Mexican Chocolate Date Truffles (Vegan Energy Balls)

After doing the detox diet, I have been trying to avoid processed foods and refined sugar in our diets. But sometimes it is difficult to stop those afternoon sweet cravings. Instead of reaching to those chocolate candy, here are a much healthy and nutritious alternate -- these Mexican Chocolate Date truffles.

These little energy balls are made with medjool dates, nuts and cacao powder. They are no-bake, no-cook and are perfect when you are short on time. I used mixed nuts with almonds, cashews, pistachios and peanuts, but you can use any one nut or your favorite combination of nuts.

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Vegan Eggnog with Almond Milk

I've heard a lot about Eggnog but never tried it myself. The thought of drinking raw egg didn't really appeal to me. Last year I made this Mango Eggnog and it was quite a hit even with the kids.

This year I was tempted to try a vegan eggnog recipe when I saw this on Food52. It  is made with soaked cashews and full fat coconut milk to make it thick and the spices give the required oomph and deliciousness. I looked for more vegan eggnog recipes and found another recipe from Tasty Yummies, this one is made with cashew milk, soaked raw cashews and coconut milk.

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Quinoa Salad with Pistachio and Dates

Blogging Marathon# 58: Week 3/ Day 3

Theme: Salads

Dish: Quinoa Salad with Pistachio and Dates

I love grain based salads. If planned correctly they make for a wholesome meal and you don't have to worry about side dishes or protein to go along with it. This Quinoa salad is one such recipe.

This recipe is also from 'Vegan Eats World' cookbook like yesterday's Avocado Mango Salad. This quinoa salad has all my favorite ingredients, dates, pistachios, baby spinach and of course quinoa. I love dates - they are so chewy, caramely and oh-so delicious. I always keep a bag of them in my pantry for snacking or for making desserts (like this burfi or these nut balls or this decadent cake) or salads like this one.

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Figs, Date & Nut Bars (Anjeer-Khajoor Burfi)

Belated Diwali wishes to all of you. It was a very quite festival for us this year and the weather didn't cooperate either. It was gloomy and raining the whole day. I'm glad that my husband was home for Diwali, first time in the past 2~3 years. Even after seeing all the yummy Diwali snacks on Facebook and Instagram, I wasn't motivated enough to make anything.

But then I felt bad for the family and decided to make something less guilty yet satisfying. After leafing through the cookbooks, I found this fig, date & nuts burfi in Sanjeev Kapoor's Sweet temptations. It has no added sugar and the sweetness comes from dried figs and dates.

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Vegan Banana doughnuts with Chocolate Fudge Sauce

Blogging Marathon# 54: Week 2/ Day 3

Theme: Kid's Delight -- Fruits in any form

Dish: Banana Doughnuts with Chocolate Fudge Sauce

I am not sure who liked these doughnutss better, the kids or me!!!!!! These banana beignets or mini doughnuts are just insane. They taste so good that I ate almost all of them the first time I made them, may be I gave a few to my daughter. I had to make them a second time because I just had to (no actually the first round pictures turned awful).

This will be my last post for this week's BM under the Kid's Delight -- fruits in any form theme. I saw Bobby Flay make these beignets on his 'Brunch with Bobby' cook show. They looked so good on TV that I had to make them at home right away.

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Eggless Date & Walnut Cake

Blogging Marathon# 53: Week 4/ Day 3

Theme: Bookmarked Recipes -- Veena's Veg Nation

Dish: Eggless Date & Walnut Cake
For the final day of this month's blogging marathon, I picked this yummy looking Eggless Dates Cake from Veena's blog. I recently bought a bag of seedless dates from Costco and have been snacking on them almost everyday. So when I saw this recipe, I knew it would be perfect to use some of the dates.

This cake is eggless and can be made with just a few basic ingredients. If you are using dates with seeds, then the dates need to be soaked in milk overnight to help in removing the seeds. I used seedless dates, so just warmed it in the microwave to make them a little soft.

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Sweet Chutney for Chaats (Date-Tamarind Chutney)

This sweet and tangy chutney is a must with any chaat. Balance is the key for this chutney, so adjust the quantities according to your personal taste preference.

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Dates & Nuts Laddoo

BM# 34: Week 4/ Day 2
Theme: Cooking from Sapana's blog
Dish: Dates & Nuts Laddoo

It has been a very busy weekend. Saturday whizzed by really fast with 2 birthday parties -- my sister's where we had lunch and evening snack with cupcake cutting then a surprise 50th birthday party for a friend. Of course we were late for the surprise part since we were driving from one corner of New Jersey to another. But all in all it was a great day with loads of good food and fun with family and friends.

Sunday started out lazy but soon became busy with house cleaning and laundry. We are hosting our first ever Thanksgiving party this year and even though it's going to be a potluck, I'm getting nervous about the menu, quantity of food, decor and just about everything related to hosting a party. So rest of the Sunday quickly went by with menu planning, laundry folding and Kung Fu Panda watching (not sure how and when the last one got onto the list -- but it's definitely worth the time, kept my mind off the impending work).

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Oatmeal with Honey & Dates

Blogging Marathon# 33: Week 4/ Day 1
Theme: BM# 32 Bookmarked Recipes
Dish: Quick Oatmeal with Dates & Honey by Sreevalli

We start our last and final week of BM# 33 for this month and my theme for this week is 'Bookmarked recipes from BM# 32'. This was probably the hardest theme for me this month. I had a very tough time selecting 3 dishes to make from more than 550 dishes.

Finally after a lot of deliberation, I decided on 3 dishes based on the ingredients I had in my pantry. So for the first day I made this quick, simple and healthy Quick Oatmeal with Dates & Honey from Sreevalli's Ammaji's Recipes.

This was one of the recipes that I knew I would make right away because I love oatmeal and keep trying new recipes. The combination of dates and honey sounded very appealing to me and I wondered why I didn't think of it earlier.

Sreevalli made it in the microwave and called it quick oatmeal, but I made it on the stove top which takes a few more minutes than microwave. Either way this is a very quick and healthy breakfast that gets done in less than 10minutes. I generally use soy milk in my oatmeal, but any milk or even water (for a less creamy oatmeal) can be used.

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Almond Brown Rice Pudding

This recipe was love at first site for me. When I saw the recipe on Whole Foods website, I just had to make it right away. But that right away did not come for another 2 months, even though I was thinking of the dish a lot. It is a simple rice pudding with brown rice, almond milk and pureed dates and I usually have all the ingredients in my pantry & the fridge. What really caught my attention was the use of pureed dates in the recipe and I was imagining the combination of creamy almond milk with the rich sweetness of the dates even before making the dish.

It was so totally worth it when I finally made it, wasn't disappointed at all. It was slightly chewy, sweet and nutty - a perfect balance of taste & texture -- totally awesome. I used Lion brand date syrup that I brought back from India instead of pureeing the dates. I also used long grain brown rice, but short grain rice would probably make a more creamier rice pudding. So if you want to make this dish, try to get some short grain brown rice.

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