A Healthy Lifestyle Includes a Chocolate Treat!

Every healthy diet needs a chocolate treat! Dark chocolate, nuts, and seeds support a healthy heart, decrease weight gain, and help prevent diabetes. In addition, nuts and seeds decrease inflammation, help maintain blood circulation, and help maintain blood pressure.

I stumbled across a similar recipe and adapted it to meet my healthy criteria of no sugar. I also added my choice of nuts and seeds. You can adapt this recipe to use your own preferred dried fruit, nuts, and seeds. I also use unsweetened cocoa disks from Mexico, so I can adjust the sweetener as needed.

Healthy Chocolate Chunks

Healthy chocolate fruit/nut chunks

Ingredients:

1 bag of Lily’s no sugar dark chocolate chips or 2 Mexican cocoa disks melted with maple syrup, honey or Stevia added for sweetener.

Handful of dried dates (chopped)

¼ c. dried cranberries (craisins)

½ c.  roasted almonds

½ c.  pistachios

¼ c  peanuts

¼ c. pumpkin seeds

2Tlbs olive oil

1 Tlbs Maple syrup

(Use nuts of choice: pecans and macadamia nuts work well too.  Use seeds of choice: sunflower, chia, flaxseeds, etc). Use choice of dried fruits: dates, apricots, raisins, and cranberries. I like to use a variety of different nut, fruit, and seed combinations since they all provide a variety of essential minerals and vitamins (Eat to live; don't live to eat!)

Place chopped dried fruit (dates & dried cranberries) in bowl of water while preparing nut/seed mixture.

Melt chocolate slowly with 1 -2 Tlbs of olive oil to give the chocolate a smooth consistency and texture. I melt chocolate in a measuring cup for 1 minute in the microwave and then stir until completely melted. If chocolate gets too hot, it will clump up and you want to keep a smooth texture. AFTER CHOCOLATE IS MELTED: Add natural sweetener if needed-not needed if you use Lily’s no sugar added dark choc chips)

Chop nuts and seeds together and roast in a pan with a Tlbs of olive oil until you get a nutty aroma.

Mix drained dates and dried cranberries (Craisins) into nut mixture.

Add 1 Tlbs of maple syrup to nut/date mixture.

Pour 1 tsp of melted chocolate in a silicone muffin pan.  Pour remaining melted chocolate on top of nut/fruit mixture.

 Place a spoon full of nut/fruit mixture on top of chocolate in each section of muffin pan.

Spoon remaining chocolate on top of fruit/nut mixture.

Refrigerate overnight until chocolate is firm.  Serve for dessert or enjoy as a snack!

We eat one as a dessert with our breakfast every morning. This would make a wonderful snack as well!

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