Healthy Easter Baskets (filled with fruit snack and organic dark chocolate)

Ok well these don't look like much but alot of love went into them!  I looked up some healthy Easter treats and a recipe for these baskets came up but they used loads of brown sugar and butter (blah, hardly healthy) so I thought I would try to clean them up a bit and with some success I managed a basket that only uses dates to sweeten it and coconut oil to keep it together.  It's really cool actually, I was convinced when I started these I was wasting my time, how could they stick together without sugar... Ha ha, but the oven worked it's magic and voila they held! So there are quite a few steps to these so I'll walk you through them via pictures.

These are not GF so I couldn't taste them but I trusted the ingredients and had some faith.  I used 2 cups of shredded wheat (no sugar which I like).  I crushed these in the zip lock bag.

About 1/2 cup coconut oil.

Which needs to be melted, I did this on a small pot of boiling water.

Next I boiled some water, made tea and soaked 7 or 8 dates.

While the dates were soaking I added 1/4 cup of shredded coconut to my smashed shredded wheat.

I was also making chocolate at this time so these soaked about 20 minutes.

I added the dates and the melted coconut oil to my food processor.

Processed it until all visible chunks were mixed in.

Here I just mixed the dry with the wet ingredients.  (all 4 of them) and I knew it was ready to start to mold when I grabbed some and it stuck together enough to form a ball.

Formed in greased muffin tin. bake at 350 F for 11 minutes (or 10 - just until the edges are starting to turn light brown).  Let them cool in the muffin tin, then carefully remove!  These can be filled with anything.  But I wanted chocolate so here is the process I used to make chocolate shapes.

I used the same bowl that I melted the coconut butter in (why make more dishes)!

I could only find these silly molds, they worked well, I chilled them in the freezer and they popped right out!

I added some fruit snack also!

This is what I made my kids for Easter morning!  I

Is it Summer yet???

Banilla and Chocolate Banana Soft serve
3 frozen banana's
2 tbsp peanut butter
1-2 tsp vanilla
2-3 heaping tbsp cocao
almond butter
dark chocolate shavings

Directions:

Process frozen banana's with peanut butter and vanilla until it resembles soft serve ice cream, (you might need to help it along, I use a wooden spoon and push down the sides as it's spinning-just be careful).  Take out half the mixture and put it in a bowl.  Add the cocoa powder to the remaining banilla mixture, process till combined.  Remove this chocolate banilla add to bowl, drizzle with almond butter and add chocolate shavings. Serve and enjoy!!!

GF raw peanut butter brownie (vegan, sugar free and dairy free)

      The secret to these delicious brownies is the simplicity of their ingredients. The base is chick peas, dates and peanut butter.  Then everything else is just bonus. 

Ingredients: eden chick peas, natural organic peanut butter, whole dates, vanilla, cocoa powder, unsweetened shredded coconut and chia seeds.

 

 

 

 

GF raw peanut butter brownie recipe
10 pitted medjool dates
1 drained and rinsed can of Eden Organics chick peas (garbanzo beans) 
1 1/4 cup natural peanut butter
2 tbsp vanilla
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup shredded coconut
1/4 cup chia seeds

I started by adding the pitted dates, chick peas and vanilla and processed them first, then I added the natural peanut butter and made sure it was very well mixed together then I added the cocoa powder, chia seeds and coconut.  Make sure you process it till all ingredients are blended well together.

Press into a dish or...

Make them into little bites!