No Bake, Choclate Quinoa Bites

This past Friday Devon and I got the privilege of babysitting our nephews and having them sleep over night. We have never had a sleepover with them before so we were really excited for them to come over.

 I wasn’t too sure what we were going to do, because Devon and I don’t have a lot of things for them to play with. But we improvised and they had a blast. The first thing we did was blow up the air mattress they were sleeping on that night and put it in the living room. We were going to watch a movie after supper and thought it would be fun to lay on the floor and eat popcorn. Well the movie was put on hold because Auntie Nikki blew up SO MANY balloons that they wanted to play with those instead. At first Brody and Carson just played with the balloons, but then Brody had the idea of lining them up on the air mattress and then taking a running jump and knocking them all off. It was quite the game, so simple yet so much fun!

They also played with our dogs, Lucy and Stella. Our girls haven’t been around kids much so I was a little wary on how they would respond to having them overnight. But they did awesome! It took Stella a little while to calm down and get used to them being around, but after an hour she was sitting on the floor playing with her chew toy. Only when the kids had food was she on them like white on rice. But Brody and Carson had no trouble telling them to ‘go lay down’ and ‘No Stella this is not yours!’ When they left the next morning each dog took a couch and slept for hours, recuperating from the constant (yet awesome) play time and attention the boys gave them.

Brody giving Stella a hug

Carson hanging out with Lucy

After supper we made some cookies! I had came across this recipe a while ago and thought it would be fun to make seeing as they are ‘No Bake’. I tried the recipe out and immediately knew I had to make some changes. The original recipe calls for ¼ cup of coconut oil, plus ½ cup of peanut butter and I knew that it was going to be way to much oil. But I made it first seeing how it would pan out and I was right. There was so much oil, that the pan they were on had little pools of coconut oil underneath them. This time while making them with the boys I omitted the coconut oil and they turned out perfect. Also I substituted the honey for date syrup and made them balls instead of cookies!

After letting the cookie dough cool off, the boys and I got to work on forming our very own cookies. I gave them free range to make what ever shape or size of cookies they wanted. Which was quite interesting, some turned out like patties, some were balls and some were ‘worms’. Those didn’t make it to picture stage, a) because they ate them b) they looked like cat poop. Yup I said it, cat poop. I know that sounds weird but its true. To the boys they were making worms but to Devon and I, it was something else. No worries though, because they were the kids cookies and they had fun making them!

In the morning I made pancakes for everyone, including myself. I came up with a recipe that didn’t turn out that bad, but they weren’t awesome and I am not posting a pancake recipe that isn’t awesome. The regular pancakes got rave reviews from Brody and Carson, they said I made the best pancakes EVER and that they wanted to eat them every day. I wont lie, that made me feel great, what is it about a kid giving you a compliment that just makes you feel like you are the queen of the world?

By the time breakfast was over, the kids had already got the dog beds from upstairs and were dragging them down to the bottom of the stairs. They wanted to jump off the stairs into the pile of beds, and why not? I used to jump off the stairs, so why cant they? I think they did this for 2 hours, everything from counting each stair as they jumped off, to throwing balloons while jumping and trying to race it down.

We had a lot of fun, only a couple stubbed toes and brotherly fights, but all in all we had a lot of fun spending time with our nephews. Hopefully this is not the last time we get to do this while they are young, I know Jen and Sean wouldn’t mind us taking the boys for the night.

Ingredients Makes - 18-20 cookies

1/2 cup date syrup (recipe below)

4 tablespoons cocoa powder or carob powder

1/2 cup peanut butter or almond butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/3 cup shredded coconut

1/2 - 1 cup cooked white quinoa

Over medium heat, combine date syrup and cocoa powder. Bring to a simmer, stirring constantly for 2-3 minutes and remove from heat. Stir in peanut butter, vanilla, coconut, and quinoa. You can either use a spoon or your hands to make the balls, but be warned that the batter is messy! Place them onto parchment paper and set in the refrigerator to set (about 15-20 mins)

Date Syrup

5-7 large majool dates

1/4 cup water

Blend in high speed blender until smooth.

Thanks for reading!
Xoxo -N