Easy Cannabis Infused Coconut Date Balls

Margaret 00:00:05 Friends. Today we're doing coconut date balls for episode 266. Welcome to Bite Me, the show about edibles where I help you take control of your high life. I'm your host and Certified Ganjier Margaret and I love helping cooks make safe and effective edibles at home. I'm so glad you're here, and thank you for joining me today. Greetings, friends. Welcome back to another episode of Bite Me. If you're tuning in for the first time, thank you for taking a shot. Thank you for listening. I'm really glad that you're here. And I'm curious how you discovered the show. Let me know. You can always shoot me a fan mail. And if you've been around for a while, I appreciate you. Thank you so much for being here and supporting me as I go on this cannabis edibles journey that we're all following along on, and hopefully you're finding some fun new recipes to try in your own home kitchen, because you can take control of your life when you're making your own edibles. And also recall that a lot of these I shouldn't say a lot.

Margaret 00:01:05 All of these recipes can be made non infused as well. So there's that advantage to or there's always a million different ways to do a thing. So what are we talking about today. Well I don't have any fan mail to read out to you all. No reviews. So there's that. But that's okay. We're doing coconut date balls. These were actually requested a little while ago, although I've tweaked them a little bit because I'm doing this elimination diet where I am avoiding certain food groups in an effort to see how it improves some aspects of my health, most notably my sinuses. Because I am a constant sinus sufferer, an allergy suffer as well. So that's one of the things I'm trying to accomplish with this elimination diet, to see if there's any one particular food group that tends to aggravate the symptoms that I experience each and every day. Yes, I buy Kleenex from Costco. Even those are only two of us living in this house. Between the two of us, we blow our noses often enough to warrant Costco sized packages of Kleenex.

Margaret 00:02:15 So that is why I've had to tweak this recipe a little bit. I shouldn't say I've tweaked this particular recipe. I've found one online that sort of worked with what I'm trying to do diet wise. The original person or the person who originally requested this particular recipe was looking for something to do with chocolate, so I will be revisiting this to do. I did find a really yummy looking recipe. It was like a chocolate dipped coconut ball that you that you could infuse. Of course, and I suppose in some respects there's no reason why you couldn't do it with this particular recipe too if you wanted to, but I'll probably revisit it later because I find these types of recipes typically easy and short. Easy and short. Easy and no bake. Often as well. So they come together pretty quickly, and then you've got yourself a nice little batch of something infused that you can enjoy whenever the mood strikes. Now you may be asking why. Date balls I love dates, I buy them also at Costco, and I sometimes find that I have to not buy them because I'll eat too many of them.

Margaret 00:03:18 It's easy to go no sugar when you're eating a ton of dates, am I right? But they are naturally sweet and they probably have minerals and vitamins and some good stuff in them that make them healthier than perhaps eating other types of sugar. But of course, you have to watch the amount of dates that you eat as well, but they do also naturally lend sweetness to a lot of different recipes, which is why you see them so commonly and say energy bars and things like that. And these dates are really no exception. But I tried them out and I really liked them. And this coconut date recipe, as it is written, is literally three ingredients. I think it was three ingredients pecans, dates and coconut. And that's it. And I kind of liked the idea of the pecans as well, because I do like to eat nuts. That's one of the things I can enjoy on this particular Whole30 elimination regime, but I tend to eat a lot of. I bought Brazil nuts recently and those are delicious.

Margaret 00:04:18 I eat a lot of cashews and those are just creamy and delicious as well. Creamy. It's so interesting that a nut can be creamy tasting, but they are. And of course, it's really easy to eat too many of them. But pecans are something that I don't tend to buy too often, so I bought myself a Costco sized bag of pecans because, hey, you never know when you want to make like 100 of these coconut date balls. Dates, like I've already mentioned, are high in sugar. They're natural sweetener, and they're going to add sweetness to these date balls without adding any actual sugar. But they're also high in fiber. And this website is suggesting, from which I got this recipe, that they slowly digestion and help prevent blood sugar levels from spiking too high. So that means you get a sweet treat that gives you a lasting energy and not a sugar rush. So that's something I wasn't really aware of until right this minute. I'm learning alongside you folks as well, and maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about eating as many dates as I do.

Margaret 00:05:17 And then of course, we have coconut and coconut we know is very good for you. And it's high in antioxidants, good for fighting disease. One thing that wasn't included in this recipe as it was written, is some way to infuse it, because as you read it, you're probably like, well, where do I infuse it? Well, we'll get to that because of course I infused these and I tested them out and enjoyed them thoroughly, and it's pretty easy to infuse them. One of the reasons I've always loved date balls. My parents used to make large batches of date balls. I don't really recall why, except I think whenever they had like a church potluck or some kind of meeting to go to where food was to be brought. They would offer to bring a dessert or date balls, and they would always have like a ton of them in the freezer. And when we were younger, they had a like a stand up freezer in the basement and they would put date balls in there. Now, when my sister and I were younger, my parents ate very healthfully.

