Amazing Energy Balls

Just like everyone else out there I am also making a conscious effort to eat clean and healthy. There are so many processed food out in the stores with hidden ingredients that will only do harm to your god given body. So why not make an effort to eat at home as much as possible. I am not saying good restaurant dining once in awhile is bad. 

So, this “energy balls” was inspired by numerous laddoo recipes out there.  

The other day I was reorganizing my pantry came across a quick cooking rolled oats pack. We are not very heavy on oatmeal in my house. ( Oat bran on the other hand is a totally different story. That’s story for a different day.) 

Thought was to mix the oatmeal, some nuts and jaggery and create some “laddoo” that can be eaten as a snack. So let’s see who were the lucky participants for this recipe. 

I have 2 cups of quick cooking oatmeal, 1 cup each of sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and dried coconut powder. Then I also have a 1 1/2 cups of jaggery powder. Now this is a recipe you can change in many ways. You can replace the seeds with any type of nuts.  

So what did I do with these ingredients? 

I roasted each one of them until they are fragrant. I mixed the oats and sesame seeds together. My reason for this is, when the pan gets hot the sesame seeds tends to jump out. I mean who wouldn’t ? So mixing them with oatmeal gives them a bit of shelter and allows them to roast a bit more.  

Once it’s nicely roasted I removed it to a bowl and started on coconut and sunflower seeds. I first added sunflower seeds and roasted for a few mins, giving it a head start. After that I added the coconut powder and turn off the stove. The heat in the pan allows the coconut powder to get nicely toasted without getting burnt.  

Then I mixed everything in the bowl with jaggery powder.  

At this point the mixture is quite hot. So you need to let it cool down a bit. But not totally cold. I found that if you grind it while it’s a little bit warm it’s easier to make the balls.  

Here’s what the ground mixture looks like.  

My mixture looks crumbly. But when you take it in your hand and make a ball by making a fist. It will become a ball.  

Like this,  

This is a little powdery laddoo. It melts in your mouth. If you feel it’s too dry you can add a few spoons of ghee or milk. With milk though you will not be able to keep it for too long. With just the ingredient listed here you can keep them in an air tight container for more than a week. My first batch lasted about 2 days so, go figure :) 

I also must also mention that this is a great snack for ladies doing seed cycling. Sunflower seeds and sesame seeds are for the second half of your cycle. So this is an easy way to get in some fiber in along with. Jaggery and coconut are just going to enhance your experience.