No-Bake Energy Bites

No-bake cookies. The ultimate concoction of sugar, butter, chocolate, peanut butter and oats.
Though far from healthy, those semi-solid pleasure puddles would be my fall-back indulgence, if I had to choose one. At Easter time this year, our babysitter had made little no-bake nests in cupcake liners with peanut M&Ms sitting on top. Cute AND delicious.

But, this blog is about a different no-bake concoction. In my news feed, I saw what appeared to be raw dough for oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/healthy-energy-bites.jpg

 

 When I saw the title, "no-bake energy bites", I was instantly curious. Most of us are enticed by the idea of more energy. Especially when I see chocolate chips. As I scanned the ingredients, the only unfamiliar one was flaxseed. I figured it couldn't be too bad. After all, the Peanut Butter cookies with no flour completely hid the chickpeas.

And? Pleasant surprise at the grocery store: ground flaxseed was not cost-prohibitive.

When I googled the original recipe, she had a couple more ingredients than the facebook posted one, so if you take her link from under the fancy photo up top, you can see she added coconut and chia seeds. I kept it simple for this one, as I'm just testing the facebook recipes.

I used Bob's Red Mill Golden Flaxseed Meal, generic quick oats, semi-sweet chocolate chips, Adams natural Creamy Peanut Butter (this photo was before I stirred it) and local raw honey.

The instructions were simply to combine the ingredients, form into balls, refrigerate to set, and enjoy.

She estimated you would yield 20-25 balls. I think I made 21 but I didn't begin counting until after I'd eaten a couple. I found online that following the recipe with the five ingredients I used, you were eating about 100 calories per "bite".

A friend and I took a 3 hour road trip yesterday to meet the author of Unveiled Wife, a blog devoted to strengthening and encouraging wives and marriages. I brought some along and she liked them enough to have more than one! My husband, the foodie, said it "wasn't bad". As soon as I mention some new ingredient that sounds like it came from the kitchen of Granola Gladys, he's hesitant to put it into his mouth. So, when I say flaxseed, he says "what?!"

Bottom line? Totally worth your ingredients! Not as buttery or chocolatey as a no-bake cookie, but if you put the entire thing in your mouth rather than biting it, the flavors pool together and you get a little bit of that raw oatmeal satisfaction.
I was working in a pretty hot environment so I actually put them in the freezer to set. It makes the chocolate chips a lot crispier.

What do you think?
~Tammy