Margaret 00:06:23 After we both moved out, things changed and they started buying junk food. Like why they didn't do it when we were younger, I couldn't tell you. And sometimes we felt a little gypped. Perhaps, but then maybe also thankful that we didn't have this sort of history of of consuming junk food all the time. I don't really know. I think that's something I got to work out with my therapist, because sometimes I feel like I've got some weird feelings around food. But regardless, sometimes my sister and I would go down to the freezer and eat these date balls because obviously you can freeze them and it doesn't take that long for them to to thaw. I think there was a couple of times where my parents went to go down to the freezer and get some of these deep balls to take to some kind of potluck or something, only to find that a lot of them were missing and I'm sure we got in trouble. Why did they freeze so many? Again? I mentioned probably the church potlucks. I grew up in a pretty religious household.

Margaret 00:07:17 There were always some kind of church potlucks because it felt like we were always going to church, but also it was Amway. My parents did Amway for a long time after we moved. I think we moved when I was about 12 out to the country from Toronto. I was born in Toronto and moved away from there when my parents decided they wanted to leave the city because my dad retired. My dad retired early. I mean, you can just imagine religious parents, parents who are also a generation older than everybody else's parents because they decided to wait until late in life to have kids. My dad was 45 when I was born. He retired early at around the age of 54, and so my mom had been raising us kids and doing supply teaching because she was a teacher by trade, and by the time my dad retired, my mom was semi-retired as well. So I had older parents who were deeply religious and they were home all the time. And if that wasn't a recipe for teenage angst, I don't know what was.

Margaret 00:08:21 But they also were into Amway. So we our whole house was filled with Amway products. Now, I do have to admit that was my first obvious introduction to multi-level marketing. Amway was probably one of the first, maybe beside what Avon and I got to admit that they did. You they Amway made a lot of concentrated like cleaning products, and they had like an environmental lens that they would make these products with. So they would be like safe for lake water and like all this kind of thing. And I feel like that was sort of unprecedented at the time. So perhaps I'm biased. It's the way I was raised that I was fed a lot of this stuff about how wonderful Amway products were, but I do tend to think that they were good quality. Now, of course, because they were buying Amway laundry soap and all purpose cleaner and all that kind of thing. They also bought Amway skincare and makeup. And when I was a teenager, I didn't want Amway artistry products that were seemingly designed for women much, much, much older than me and not really geared to the greasy teenage skin I enjoyed at the time.

Margaret 00:09:32 And I remember one year I think I was about 14. I admit I peeked at my Christmas gifts early. They were all wrapped in under the tree and I will never forget it because I will never peek at my gifts ever again. Because I looked at everything that I got and there was nothing new under the tree. On Christmas morning we had our stockings, maybe, and of course we got oranges in our stockings and things like that. I got artistry, skin care, a set like the the face wash, toner and moisturizer and I was so Who disappointed. So disappointed. I think my sister got a date myself. Actually got me a Blind Melon CD for Christmas. So that was that was at least a surprise and a saving grace. And I loved Blind Melon at the time. But yeah, I can look back and laugh at this stuff now. At the time again, I was a pretty angry teenager, sometimes relatively rebellious. I mean, for my parents, I was extremely rebellious because I think if you farted the wrong way, you know, the church would have something to say about it.

Margaret 00:10:30 Those date balls that we would sneak out of the freezer, they just hit different. I will never forget that. And I've always enjoyed date balls. Maybe it was the illicit nature of the date balls that I was eating as a teenager, because we had to sneak sweets like there was no sweets in the house ever until my sister and I moved out. And then my dad has so many sweets in this house it's ridiculous. I'm going on a big tangent about date balls in my life as an as an Amway kid. Date balls bring back a lot of memories for me, but they are also nutritionally dense. And as you're going to have a sweeter snack, this is a good direction to go. Now, the nice thing about these deep balls is you can also modify this recipe. So we'll get into that a second in a second as well. Basically what you're going to do is you're going to start by pitting 10 to 12 dates. I already had the dates that I had were pitted already, so I didn't have to worry about that.

Margaret 00:11:29 But then you soak them in in hot water for about ten minutes. And if the dates you have are super fresh or soft, you can probably skip this step. I did it because it really does help to soften the date. Sometimes you can get dried dates in a bag that are pretty almost not hard, but you'll notice a difference when you when you soften them in the hot water. And then you add your dates and pecans to a food processor. I used a blender because I don't actually how I don't have a food processor, I don't know, I think I used to have one, but it was so small it was kind of useless and I got rid of it, but I should get a food processor one of these days, because sometimes doing it in the blender is a pain in the butt. But it worked just fine. I used raw pecans. The recipe suggestion you could do toasted ones as well. I just bought raw. you throw them in the blender and you sort of blend them up until they make like a sticky dough mixture.

