Protein Balls

In the last 15 months, I have embraced protein in my life.  I never thought I'd be someone who used protein powder, or ate power bars (maybe those 2 words should be in all caps...).  But protein is so essential - and so is convenience.  After receiving a freebie protein bar, which tasted great, I started having them on hand for snack attacks (about 1 a month).  With a slightly altered teaching and training schedule, I found I was having them more and more, especially on Tuesdays.  But then my local supermarkets stopped stocking my favourite variety, and although I adapted and picked a different sort, they were all out of stock today.  And I wasn't particularly happy with this newer lot anyway, not to mention the price! 

Back in February, one of my friends brought some protein balls to a get-together, and they were so yummy!  So today, instead of spending more time than I cared to check labels of different products, I decided to have a go at making my own.  A bit of investigating (thank you, Google), and I came across the same recipe my friend used.  From Teresa Cutter's site, The Healthy Chef, the link is here.

I was really good in following the recipe - mostly.  I used dried apricots instead of dates again; I like cinnamon so didn't measure that; and as my scales are only precise to 25g, I estimated a bit with 330g nuts and 60g protein powder.  After measuring the nuts, I realised there was too much volume for my mini chopper.  So I chopped half the nuts and protein, transferred to a bowl, then chopped the rest.  I continued with the half batches until the mixing into balls bit at the end.

Quite a bit of water was needed to turn the mix from super dry (so dry I checked I hadn't missed anything) into something you could form into a ball and have a hope of it staying that way.

These are super yummy, and guilt-free - I'm thinking one of these with a small apple for morning tea at school.  I can see these becoming a regular part of my week, but next time I'll just do a half batch!

Today's photo:

Not too exciting... and not a great photo... but the spinach is beginning to look more like spinach and less like random green stuff.