Healthy No Bake Energy Bites That Actually Taste Good

I know there are a lot of no-bake cookie recipes out there, but I've never been impressed with any of them. Some of them are "okay". Others I would rank as "edible". I never saved any of the recipes for them because I just wasn't terribly impressed.

THESE, my friends, are something different. THIS no-bake snack tastes good. Really good. They whip up quickly. You don't have to bake them, obviously, which is great for summertime when you don't want the oven heating up the house. You actually store them in the freezer, so they're a great cool snack (just set them out for 5ish minutes so they soften up a bit).

Plus ... check out those ingredients. Healthy! I may or may not have served these things for breakfast a couple of times. I found the base recipe from Amy's blog at Plain and Not So Plain (great blog for larger families, by the way). Amy says that having these energy bites on hand was key while she was losing 70lbs. When she was craving something sweet, she grabbed one of these instead of gorging on something unhealthy.

I tweaked the recipe ever so slightly based on our tastes and what I had on hand. I hope you enjoy!

Ingredients:
2 c. Old Fashioned Rolled Oats (Quick Oats would probably be fine)
1 c. Peanut Butter (Or your favorite nut butter- almond, cashew etc.)
2/3 c. Honey (Local, if possible!)
2 c. shredded unsweetened coconut
1 c. ground flax meal.
1 c. chocolate chips (alternative: dried fruit, butterscotch chips)
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract

Line a couple of cookie sheets with parchment paper. Combine all ingredients and roll into little balls (this is easiest to do with slightly damp hands). Put the energy bites onto your lined cookie sheet, and put them in the freezer. Once they are frozen solid, you can transfer them to a ziplock bag and store them in the freezer. When you're ready to eat them, just pull them out and let them sit on a plate for 5ish minutes to help them soften up a bit. Enjoy!


----This is a list of some of the awesome sites that I occassionally link my posts at. They're all great blogs about anything from parenting, simple living, cooking, homesteading (backyard and large scale), gardening, Christian life, frugal living, etc. Check them out!----
The Chicken Chick, The Prairie Homestead- Homestead Barn Hop, Strangers and Pilgrims on Earth- The Art of Homemaking, Homestead Bloggers Network- Tasty Tuesday, Backyard Farming Connection, Growing Home- Growing Homemakers, Wildcrafting Wednesday, So Much At Home, Hope in Every Season, Green Thumb Thursday, Home Acre Hop, From the Farm Hop, Farmgirl Friday, Front Porch Friday, Simple Meals Friday, Better Hens and Gardens.

Organizing Spices and Herbs with Mason Jars

I’m always trying to find ways to use what I have on hand to make my home more organized or to give it that homemade comfy feeling. I don’t do a lot of decorating. I find that it usually just adds more for me to dust and more for me to pack if/when we move. I try to keep it simple. So when I do decide to have something displayed in my home (spices/herbs in this case), I really try to make it functional, practical, and pleasing to the eye.  

I have this shelf in my kitchen that doesn’t really have a purpose. At first glance, it appears to just scream, “SPICE RACK!”. The odd thing, though, is that the previous owner had installed a pull out spice rack inside one of the kitchen cabinets. Did they have two spice racks or something? I’m not sure. As our family has grown, though, I’ve realized that this unclaimed shelf in my kitchen functions better for me as a spice rack than the small pull out option. I like to buy my spices and herbs in bulk, meaning that I need space for larger containers. Mason jars are usually perfect for this purpose.

I saw this post on Keeper of the Homestead, and just had a lightbulb moment. I’m really pleased with how it has turned out. Everything is right at my fingertips while I cook and bake, and I had all of the materials on hand. I just used various mason jars, and made little labels out of card stock cut into 1in by 1.5 inch rectangle, and then covered them with packaging tape. I love it! For the small 4oz jars, I taped the label to the lid. There’s a quilted texture on these jars and I couldn’t get the tape to adhere very well. The jars with corks are from BJ’s. They came with organic spices in them and hold quite a bit.

Is there something in your house that you could make more practical or beautiful to look at without spending any money? Even better if it's something that will make your life easier or save you time while you work around your home. 

Ideas:
- Could your laundry area be better organized? 

- What about your gardening tools? Are they scattered about (I'm guilty!) or are they stored somewhere that's easy to access as you head out to the garden, and easy to put away so that they don't get left out and lost by curious little "garden helpers"? I need to work on this one.

- What about cleaning supplies (rags, sprays etc.)? I could definitely work on organizing them a little better so that they're within reach when I need them.

This post is linked over at:
Little House in the Suburbs: DIY Link Up
The Prairie Homestead: Barn Hop