Margaret 00:12:27 Now what I ended up doing to infuse it was I added just some extra, I think, two tablespoons of MCT oil, because that's what I actually had on hand. Once I went to go make them, I was like, oh, I thought I had coconut or infused coconut oil in the fridge, but it turns out I did not. So I was like, oh, I have infused MCT oil, which is medium chain triglycerides, which is derived from coconut oil. It just stays at room temperature or sorry, it stays at a temperature where it remains liquid all the time. Unlike coconut oil, which is depending on the temperature is going to be solid or liquid. So you could do both. And of course they're going to lend themselves really well to this recipe because you're using coconut. I found the mixture was a little dry, like it could have been a little more wet. So the the MCT oil really helped to add a little more. Moistness to the story. My apologies to people who don't like that word, but moistness to the, the quote unquote dough that you're making.

Margaret 00:13:31 And I also ended up adding a little bit of water as well, because just to help get it moving in the blender too, because you could have added other ingredients as well to do that, maybe more MCT oil, but I didn't really want to add the calories because then you end up having like a 5000 calorie date ball and that seems a little excessive. And that worked just fine. So I used MCT oil, the infused MCT oil, two tablespoons. And I knew that the MCT oil that I was using was how many milligrams it was per milliliter. And so I was able to sort of calculate out from there. How potent each day Paul was going to be for my particular situation. Once you make it in the blender, I took it out of the blender, put it in a bowl, and then you get a a cookie sheet or a pan out. You cover it in parchment paper and you roll them into bowls. Then it suggests you put it in the fridge for a few minutes just to let them set, and then that's when you roll them in the shredded coconut.

Margaret 00:14:33 And there you go. That's it. Super easy. Like it said, to put them in the fridge for 20 to 30 minutes. I think I missed that and put them in there for like 5 or 10. It didn't really seem to matter, but I rolled them in the shredded coconut and then put them in a container with some more parchment paper labeled it don't Forget to label. So nobody inadvertently reaches into the fridge to grab one of those, not knowing that they are infused. And that's it. Super easy. And of course, these would freeze well too, As you can imagine, because I've eaten many a frozen deep ball and that will just help keep them longer. And this is a great recipe that if you really want to, you can make a large batch of. Because I know for a fact that my parents used to make huge batches of date balls. So it depends on how much time and energy you have. As it was written, this recipe made, I believe I ended up with a dozen.

Margaret 00:15:28 Was it 12 to 14? I'd have to look to see how many actually ended up with, but it ended up with about a dozen deep balls. Actually. One of the other things I added because it was suggesting different ways that you could change up this recipe to make it your own was to add nut, add seeds, and I added hemp seeds because I love adding hemp seeds to things because they're so nutrient dense, and that sort of gives it a little extra nutritional kick. I've said many times before on their show that hemp seeds are one of the most nutritionally complete, seeds that you can eat and has the perfect ratio from omega three to omega six fatty acids. So I'd love to include include those. But you could do chia seeds, flax, sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, whatever you happen to have on hand, you could add 2 to 3 tablespoons of sugar, added a couple tablespoons of that. They also suggested that you could try nut butters. And I do have almond butter on hand.

Margaret 00:16:28 And I love almond butter, but I just didn't really want to add the extra calories, I guess because it also suggested that for every half cup of nut butter, you added that you should add dry ingredients. Now, I suppose you could just add more pecans if you wanted to. They're saying you could do a quick oats as well, so that's something that you can do. They suggest maybe if you want to throw in some dried fruit you can do that to raisins, apricots, cranberries. I love goji berries. You may want to chop some of those up in the fruit, or blend them in the food processor first before you add them, but that's something else that you can do. You could throw in protein powder if you wanted, preferably unsweetened because it's already sweetened with the dates spices. This almost sounds like you're getting into like a machine type recipe, but you can add spices to. I didn't worry about any of that, but nutmeg, ginger, cardamom, turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, all of those like warm spices would be really nice with this and would, I think, pair beautifully with the the dates too.

Margaret 00:17:32 And of course if you really want to you could add things like chocolate chips. So those are a few different options. This is one that you can really experiment with because they're pretty forgiving. I personally left out the sweet surprises because one I'm doing this whole 30, but also I feel like the the dates really do add that sweetness that you don't need it and that just makes it more candy like. But hey, you can endlessly modify this recipe. So as a base it's fantastic. Pecans, dates, shredded coconut and then you can adjust based on what you have on hand. And you can infuse also based on what you can't have on hand. That's why I love this recipe and why I had to share it and what I'll be eating for the next few nights because I'm going to be enjoying them. I had some recently and they're delicious. They're really delicious. That's it. If you try them, I would love to hear how you modified them. You can get really creative with these. And I know I there's a creative bunch listening to this podcast, so I would love to hear how you adjusted this recipe to make it your own.

Margaret 00:18:33 You can always hit me up in all the obvious places, but other than that, if you know someone who loves date balls as much as I do, then feel free to share this episode with them. Sharing is caring and really does help get more eyeballs on the show, which is difficult for a niche. Podcast and podcasts are growing in popularity. And I'm not true crime, so sometimes, you know, it's an uphill battle to get people to discover the show, but things they are changing. I think that's it for this week, my friends. I'm your host, Margaret. And until next time, stay high.