Vegan Energy Bombs

With an ongoing hesitation to be in the kitchen because of the existing phase of "I do not want to cook" , I did have to coax myself to get into the kitchen and make these energy bombs, more so cause I needed them before I left for gym in the morning :). They have turned out to be a hit among friends and many folks have requested for the recipe, so here goes.

Ingredients 

1.Oats: 1 Cup (I used a regular brand from the supermarket)

2. Bajra Flakes: 3/4 th cup 

3. Ragi Flakes : 3/4 th cup 

4. Red Rice Flakes : 1/2 cup 

5. Flax seeds: 1/4 cup 

6.White and Black Sesame: 1/4 cup 

7. Dates : 1 1/2 cups(the soft kind)

8. Salted peanuts : 1/2 cup 

9. Almonds + Cashews+ Walnuts : 1 Cup 

10. Coconut Butter or Coconut Oil : 4 Tbsp 

11. Dates Syrup : 4-7 Tbsp

12. Jaggery syrup : if and as needed

* All the flakes mentioned above are from a store at HSR layout in Bangalore called Paramparya (means heritage in tamil and kannada). Here is a link to a nice blog about them: http://www.earthamag.org/stories/paaramparya. A copy of their visiting card is in a photo below.

Process

• On a low flame, dry roast one by one all items numbered 1-6. Make sure you do not burn these ingredients. I did try shortcut of roasting them all together, given the different size and type of grain, they dont get roasted evenly, so please learn from my mistake
• Similarly dry roast item 9 i.e Almonds+ Cashew+ Walnuts 
• Set aside some amount of roasted flax seed and sesame in its whole form, if you do not mind some chunks in your energy bombs
• Combine the oats, bajra, ragi and red rice flakes in a blender to get an almost smooth flour. Avoid making it too fine. *Set aside 5 tbsp s of this mix to use to roll the energy bombs once ready
• Coarsely blend the rest of the sesame and flax seeds 
• Coarsely blend the roasted nuts along with the salted peanuts. Keep them chunky if you like it, it might just be a little hard to get them into a ball later
• De-seed the dates and coarsely blend them 
• In a large pan mix all ingredients including the whole roasted seeds that you have set aside 
• To this add coconut butter and dates syrup
• Mix and blend with your hand. The warmth of your hand with ensure that the coconut butter is mixed evenly 
• Increase the amount of date syrup if you dont see the mix coming together into a workable dough of sorts
• Once it does, make small balls of the mix , roll them in the dry powder that you had set aside above
• Your energy bombs are ready. I typically store them in the fridge and set aside 6-8 of them in a separate box at room temperature for consumption through the day

All the flakes, seeds and dry fruits 

Chopped up dates and salted peanuts 

Once you blend the roasted flakes, your mix should look like this 

Add the roasted and crushed dry fruits, dates + peanuts to the mix 

Set aside some of the dry mixture to roll the energy bombs in 

Add the coconut butter and dates syrup

The mix will start coming together 

The rolled up energy bombs 

Dates Syrup from Ajfan 

Coconut Butter from Happy Healthy Me and Dates Syrup from Ajfan. This bottle of dates syrup is more expensive than the one above.

Paramparya is a store that I stock a lot of my groceries from since they sell items loose without any plastic package and source the products locally

Notes : 

You can use a variety of dry fruits, pista , cranberry, apricots , raisins etc

You can use peanut butter in the mix as well
This was my first time using some jaggery since I ran out of dates syrup. Else I dont see the need for it 

I am yet to ascertain the process of making millet flakes and the health and digestive implications of consuming roasted millet flakes. So far, I have not have any issues, but I am looking to learn more about this and will share updates as and when I find out.