Date balls with nuts, fruits and chocolate

This is something that I have been wanting to make and share for a few months now. These date balls have everything that I love:

Chocolate. Who doesn't like chocolate?

Roasted Nuts. Nuts about Nuts.

And

Dried fruits. My favorite- Cranberries. Sweet and tart. Perfect balance with the sweet dates.

The best thing about this is that this can be made differently every time.

You may use : White chocolate instead of semi-sweet chocolate.

Any combination of nuts or one kind only.

Any dried fruits- craisins, raisins, prunes.

Also, you may add seeds such as sunflower seeds or chia seeds

And, you may coat them with:

Powdered sugar, cocoa powder, almond meal, roasted coconut flakes.

These are the many reasons I love these date balls.

Oh, another thing, I eat these with my morning breakfast, after lunch as something sweet, as afternoon snacks and anytime in between.

 

So, for the no-recipe date balls (about 18 1inch balls), you need:

1 cup of pitted dates (tightly packed, about 16-18 dates)

¼ cup honey or maple syrup or agave syrup

⅓ cup roasted pistachios

⅓ cup roasted walnuts

⅓ cup craisins

¼ cup semi-sweet chocolate chunks

pinch of salt

For coating, I used powdered sugar, an equal mix of powdered sugar and cocoa powder, roasted coconut flakes.

This is how I did it:

Add the dates, honey or maple syrup, salt in the food processor and make a chunky paste of the dates. Add all the other ingredients and pulse just a few times to incorporate the nuts, the fruits and the chocolate chunks evenly in the date paste. This will be very sticky. Put this mixture in the refrigerator for a 2-3 hours. Put a little bit of oil in your palms before you role the mixture into balls. The oil will prevent it from sticking to your hands and will also help in the rolling process. Roll the date balls in your choice of coating and enjoy.

Mango Fruit Leather - Aamshotto

If you walk in to any grocery store in US, you will definitely see many varieties of apples piled up in the fruit section. Green or Greenish kind (Granny Smith, Golden Delicious among others), mix of red and green (such as Gala, Fuji, Honeycrisp, McIntosh etc) and the dark red kind like the red delicious. In total there are 2500 varieties of apples grown in US. But you do not see 2500 kinds of apples in the stores, do you?

I have been going on with apples to lead you to the fact that in the tropical countries, there are over 400 varieties of mangoes grown. Few in US know this as they see only one or two kinds in their supermarket. Growing up in India, I have had at least 10-15 kinds of mangoes-each quite different from the other just like apples.

Last year, when my parents visited me, we went apple picking in a beautiful orchard in Massachusetts. They were thrilled to see so many kinds of apples. It reminded them of their days as a kid when they used to go pick mangoes. Me and my mom brought home 12 lbs of apples. We made apple sauce and apple jam and relished it over the days. When you have a overload of fruits, jams and jellies are good way to preserve them. Another delicious way is to make fruit leather.

Mangoes in US grocery stores do not attract me much. I do not find them ripe enough with a nice mango smell (A ripe mango has a strong smell and can fill the air of your kitchen or a small apartment.).  Hence, when I think of doing something that needs ripe mango, I buy a can of mango pulp from a nearby Indian grocery store. They sell the pulp of alphonso mangoes (the best kind) in a huge can. I usually use a cup to make some mango yogurt  and wonder what to do with the rest. This time I made mango fruit leather. In my mother tongue, it's called Aamshotto. It's difficult to literally translate it. I'll tell you- "Aam" is "Mango".

This just needs one ingredient: Mango pulp (2 cups)

How: 

If you are using fresh mangoes to make pulp, then skin the mangoes, remove the pit, cube the pulp and make puree in your food processor. I would suggest using very ripe mangoes, so that you don't have to add sugar to make it sweet. Note that as the pulp dries to form the leather, it will become sweeter.

Preheat the oven to Warm setting or the lowest temperature it can reach. Mine went as low as 170°F.

Line a baking sheet with oven safe clear wrap. See that excess wrap doesn't hang over the end of the baking  sheet.

Spread the mango pulp (fresh made or from a can) on your baking sheet evenly.

Put it in the oven for 10-12 hours or until you can peel the leather off the wrap. Also, the pulp will be dry on top and not stick to your fingers.

Cut them into strips or rectangles with a pizza cutter or sharp paring knife. Store in an air tight container at room temperature for a few days or in the refrigerator for a few weeks to a month.