"A spoon full of sugar helps the..."

               I rarely make desserts. My “from scratch” credentials are as follows: one successful key lime pie and a chocolate chip pie. I think part of the reason why I don’t necessarily enjoy baking sweets has to do with the fact that I didn’t grow up “needing” or having desserts after our meals at home-thanks for taking care of me, Mom! The other part of the dilemma is that I already have trouble taming my sweet tooth. I’m healthy and I love whole food eating, but I’ve got a weakness for chocolate. Forget diamonds, chocolate is my best friend! Additionally, I don’t like to clean up the gooey messes and half the time I can’t follow recipes the right way. Hmmm…

                Well, last night at our weekly “Janney family dinner,” my sister-in-law, Brooke, told me about a blog she knew of that had recipes for healthy desserts. Those two words probably don’t make sense together, but that’s definitely my kind of sweet treat! I browsed through, Chocolate Covered Katie, this morning while I was getting ready for class and glorious pictures popped up of Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Balls. Peanut butter is one of my favorite things to eat and to have it paired with chocolate- oh my! I skimmed  through the ingredients and everything I would need was already in my pantry. Double plus.

                I substituted some of the components to make it healthy to my liking, and I’m selfishly hoping to get a "thumbs up" from Derek about them later tonight… that is if I can get him to taste one! Still working on him and the health thing... If I can handle making this recipe, you definitely can. You may even get a little “sugar” from your honey tonight for going the extra mile to make these sweets. Oh la la!

              The website has tons of vegan and no-bake options too. Let's see how many of these healthy recipes I can get away with before Derek starts noticing... I hope he's not reading.

             So, while I may not have original dessert recipes to share (yet, anyways) I'll be sure to point your cute little wife self to some great places where you can find them. I mean, I've got such a cute apron, I NEED excuses to wear it more than I have to! :) Here’s how my experimentation with these healthy "yums" turned out for me:

Voila!

You can view the original recipe here. I’ve added my edited version below with the changes I made to the ingredients.

• 1/2 cup organic rolled oats (I bet muesli would taste incredible too!)
• 1/2 cup peanut butter (I used ¼ cup of natural ground peanut butter to satisfy how I like PB and ¼ of Jiff, so Derek would give them a try)
• 3-4 drops of local honey
• Pinch of salt (I didn't have a 1/8 measuring spoon :( )
• 1 tbsp vanilla 4Life protein powder (can you imagine how delish this will be after a workout?!)
• 1 tsp of coconut oil (To add a little moisture)
• chocolate chips!

I combined all the ingredients by hand (make sure you wash them well before diving in!) and rolled the mix into tiny balls. Tiny desserts are just not fair, they make you want them even more. Right? Since I like peanut butter cold, I put them in a bowl and slid them into the fridge. It's taking everything in me to not pull them out and eat the rest of them as I write about their cuteness. Ahhh.

Send me your pictures of how your attempts turn out, and let me know what you decided to replace in the ingredients to make it uniquely yours. J

 

 

 My sister-in-law, Denille, gave me this super cute apron as a gift before I got married. 

With my new initials too.:)