30 Days of Vegan: Date-pecan-oat Energy Balls

 

It's winter- which makes it prime cookie season in the Salmons household. If I'm not making cookies, we're buying cookies and filling up our cookie jar with vanilla sandwich cookies, chocolate-covered graham cracker cookies, coconut chocolate ring cookies, crispy chocolate-coated mint cookies, you name it. One day recently after cookie #5 I realized I needed to do something. As opposed to just eating nuts and fruit all day, I decided to make a cookie-type thing more to my tastes, and came up with this vegan energy ball. 

 Why energy ball? Mainly because all of the ingredients- except for the oats- are pretty potent sources of the main unit of nutritional energy- calories. "Date paste-" which is basically what I'm making in the food processor here- weighs in at 79 cals per ounce. One ounce of "pecan meal" will provide 198 cals. and oat meal, a paltry 19 calories, which is what saves these balls from going a bit too far in that direction. Traditionally, the fruit and nut

components of energy balls are roughly equal. I wanted to combine coconut and pecans and make them grain free, but I'm out of coconut, so decided to go with oats. I'm glad I did- the depth of the toasted oat makes the flavor a bit more complex. Next time I'm looking for a snack with coffee or tea, I'll have no problem swapping a pecan sandy for a couple of these guys.

 Ingredients

• about 8 dates- enough to make roughly 1/2 cup of pureed dates
• 1/2 cup minus 2 tbl pecan halves or pieces
  
• 2 tbl oats- I used rolled quick oats
• dash of salt
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

Method

1. Heat a 10" or smaller skillet on medium heat. after a couple of minutes, put the oats in the pan, spreading them out. Using a spatula or turner, mix the oats around every minute or so. wherever the heat is hottest, you'll begin to see some color. mix it constantly after this for a max of another minute, then remove from the pan to a small bowl. Let them cool. Assemble your food processor.
2. Next, pit the dates if necessary. Snip the dates into 1/2 inch pieces and put in the food processor carafe. Then add the pecans. add the vanilla and salt. 
3. The next step depends on the oats you use. If you use old-fashioned rolled oats, add the oats to the carafe, reserving a teaspoon. I used quick cook which are thinner, so I added a teaspoon of the oats to process along with the other ingredients and reserved all the rest for later. You can reserve them all if you want more whole oats.
4. Process ingredients in pulses until it begins to clump together.
5. Add the rest of your oats and process briefly until oats are incorporated.
6. Form the balls in whatever size you want, but I chose to make mine about the diameter of a nickel, maybe a smidge larger. Quarter-sized might be more standard.

Store in the fridge. They will get a bit sticky over time, but if they start out refrigerated, they still look pretty good by tea time.

I estimate one of the nickel-sized balls to provide about 77 calories. Not bad!

Shut up and listen!

I don't know if I've always ignored the signals my body sends to my mind. But I do know I have been for some time. Some signals are impossible to ignore, like the times I've needed immediate attention for serious medical problems. But most signals are more like status reports, something that merely registers in your consciousness- you can let your autonomic system handle it (like letting voice mail get it). You can even ignore slightly more urgent messages, especially if your conscious mind is on a mission. Feelings of satiety fall into that latter category. Many times I've ignored how my digestive system feels just so I can get one or two more bites of a second or third freshly baked biscuit with honey and butter, or in order to savor a few more forkfuls of perfectly cooked pasta and tomato sauce. I've even tried to override those signals with more input. For a long time I considered soda more than just a refreshing beverage; I also held a belief that it was somehow "medicinal." A liter of cola was a great cure of indigestion, something I've experienced repeatedly in the past twenty years of my life. I now think the grand total of medicinal value soda has is to drown out the messages from my body so I don't have to listen and feel guilty.

I've been conducting a curious experiment the past day or so. I've been listening to those messages, making note of them. I'm not letting them dictate how I eat- yet- because I don't want to scare myself into not listening. It takes a little practice to listen, especially if you're used to ignoring yourself. But it's like riding a bicycle- do I need to repeat the old adage? you never really forget. Practice makes perfect. et cetera.

So, now that I am actually listening to my bodily voice mail, what am I discovering? For one, it doesn't take much to fill me up. In fact, the default sensations i've been experiencing for several years now, I'm coming to believe, is coping with being overly full. Even by the simple act of listening to my body's feelings, I have reduced what I am eating. I set out not explicitly desiring to do so, and I think that is really key. I will fail if I turn this into a battle of endurance, determined to eat less and beat my cravings into submission. In the past, doing this has always resulted in an immediate system-wide rebellion and the next thing I know, I'm halfway through an extra-large slice of new york style cheese pizza with a 36 ounce Coke. No, this is not about suppression. this is about acknowledgement.

