Last summer we spent a lot of time in the car, road tripping to our holiday destination on the other end of the country and then driving to and from the beach each day.
In the run up to our vacation, I spent quite a bit of time thinking about and prepping things to keep my 2 year old and then 4 year old entertained (and to protect our sanity) for the twelve plus hours of driving time we were planning to do - audio stories, nasheeds, toys, books and food. It made the trip slightly less harrowing to be able to reach into a bag and chuck something back at them whenever they were getting too bored. (We all reached our destination intact and still relatively fond of each other so it definitely helped!)
In terms of food, it's so easy to mindlessly munch on junk to curb the hours of boredom on the road. I knew that on holiday our eating habits would be less than ideal so I wanted to keep our travel snacks for the car as healthy as I could. Some of the snacks I packed were fresh fruit, carrot and cucumber sticks, biltong, nut butter sachets from Buttanut, kale chips from Earthshine (yes, my kids love them), squishies, nakd bars and brown rice cakes (I may or may not be the only person who does food and grocery shopping at Dischem...although some of this stuff is from Fresh Earth too).
A surprise hit with my family were some packaged date balls that I bought from Woolworths, particularly the cashew and coconut ones. They never failed to elicit excitement and a few blissful moments of silence from my two very patient children. Since it is easy to come by Woolies in most parts of the country it was easy to restock while we were on the go and a blessing for the time that we were away from home.
When we got home though, I decided to try to make my own version. While the Woolies version is great for when you need something convenient, it's much cheaper to make them at home and they freeze excellently so you can make a whole lot at once and keep some for later. I'd made date squares a while ago and they were pretty easy so I didn't think it would be too hard to recreate the date balls and I was right, the date balls were even easier. I also decided to play around with flavours and came up with a whole range of deliciously sweet combinations. These date balls contain no butter or sugar or wheat. They come together in minutes in a food processor and the only real work is rolling them into balls.
Date Balls
For the date balls
150 g roasted or raw nuts (I prefer the roasted flavour although raw nuts would work just as well. I usually use macadamia nuts but cashew or almond or pecans work too)
400g pitted dates
3 tablespoons hot water
1 teaspoon coconut oil (melted)
vanilla*
For coating
coconut/poppyseeds/cinnamon/chopped nuts/cinnamon/dried mint leaves
Roast the nuts and process them in a food processor until they resemble bread crumbs. Add the pitted dates, coconut oil, hot water and vanilla and pulse until smooth. Form into balls and roll in your desired coating.
*the healthiest and most natural flavouring would probably be vanilla seeds or vanilla extract and you'd probably want to use half a bean or one teaspoon. I used a vanilla flavouring I had on hand (from Cakewalk) which required 10 drops.
Different Flavour Options
In my picture my flavour variations (from front to back) are:
- rose and sesame (swop the vanilla for rose essence or rose water and coat in sesame seeds)
- cardamom, cashew and coconut (use cashew nuts, swop vanilla for about half a teaspoon of ground cardamom and coat in coconut)
- cinnamon and chocolate (add in a tablespoon or two of raw cocoa, omit the vanilla and coat in freshly ground cinnamon)
- poppyseed and vanilla (the above recipe coated in poppyseeds)
- chocolate mint (add in a tablespoon or two of raw cocoa, substitute the vanilla with peppermint essence and coat in dried mint leaves)
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