ths rfl turmericcarrotbits 2017 11 23

Hi everyone, I'm Lisa Manzo, registered holistic nutritionist, fitness trainer, owner of Pure

Energy Wellness Lofts and author of Healthy is Sexy. I am so excited to have you here with me in my kitchen

So we are going to make no-bake turmeric carrot cake bites. I'm so excited to share these, these are an absolute favorite in my household and my daughter

eats these up. So if you have kids, you are going to love this recipe

So join me here on Real Food Live

Hi welcome, I am so excited to share with you the turmeric carrot cake bite recipe

So like I said, these are no-bake, which means they're easy, they're simple, they're fast

to make and you know if you've tuned into my shows in the past, I always make sure

that the recipes are quick, easy and fast. Especially when they are for kids and kids are involved because we all know as mothers

that when kids want snacks, it's immediate. So before we get started, make sure you send in any of your comments, any of your questions

I'm here to answer all of them right here as we're making our cake bites

So definitely just send them in as you have your questions. So like I said, this is a great recipe for kids

It's also great for adults, so please make sure that you're still keeping that in mind

for yourself. But they're no-bake, which means that you can make them in advance and you can store

them in the fridge for up to a week or you can store them in the freezer for up to a month

So they keep really, really well. So like I said, they're super easy, which means it's one bowl

Throw everything in, all you'll need is a few simple ingredients and a blender or a

food processor and that's about it. So you can actually get your kids in on this recipe to help get them involved and making

sure they're being exposed to healthy cooking and healthy baking so that they know what

they're eating and kind of starting to explain some of the ingredients, which I'll explain

with you here today. So some of the ingredients that I have here are really fall-inspired, winter-inspired

because I talk a lot about warming foods, but also warming spices

So turmeric, ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, all those spices are so, so warming, which

means that they're healing and which means that they'll all help to boost the immune

system during the transition from warmer weather now to a little bit of colder weather and

that's what we want not only in ourselves, but in our kids because they tend to bring

in all their beautiful colds into our household. So we want to make sure we have the immune system nicely high and boosted

So we're going to start off. I took the liberty of doing this before our live show so that I could speak and not have

the blender on really high, but I took about two to three carrots and I placed them in

the blender and I just finely chopped them so that we want to make sure that we still

have that carrot texture in the balls as well because they are carrot cake balls

And so once these are done in the blender, once they've been blitzed, you can actually

place them in a bowl, clean out your blender a little bit and then we're going to place

in the dates and I'm using as my nut, pecans. So I love, love, love pecans because they have a caramel flavor, but you can really

switch up any nut. Walnuts would be fantastic, almonds, any nut that you would prefer, you can definitely

use and if you, if there is a nut allergen in your household, you can actually switch

up the nuts for sunflower seeds or pumpkin seeds. So definitely versatile, this recipe

Now if your dates are dry and they've been in the fridge for some time, like I usually

have a tub of dates that I keep in the fridge for smoothies and you know, cake bites or

any type of no bake bites, I soak them for about ten minutes

So this is about five to seven dates, they've been soaked for ten minutes so they're nice

and soft and they'll be a little bit more pliable in your blender. So I'm going to throw these in with a quarter cup of my pecans and then I'm going to blend

this up to start. So as you know, I love to use my Vitamix blender because it's high power, I do have a food

processor as well and I've made these in the food processor and they're great as well

So I'm going to place this on high and get these all blended up

So get that all done. Good, so once that's blended, the best part about this is that we can add in all of the

other ingredients into this blender. So the dates tend to get stuck to the bottom here, that's okay though

I absolutely love using dates in my no bake bites because it forms a sticky texture and

that's what's going to help bind all your other ingredients together. It also adds a really nice natural sweetness to the dessert

So remember, this is a healthy treat but it's also packed with so much nutrients

So who said you can't have your cake and eat it too, right? So we're just going to add in all the other ingredients here

So once that's done, I'm going to add in a quarter cup of hemp hearts, really great

for protein and fiber. So add all that in so you can make sure your child's getting all the nutrients they need

as well as yourself. We're going to add in a quarter teaspoon of turmeric

So I really like turmeric for its helping with the cleansing properties of turmeric

with the liver. I really like the brand Simply Organic. They have a whole line of spices and I definitely use most of their line

So most of the spices here are Simply Organic, it's a great brand

So I have half a teaspoon of cinnamon. I always like to add in more cinnamon because it adds that really really nice sweet flavor

