 Today we're making a healthy snack. I'm making energy balls made with prunes, or at least sweetened by them, and they provide just a lot of nutrition in them. And we're also going to be adding some cocoa powder to give it a nice chocolatey flavor, chia seeds for fiber, and almond butter, walnuts, and collagen. These are easy to make. They're easy to put together. And I like to store them in the freezer, and they don't get rock hard. They stay nice and chewable, so they last for months in the freezer. You can pull them out anytime you need a snack, or you want something healthy, a little pick-me-up without any refined sugar. So I'm rocking Robin, and I'm going to show you how to do it right after my chef joke. Okay, here we go with chef joke number one. Number two will be a little later. All right, here's my silly joke. Why did the raisin go out with the prune? Because it couldn't find a date. So to start off our recipe, we're going to talk about prunes. Now this is how we're going to sweeten our energy balls. Now prunes are a nutrient dense health food. They're a good source of vitamin K, fiber, and potassium. Nutrients you won't find in white sugar. So that's why I like to use fruit like dates and prunes to sweeten some of my recipes. And for those of you who are interested, there are several studies that have shown prunes to be protective against osteoporosis and bone fractures. So back to the recipe. I'm using and measuring out here about a cup and a half of prunes that are pitted. You want to use pitted because you don't want to spend time pitting them. It's not fun. So if you want to be accurate when you're measuring these out, doing it by this method probably isn't as accurate as measuring by grams. So I've started doing that a little bit now, as you'll notice in my videos. So here I'm going to measure out about 274 grams. I'll leave a link in the description of the video if you want to pick up one of these great scales. So we'll place the prunes into a food processor. Next we're going to add some walnuts. I'm using halves and pieces here. If you use the whole ones, go ahead and chop them a little bit. You'll get more into the container. And if you want to substitute in a different nut, you can always use sliced almonds. So in go the walnuts. Cheese seeds are going in next and they are full of fiber and omega-3s. The cheese seeds came out to 54 grams. I like to spread my ingredients around that way they get evenly distributed. Cocoa powder is next and I love the brand Gutard. I'm adding three tablespoons of this because I love that nice cocoa flavor. And don't forget you can get the written recipe below each video in the description area. Now place that in the food processor. Next is cinnamon and did you know that there are two types of cinnamon? Ceylon which I have here and cassia or cassia depending on how you want to pronounce it. The difference you ask? Well, ceylon cinnamon has a sweeter, more delicate flavor than cassia cinnamon. So I like to use it for that reason. But there's also another reason. Cassia cinnamon has coumarin in it, which is sort of like a blood thinner. So if you're on blood thinners, you might want to be careful with that. I like to add a little protein to my energy ball. So I'm using bottle proteins, collagen peptides, which I get at Costco. I'm adding three scoops of this. I'm adding almond butter here, but feel free to use peanut butter if you wish. Measuring out peanut butter or almond butter can be a little bit tricky. It wants to stick to everything. So I've got a little hack here where I'm going to pour in a little just a touch of avocado oil. That was a bit much, but I'm going to pour some of that out and just coat the spoon with it. And then when I measure out my almond butter, it should come out easily. It did come out pretty good. I had to help it a little bit, but overall it works pretty well. We're going to add a teaspoon of vanilla extract. And this is going to help bring out a little more sweetness. And last but not least, we're going to add a nice pinch of salt. We'll put the cover on and we'll give this a whirl. Now you want to blend it enough until you see that the dough starts to come together. And if it looks a little dry, just keep on mixing for another 30 seconds. Here's what the dough should look like. And if it doesn't want to stay together when you pinch it between your fingers, then go ahead and blend it a little bit longer. And actually there have been times when I've had to add another tablespoon of almond butter. Time for chef's joke number two. What did the judge say when the skunk entered the courtroom? Oder in the court. It's time to form our energy balls and get them in the refrigerator. Grab yourself a baking sheet and line it with some parchment paper. It's nice to have a scoop like this to make your balls, but a regular tablespoon will work too. So just go ahead and scoop up some dough and really pack it in there nice and tight so you get a nice size ball. This is going to be messy work, but you're just going to get your hands dirty. Go ahead and just take it and form it and just squeeze it together until you get a nice little ball. I like to roll it between my hands. That works well too. So just continue scooping those balls and just pack it in there and roll it between your hands. Altogether this batch of dough made 32 balls, but again that's going to depend on how big you make them. I like them on the smaller side so I can just pop them in my mouth. These will keep in the refrigerator for three or four weeks or you can store them in the freezer for about up to three months. Now if you want to store these in the freezer and I recommend that you do because I think they turn out better. I like them a little bit chewy. They don't freeze up rock solid so they're really nice and then place them in a ziplock bag after you've chilled them so they don't stick together and they'll keep three or four months. So I want to show you how well these turn out in the freezer. So I have this is a package from yesterday so it's been in the freezer overnight so it's solidly frozen and I have my tray here of the ones I just made that were in the refrigerator and I'm just going to show you. I want you to listen to this. Now I'm going to drop it hard as a rock, right? Sounds hard as a rock. The one that we just made, I don't want to drop it too high but sounds different, right? This one sounds like a rock. I'm going to take a bite and it's chewy. Really nice. I really like this. Storiers in the freezer about four months. They won't last long though. They're too good. Who doesn't love a delicious barbecue chicken sandwich? Check this out. This has got guacamole and tomatoes and all kinds of good stuff. Click the link and it'll take you to the recipe and you can make it right after this one. Did you enjoy today's video? Well, you can let me know by smashing the like button and smashing the subscribe button because you want to see more good videos like this and leave me a comment, all right? I'd love to hear from you and I do appreciate it so I'll see you back here next week for another rock and recipe.