A Healthier Snack: Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Balls

If I had one wish I could make – and have it actually come

true – it would be that I could eat whatever I want and not have to worry about

gaining weight or having to exercise to keep it off. I don’t need to be

supermodel thin, but I don’t want to be overweight either.

Generally, I stick to a pretty simple “regimen” (I hate the

word diet) during the work week. Some yogurt and fresh fruit for breakfast, a

small lunch with protein, veggies, maybe some healthy carbs, and then I try to

not eat a lot at dinner. Many times when I come home from work, I’m starving so

I eat a spoonful of peanut butter to hold me over.

One day I saw these balls on Pinterest and it got me

thinking. So I went ahead and used a calorie calculator to see how they would

compare to the peanut butter calorie-wise. Based on the calculations, I could

eat 2 of them and it would be less calories and fat – with the chocolate! I've been making them ever since.

I made some adjustments to the original recipe (from

gimmesomeoven.com), and I've played around with other variations but this one

is the basic one I use most often. Even Brent likes them and he is not a peanut

butter chocolate combination fan.

These are very easy to make and the best part about them is

they taste good and not really “healthy”. You can’t really beat that in my

opinion.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Oat Balls Recipe

*Makes about 30 balls

Ingredients:

Directions:

In a

sauté pan over low heat toast almonds for roughly 5 minutes, shaking pan

occasionally to toss.

Meanwhile

add remaining ingredients to a mixing bowl with chocolate chips on top.

(You want them on top so the warm almonds will slightly melt the

chocolate.) Add toasted almonds and stir to combine.

Moisten

your hands with water. Take a heaping teaspoon of mixture and roll into a

ball – about an inch in diameter. Place on a baking sheet and repeat until

done.

Place

sheet in the refrigerator for about an hour to let balls chill. Then move

to an airtight container and store for about a week in the refrigerator.