I started my day as usual yesterday, having what Abbey and I jokingly call my "breakfast and second breakfast-" breakfast first thing upon rising, ostensibly to prevent a gastric rebellion in the face of encroaching espresso. Then when everyone is up, I make a second breakfast to have with everyone else. In preparation of the day I'm about to spend in an office in front of a computer, I always take a savory snack for the morning and a sweet one for the afternoon (I think this is related to blood sugar). I've also been known to bring along a soda from the convenience store because I'm afraid my tank of water will be too boring. I didn't get the soda, because by the end of second breakfast my stomach was crying uncle. It was more murmur than thunder, but the signal was received. Then I had my snack as usual- sadly, nothing out of the ordinary- an olive loaf and american cheese sandwich on wheat. By the end of that, I sat and waited for the report, and it was not good. I felt sluggish and a tad dazed. Concentration became more difficult. I had a hair cut during my lunch hour. Afterwards, still dragging from the sandwich, instead of shoving something down my gullet I opted to cut up some raw vegetables and dress them with olive oil and vinegar, and packed those for my snack instead of the sweet snack. That's right, I skipped lunch. Me! I skipped lunch! For the first time in, er, well, have I ever skipped lunch?

On the way back to my office, I felt memories flooding into me. They hit me with some force. I realized that basically every day when returning from lunch I can barely move one leg in front of the other. And I had been ignoring it day in, day out. Today I felt different. Really, how I felt was... normal. More normal than usual.

The mind is such a powerful instrument. When ignored, you let your subconscious desires and base animal instincts dictate your behavior. At least that's how it now seems to me. All it takes is the simple act of listening to your body to turn this powerful consciousness toward productive, reasonable tasks. I would say this last day has blown my mind, but I guess it's really quite the opposite.

Snack makeover: ploughman's lunch

Have I raved about ploughman's lunches yet? Allow me to do so. I first encountered the concept at what once was one of my favorite eateries, Llywelyn's Welsh Pub in St. Louis. (I say "once was" because I haven't been there in years and years.) The ploughman's lunch is a peasant lunch that relies almost exclusively on quality of ingredients and hardly not at all on preparation or presentation, making it not only authentic but also reliably simple to provide. To stick to the Welsh traditions, a ploughman's lunch consists of coarse bread ("black" bread, akin to pumpernickel, is used at Llywelyn's, but a rustic whole wheat will certainly do), "pickle" (in fact a pickled salad of any kind, but most often in the form of a chutney or, at it's most basic, fruit or vegetable preserves), butter or cheese, preferrably an old country cheese like Cotswold or Gloustershire, though any cheese with some flavor would be perfect; and/or slices of raw onion, a green salad or an apple. Abbey balks at the idea of cheese being a part of my snacks, and I have to agree, cheese means saturated fat, not good for the old ticker, and calories. But some recent studies show cheese has health benefits- some of them unexpected- and is perfect for in between meal snacking. Woo hoo! Vindication, of a sort. Now,  I will be observing the two-dice standard for a serving of cheese to keep the calories down- all the more reason for the cheese to bring a lot of flavor. As for the pickle, I love all things pickled (Some of you realize I have not tried pickled eggs- so for you, I will add the conditional MOST)- so i will be trying different things here. The health benefits of fermented foods are well-documented- so, double health whammy! Frequently I make my own fresh chutney- essentially peaches or apricots (sometimes preserves, I admit) mixed with diced raw onion and a splash of vinegar.

The essential key here- and one of the reasons "ploughman's lunch" came to mind in the first place- is to have the ingredients ready. It's pretty easy to put a slice of this and a dab of that in a to-go container- nowadays I'm thinking a bento-style container would provide ingredient separation as well as natural portion control- which means I don't have to fiddle with something when time is critical. As soon as I've started packing this for my snack, the pics will roll- especially if my Holga shows up sometime soon!

Healthy Snack Day

I realized with horror at some point this morning on my way to Columbia to drop my sons off at their schools that I had neglected to pack a snack for work today. Realizing we were running ahead of schedule, i decided to make a mini shopping trip to the local HyVee to look for healthy snacks. I decided to make it a bit of a test; I would pick out a variety of things to choose from, and see how I fared at work with them, in an attempt to come up with a unified theory of healthy office snacking. or something.

In the store, I resolved to stick to the outer perimeter, which is what they always tell you to do to avoid the processed foods. But I think someone at HyVee Central came up with a very clever way around this. I'll elicidate momentarily. So the first thing I see is a bank of fruits and vegetables. I considered an apple or a pear, but caught a row of convenience packs out of the corner of my eye. I wanted berries to optimize the healthiness, so I picked out a tub of strawberries, raspberries, blueberries and big chunks of kiwi. Seemed like a good start.

next, I was off to find the dairy section. I'm back on the low-carb train and avoided the bakery like the plague. I was looking for serving-sized tubs of cottage cheese (which I did not find! Aargh!) and found myself distracted by the sliced cheese. I shrugged and grabbed some sliced fontina. It turns out Fontina is a whole milk, soft cheese- I think I knew this but simply forgot- and this particular Fontina tasted a little too funky even for me. Total waste!

Heading back toward the checkout, I see this intriguing wall of goodies near the center of the store. It was a sort of convenience store within the store, but of organic foods. Wow! I thought. What a way to get you into the middle of the store. I spent way too long consider the various options and finally settled on something called "Australian-style Yogurt." Australian? And the flavor, Orange -passion fruit, was too tempting.

