The School Year Survival Cookbook: School-Safe Chocolate Snack Balls

July 17, 2017 Ceri

When you hear a choir of voices saying it’s waaaaay too early to talk about back-to-school, I am usually the loudest. Like, please people, give us a chance to enjoy summer before we have to think about backpacks and thermoses. So. Yeah. Will you forgive me if the reason I’m bringing up back-to-school in July is that our book is out?! I truly hope so.

The School Year Survival Cookbook was born out of the feedback we got from readers on book tour for How to Feed a Family. Over and over we heard from families that it’s the how as much as the what that they were struggling with when it came to food. And now that all the SPC kids are in school, we were feeling it too. Life is so freaking busy between school, work, activities, teams, lessons, homework…. it’s no wonder that getting some food into people is stressing us out. So, we really took on this book as a way to map out a way to get through the school year with your sanity.

So far the feedback on the book has been phenomenal. We’ve been dying over the Instastories of people getting the book and cooking from it. But for those who haven’t seen the book yet, we wanted to share a few little goodies this week. And we’re going to start with snacks because our kids can’t get enough. If we didn’t have these tricks up our sleeves we’d be shelling out for the vending machines after swimming lessons. As you’ll see in the shot below, we’ve got two snack balls in the cookbook and we’re sharing the chocolate version today because they’re nut-free and because chocolate. These snack balls are so easy to make, a child could do it. In fact, please let us know if you get a child to make them!

photo by Maya Visnyei

The School Year Survival Cookbook: School-Safe Chocolate Snack Balls

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 15 minutes

Yield: 12 balls

Ingredients

1 cup dried apricots
1/2 cup unsweetened, shredded coconut, divided
1/4 cup raw pumpkin seeds
1/4 cups raw and unsalted sunflower seeds
1/4 cup cocoa powder
1 Tbsp honey
1 tsp coconut oil, melted

Method

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a food processor, pulse the dried apricots, 1/4 cup of the coconut, pumpkin seeds and cocoa until the mixture is crumbly. Add the honey and coconut oil and process again until a sticky, uniform dough is created.

Place the remaining coconut on a plate.

Scoop a heaping tablespoon of the dough and roll it into a ball with wet hands. Roll in the coconut and place on the baking sheet; continue with the remaining dough.

Refrigerate for at least one hour. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for one week.

Sweet Potato Chronicles