Creativity, memories and chochy yum yum's.....

We are three weeks into social distancing and spending our time at home, this has seen an increase in creativity, particularly in what I would call ‘home making’. People are planting seeds to grow food, bread making, making things out of reusable items, crafting and having the opportunity to be more creative around food.

I find myself reminiscing to when my children were smaller, I used to grown organic vegetables and even delivered Organic vegetables around the peninsula that we lived on when they were growing up. I had the time to cook fresh, wholesome meals everyday and this was the time when I decided to study nutritional therapy. I knew food was healing and wanted to understand more, this took me on a 3 year journey with the Nutritional Healing Foundation that changed me forever.

When I qualified I worked as a Nutritional Therapist in our small community, and had great results helping people to address health issues and become generally more healthful. I started to run food workshops in our small village hall in Llangwnnadl and educate locals and friends on food, healthy alternatives and naturopathic techniques - we had such fun. One of the gems that came out of this time (and there was not as much availability of the internet for recipes and blogs in those days) was a recipe I came up with and suitably called “chochy yum yum’s”. Often it was the sweet things in life that clients found the hardest to resist, so I came up with a healthy alternative to shop bought dairy and sugary chocolate. My chochy yum yum’s were a winner and to this day people still ask me for the recipe.

So as Easter weekend is approaching I decided to share my recipe with you, and in the spirit of creativity I am going to give you the basic recipe and lots of alternatives so you may be able to use up your store cupboard staples. My eldest daughter has never liked the chocolate in Easter eggs, but always loved my chochy yum yum’s, we are self isolating together so she is thrilled I have dusted off this recipe.

Chochy Yum Yum’s

1 cup almond butter (any other nut butter will be equally nice)

2 dessertspoons cocoa powder

1/4 cup maple syrup (non vegan can add honey, or agave or any other syrup)

Mix the above into a paste with a fork

25 dates (around 2 cups, can add other dried fruit if you don’t have dates)

1 cup ground almonds (any nut ground or I like to use a mixture of almonds and seeds for the phytoestrogens)

citrus zest (1 lemon/orange/lime)

1 teaspoon mixed spice (or just cinnamon/nutmeg)

1/4 cup syrup as above

Blitz this part in a food processor and then add the paste above, mix well and you may need to add a little juice from the citrus fruit (or water) until the mixture rolls easily into balls. It may be a little crumbly but should stick together when pressed. Put in the fridge to harden and store there, although you won’t have them for long!!

Please feel free to share pictures of your creations, and wishing you all a lovely homely Easter …..