A pinch of sea salt or Himalayan salt. Quarter teaspoon of ground clove

So this is quite potent so you don't want to go more than a quarter teaspoon or else it'll kind of take over the flavors of everything else

And throw that in here. And then a half a teaspoon of nutmeg, ground nutmeg

So I'm using here all ground spices but you can definitely use fresh and grate them if

you choose to which would make your recipe take a little bit longer

Again by Simply Organic I have vanilla extract. So one teaspoon of vanilla extract

So as you can tell these are all kind of fall flavors. We have the vanilla, we have turmeric, nutmeg, cinnamon, ground cloves

It smells so so fall in here. Sometimes when I really want that fall smell in my household I'll actually get a pot of

water and I'll throw in some orange peels and some cinnamon sticks and a little bit

of nutmeg into the water and the fragrance in the house is beautiful

So it's almost a natural air freshener which is really nice. So coconut, I love love love love coconut

So I'm actually adding in half a cup of coconut into the cake ball itself

But I've also placed to the side a quarter cup to roll the nut balls or to roll the cake

bites inside the coconut so we can coat them all nice. And then as an extra binder I'm using coconut butter

So people constantly ask me the difference between coconut oil and coconut butter

Essentially coconut butter is coconut meat. Coconut has so many beautiful health benefits and that's why they call it the tree of life

So it is a super food. I love coconut because it has something called luric acid and what that does is help boost

the immune system. And so I absolutely love to add in coconut butter, coconut oil anytime I can whether

it's to a smoothie or a dessert for its health properties. Also for females who are interested it's absolutely fabulous for the skin

So you definitely want to add that in as much as you can. So I'm going to take the coconut butter and some recipes also call for nut butter

So if you didn't want to use coconut butter or you didn't have it on hand in your pantry

and you really wanted to whip this recipe up, if you have a nut butter or a seed butter

in your fridge you can definitely add that as well in replace of this

So like I said guys send in your comments, any questions I'd love to answer them

I'm all set up to do so so let me know. As you can tell the nut butter is really really thick which is what we want

Nice thick so that creates that batter. We need all this to bind together here. Wonderful

So now we have the smell not only of these beautiful spices but of coconut

I don't know about you but I absolutely love coconut anything. So coconut in our household is a staple for sure

The coconut butter that I'm using here is Nutiva. It's a great coconut oil, it's nice and clean and organic

So once I've placed all of this batter into the Vitamix, I'm going to place my lid on

and I'm going to add in some maple syrup. So that we can sweeten this up just a little bit more

Because it is a little special treat right? So these cake bites are vegan

If you didn't want to use maple syrup you could use honey and change up the recipe in

that way. But they're also gluten free and dairy free. Perfect. Excellent

So send in your comments, I would love love love to answer them

I have a question from Rita and she says, I ask are these low fat recipes

So we definitely want to really pay attention to the nutrient content in this recipe

So we don't want to focus so much on eliminating fat from our diet

So I've spoken in the past about how important fat, good fats are to be able to feel satiated

so that you're not over eating or craving any food. So definitely this recipe is very clean, it's going to process really quickly in your body

The fats that are in this recipe are the coconut butter and the pecans

But those are really really healthy fats. So definitely you want to make sure that you're adding them into your foods

And also when you have a higher fat treat like this, you tend to only eat 1-2 bites

versus having something that doesn't have fat and you're not feeling full and you tend

to eat half the batch. So this batch here will make about 18-20 and 2-3 will be more than enough to kind of get

that craving that you need. So can coconut oil be used in place of coconut butter

So I don't recommend coconut oil being replaced instead of coconut butter because coconut

oil is a lot runnier. So we need something thick to bind all the ingredients together

The dates do a fantastic job at doing that but the butter is what really creates that

thicker dough. So a nut butter or a sunflower seed butter if you do have a nut allergy would be definitely

the better choice to substitute. Okay? Alright, so we'll just place the lid right on here

And like I said, food processor or high speed blender and you kind of want to pulse it

And for the Vitamix you might need to use the wand to kind of pulse everything in

Alright, so we got a little thicker

So the maple syrup and the dates add a really wonderful natural sweetness to this

If you didn't find that it's sweet enough, you could add in a little bit of coconut sugar

For our taste buds it's quite sweet. So as you can see it's a really thick mixture that's forming here. Wonderful. Perfect

So we're going to open this up and we're going to scrape down the sides here

So as you can see it doesn't have to be perfect. You really just want that thick, thick texture and this is what's acting as the dough

