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Healthy Lebkuchen Energy Bites

A family friend brought some Lebkuchen from the Munich Christmas market, and it reminded me how much I love the combination of flavors and the softness of a good cookie.

I based this recipe on the Gingerbread Energy Balls by Natalie’s Health, using homemade Lebkuchen spice mix (Lebkuchengewürz) from The Daring Gourmet and changing up the nuts to be more typical for Lebkuchen.

lebkuchen energy bites

Recipe: Lebkuchen Energy Bites

Ingredients

  • 5 large medjool dates, pitted and soaked if not moist (mine were fine without soaking)
  • 1 heaping teaspoon blackstrap molasses
  • 1/3 c hazelnuts
  • 1/3 c almonds
  • 1/3 c walnuts
  • 3 tbsp pumpkin seeds
  • 3 tbsp flax meal
  • 2 tsp lebkuchen spice mix
  • a pinch lemon zest and orange zest – I did not have any, but would recommend adding them
  • Cacao Powder (optional)

Instructions

  1. In a food processor, process all ingredients until the mixture easily comes together when pinched.
  2. Taste and add more spice mix if desired.
  3. Roll into balls.
  4. Optional – roll balls in cacao powder.

Preparation time: 10 minute(s)

Sometimes with these date/nut energy balls, your mixture may come out too dry due to the dryness of the dates or nuts. These amounts worked for me, but if it’s too dry, you can add more dates.

 

Block Island

After almost 9 years of living in Rhode Island, I finally made it to Block Island.  We took an early ferry over on Sunday with our bikes.  The ferry tickets were a surprise gift for surviving the GRE exam on Saturday – I have an amazing husband!

The Taste of Block Island promotion was on, and we benefited with 2-for-1 lobster rolls at the Poor People’s Pub and a giant sundae at Aldo’s Bakery.

2 Lobster Rolls

The lobster rolls were great- we shared one warm with butter, one cold with mayo.  The spicy fried oysters, which were enormous, were also a must-have.   Ice cream is a great way to recover from biking all the hills.  I chose rum raisin and maple walnut topped with the usual, plus raisinettes.

Spicy Fried Oysters Ice Cream Sundae

Between the Dramamine (which I probably didn’t need) and the bike riding, I was exhausted and asleep embarrassingly early.   But I was dreaming about the beautiful shores and beach-rose scented sea air…

CSA Longing

For the last two years, we’ve participated in Zephyr Farm’s CSA.  If you’re not familiar with a CSA, it stands for “Community Supported Agriculture” and is basically a vegetable subscription.   Ours started mid-June and ran through the end of October.


Pickups from the beginning of the season (6/22/2010) and end of the season (9.15.09)

I looked forward to my Tuesday pickups, when I’d walk down the street with my IKEA bag and come back with an Iron Chef-like challenge to imagine a week of dishes with the bag’s contents.  Every second week, we got the most delicious assortment of multi-colored eggs.

This year, we won’t be doing the CSA.  We moved to a new neighborhood, and since J works late and I take the bus, it would be very hard for us to pick up our weekly allotment.  Instead, we’ll be putting aside money to spend at the Saturday farmers’ market, which is luckily in walking distance.  I’ll miss it – maybe one day we’ll be able to join again.

Oops

I just disappeared for almost 2 months. I don’t know how it happened.  I switched jobs, no longer had a computer, went away on vacation, battled with my internet connection.  Excuses, excuses.

Don’t worry: the whole time, I’ve been nibbling on things that I’d like to write about.

Please accept my apologies and stay tuned for a post very soon!

Where I’ve Been

I haven’t updated recently for two reasons. It’s been a crazy year:

1.  I am now a homeowner! We moved into a condo in a gorgeous, old historical house a few days ago.  We toasted New Year’s Eve there with a great view of fireworks over the city, and ate our first dinner of the year sitting on the floor.

Now we are almost unpacked and it’s a great place to live.  Last night I came home to delicious pork chops stuffed with apples and pears…I am such a lucky girl.

2.  My hard drive died!  I’ve had a MacBook for less than a half year and it kicked the bucket.  I lost tons of photos and files because my December had been too busy to back up.  (Excuses, excuses.)  At least it’s under warantee, but I’m still waiting to get it back.

I hope to be back soon with more posts – hope 2008 has been great for all of you.