Conveniently next to the organic convenience foods were all the chips and soda and crackers they hoped you'd go for. I guess. I did want to grab some almonds, which takes you right into the belly of the beast. I grabbed some and wanted a bit of variety, maybe a ry-crisp type thing or... oh my god. Ritz crackers has this new cheese cracker sandwich thing that has bacon flavoring. Damnit, I thought I would make all good choices, but I could not resist that little bit of decadence. I still curse them under my breath as I write this entry.

I drove to work and settled into my office chair. By about 9:30 my stomach was rumbling, so I started as healthily with possible, trying to stave off hunger with the fruit. It wasn't in the best of shape, but it was not spoiled either. Just roughed up. the real problem was with the kiwi, which bummed me out because I was looking forward to some. Firstly, it was too green. Secondly, it was too mushy to taste that green. Thirdly, the chunks were enormous. If you are trying to  idly snack on a two-inch-thick section of kiwi, it becomes immediately obvious just how tough the inner core is. Pretty tough! Almost inedible. So that was a bit of a wash. The blueberries were probably the highlight.

Well, acidic fruit on top of nothing makes me feel even hungrier, in a way, so I soon had to dive into the Ritz cracker sandwiches. I must say, I thoroughly enjoyed the first one. But the second one, which I had around 11:30, sat in my stomach like a lead balloon. Not enough fiber to make me feel full, heavy enough to make me regret it. Not a good move at all!

In between crackers, around 10:30, I decided to give the yogurt a try. After all, it was sitting in the igloo bag with no freezy pack. It was now or never. I tried it. I was underwhelmed. I detect no difference between garden-variety yogurt and Australian yogurt. Maybe a tad runnier, which puts it more in the Gogurt category. Plus, the flavoring could have been a lot more purely fruit-y and less just more sweetness. Two big thumbs down for the Wallaby Yogurt. 

Lunch was a saving grace. As it's intersession for Olivia, Abbey had taken the day off to be with her. They very thoughtfully packed a picnic lunch. I wish we were back there now, watching the fluffy clouds float by the Capitol while we laid back on the blanket and digested. But I am back in my office. Sigh. The menu consisted of Abbey's deliciously onion-y egg salad on low-glycemic Ezekiel Bread (the sesame variety, my fave) and- funnily enough- fruit salad, which was far superior to my HyVee salad, with puckery green grapes, sweet cantalopes, mild but pleasing slivers of cherry, crisp apple chunks and strawberry halves. This is probably the healthiest menu I've had all week!

Almonds have been on my work snack list for a long time. They are satisfying, tasty, and, of course, healthy, as long as you don't overdo it. A couple around the 2:30 mark felt just about right. All the while I had been swilling water to counteract the salinity of the crackers and the almonds (and the bit of nasty cheese I had), and I was uplifted by an iced blend of Irish Breakfast black tea and mint Abbey thoughtfully provided for our picnic lunch.

now, I have a dilemma. I am burned out on fruit. The Ritz crackers make me feel vaguely ill- not to mention the novelty of bacon-flavored cheese expired after the first couple of bites of the first cracker. Plus, I really didn't want to make it THREE bacony cheese cracker sandwiches for today (they are three inches long and two inches wide!). What might be nice is a green salad, or some pieces of chicken or beef, or some cottage cheese, damnit. Things to keep in mind for next week. So, let me see here. If I did have a little thai beef salad or chicken stir fry or something, that would equal four flavors total: fruity, sweet, acidy; creamy, sweet, fruity; savory, crunchy, earthy; and savory, spicy, crunchy and soft mixed. That's a lot of flavors- but it seems like a good template for a healthy day of snacking.

I've learned something important: good snacking starts at home. A quick trip to the grocery store can work in a pinch, if you stick to low- or un-processed foods. But it's too easy to let someone else make food for you, and the quality suffers. Next time the crackers will be history, and I'll attend my 2:30 appointment with hunger armed with a meaty green salad of my own making.

Pepitas

I was a little apprehensive at first, but I'm working my way back into old cooking habits.  I tend to see recipes more as suggestions or inspirations.   I had a real learning curve when we began this challenge.  But now it's turning into an obsessive quest to do the South Beach diet "my way".  I saw Martha's Spiced Pecans and Pepitas and felt I could run with the concept.  Honestly, who adds chili powder and salt and thinks that's just dandy?  I couldn't stop there. In addition to the pecans and pumpkin seeds, I threw in flax seed for their supposed health benefits.  Our trusty cast iron skillet turned out to be the perfect pan for toasting nuts.  I then spiced it up with some Turkish red pepper flakes, powdered clove, cinnamon, kosher salt, and a couple pinches of paprika.  I had this suspicion that toasting the pecans would bring out their natural sweetness and the salty-sweet-spicy combo would be enough to keep Michael happy when snack-time comes around at work.  He gave it a test and seemed quite pleased.  (It's hard work keeping this guy's taste buds entertained!)