger!

Beans are super-nutritious!

This video explains one more awesome benefit of BEANS!

Check out the awesomeness of dates (a key nutrient in many Laraball recipes!)!

Watch this one and I bet you'll start drinking a glass of water, first thing in the morning, as well as teaching the habit to each of your kiddos!

More on HYDRATION here :)

COMMENTS: What did you learn from one of Dr Greger's videos? There are so many that I still want to watch and learn from!

Homemade Peanut Butter! OMG! Why Did I Wait?!

We love peanut butter in my house, and why shouldn't we? It's nutritious AND delicious! This homemade peanut butter may be responsible for a name change to our food processor; it will now be called OUR NUT BUTTER MAKER!

Nut Butters are Neat-O! (some ideas of what to do with your PB!)

Crunchy Homemade Peanut Butter

Crunchy Homemade Peanut Butter

1 pound peanuts
3 dates (optional...adds a bit of sweetness)

Puree in food processor for three minutes or so, until you have peanut butter!  That's it!

I am going to give a big thank you to Melissa of My Whole Food Life (here is a link to some awesome blueberry jam with chia!) for her comments about just how easy this is! As I shared with her, I tried making peanut butter several years ago with a Vitamix and it didn't go well. This one experience, along with lots of time, led me to feel that making peanut (or almond, or cashew, or probably any kind of nut) butter would be so much more difficult than buying.

When I finally decided to go for it, I was astounded at how quickly I had MADE my own delicious peanut butter! It's just like (even MUCH better!) the kind you get from Whole Foods or Heinen's or at a Farmer's Market (we get Sirina's Almond Butter at Crocker Park in Westlake, OH)!

On the other hand, like LARABARS, I was reassured of the value of fresh-ground nut butters at most of these stores...it takes a lot (around a pound) of nuts to fill a pint-sized container. P.S. Our container IS ALREADY just about gone!

So, I will buy NO more peanut butter from Costco! The evolution of peanut butter from Costco has been disappointing :( Over the last 5 years, Costco has gone from offering Kirkland Organic Natural Peanut Butter (basically, nuts and salt, awesome!), to a non-organic Kirkland natural variety (such a bummer not to have organic!), to Skippy Natural (omits hydrogenated oils, adds sugar!), and yesterday, there was only traditional peanut butter (made with hydrogenated oils, i.e. TRANS FAT, and probably sugar!, and WHY is it even still on the market?!). YUCK!

Other simple food tasks that took me a while to try:

a) making bread (from a bread maker, for me!), and
b) using dried beans! Lucky Seven Sweet Things about Dried Beans, and More!

Sometimes, even though I KNOW how easy doing it may be, it still takes takes motivation to try something new! I guess we really are creatures of habit :)

COMMENTS: What food habit do you do now, but it took you a while to start?

Cashew Cookie Laraballs

Larabars are awesome!  Cashew Cookie was one of the original flavors!  It's also one of the first Laraball flavors I tried to recreate (Check out all the yummy flavors!).  Now you can too!

Buying Larabars is great for CONVENIENCE; ready INSTANTLY, if you don't have 3 MINUTES to make up a batch! Additionally, the sealed up in a wrapper offers ready-to-go-ness, and hardly ever goes bad-ness! Not that we have ever had a Laraball hang around long enough to have a chance to "go bad".

Cashew Cookie Laraballs

1 c roasted cashews

1 c dates

optional: dash of salt

Combine nuts and dates in a food processor* until mixture is moldable into balls (this batch makes twice as many balls as other Laraball recipes, ~3 dozen), OR you can shape them with cookie cutters like these cute hearts that my daughter made on her own!, OR you could make sandwiches with apples!

*If you only have a mini, use 1/2 c of cashews and dates each to make ~16 balls.

Apple sandwiches with these Cashew Cookie Laraballs taste like caramel covered apples!

(Apple Brownie Sandwiches are also pretty fabulous!)

 

 COMMENTS: What do you pack for "treats" in your lunch, or your kids' lunches?

New Laraball Flavor: Lemon Bars! AND Costco Dates are BACK!!

Costco dates have returned!!!

I have been missing these for months!  Check it out: I (my hubby actually came home with them for me!) bought a whole case!  These are pitted, moist, and CHEAP!!!

Golden Tunisan Deglet Noor Dates from Costco!

Dates are high in potassium and fiber and dates are super-sweet, 
and these have no preservatives!

Healthy Lemon Bars

3/4 c dates, pitted, above brand is awesome!
3/4 c cashews, roasted and unsalted
zest of one lemon, cut the thin sliver of only the yellow of the lemon peel
(see Orange Almond Biscotti post for photo)

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend!

Shape into balls or smash into a pan for squares, and enjoy!

Wonder what to do with the rest of the lemon? Make lemonade! Sugar-Free Lemonade coming soon!