Okay, so the dough of the cake bites. So I'm going to place this into my bowl and I'm going to add in the shredded carrots

So what parent doesn't like a treat that has hidden veggies, right

So now again, I really love to make this with my daughter because all the ingredients

are already set out. I get her to put them in the blender so that she feels like she made them

And so when she's telling people about her little recipe, she's saying, oh I helped mommy

make this and it makes her feel really proud. So how I created this recipe to be honest is I have my daughter in nursery school and

snack is provided at nursery school. Now, when I looked at the snack options, I was not really comfortable with them

So I decided to opt out of the snack program for my daughter Savannah, which meant that

I needed to get even more creative with my snack ideas and what I was going to bring

in her little snack bag to school so that I could mimic some of the things that were

on the program outline, but that were healthier. And so in this household, we really try to live as closely to a gluten free and dairy

free lifestyle as possible. So I just had to get a little bit more creative

So a lot of the snacks were packaged snacks, granola bars and not healthy granola bars

but granola bars and little treats of some sort. So these kind of, I thought came to mind because they're bite size, they're small, they're

tasty, she can bring them with her. And it's funny because now her little friends at preschool are asking her for snacks, for

her snacks. So that's really exciting and she feels really good about that too

So here we go. We have our batter in here. I'm going to place my shredded carrots

So like I said, this is about two to three carrots, which does make up when shredded

half a cup. And I'm going to mix this in here into my batter, which absolutely smells fantastic

It smells like fall in this house, which I really, really love

I love all these warming spices and we don't normally get to use say something like ground

cloves or nutmeg as, as often. So why not put them into a nice baked recipe

These are also really great spices to add into like a carrot cake or anything that has

that fall vegetable. You could also do something very similar to this as a smoothie with a, you know, vegan

protein powder. I really like Sun Warrior, the natural brand. And I kind of, I'll add my spices to that too, which are really good

So one thing I do want to mention is you want to make sure you store these cake bites

in the fridge because unlike other cake bites, carrots have a lot of kind of a high water

content so they, they could not hold its form. So you definitely want to keep these in the fridge

After you have mixed all the ingredients together, you want to roll them into balls on a baking

dish or a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. And then you want to store them in the fridge for at least one to two hours so that they

can take their form. If you're in a rush and you have company over and you want to make these, you could throw

toss them into the freezer for, for about 10 to 20 minutes to get them hard and then

roll it out. So I have my quarter cup of coconut flakes

I'm using here Bob's Red Mill, but anything that's unsweetened and shredded if you wanted

if you didn't even want to do a thicker flake. And we're going to roll them out. So I'm going to get my baking sheet here and I'm going to roll these stunning cake bites

into a ball and then I'm going to roll them into the coconut. Okay

So yes, you have to get your hands dirty here. And like I said, kids love this, this part especially

So I'll get her to roll the balls or I'll get her, I'll roll the balls and she'll put

them into the coconut. So as you can see, these balls are rolling so nicely, so they're nice and thick

So really it's a mixture of the dates and that coconut butter, that thick coconut butter

that's really keeping, allowing the balls to stay in that round form

Otherwise they would just fall if it was the coconut oil. So going to roll these out here into the balls

So good. And what's great is you can also make these into cake pops

So if you have your child's birthday party and you wanted to offer something a little healthier but something fun, you could create balls and then place your sticks on them and

they become cake pops. And those are really, really in right now

So you would basically roll the balls all and place onto the baking sheet

And then like I said, place them in the fridge. After they have hardened, you want to maintain that shape, keep them in the fridge so they

keep and they won't fall. But here you have it. So you have turmeric in here, you have ground cloves and cinnamon and nutmeg, all those

beautiful spices. You have carrots. So although it's a special treat and although it's a healthy treat, it's also packed with nutrients

And that's what we talk a lot about is that it's okay to treat yourself, but you want

to make sure that what you're treating yourself is clean and could also provide some fuel

some energy and also it could be a nice healthy treat. So let's see if there's any more

Looks yummy. Thank you so much, Brenda. I use fresh turmeric. That's wonderful

So definitely you can grate fresh turmeric in if you have it, which is fantastic

And if you don't and ground turmeric like I did is in your cupboard, you can use that

as well. Perfect. Sally just says, thank you. I like it. Thanks, Sally

So you know what I love? I love when all of our viewers go home or take some time to make this on their own and

then they post it. Post your recipes, tag us. You can add us on Facebook, tag us in Instagram at the hearty soul

Tag me, Lisa Manzo. I would love, love, love to see your recipes and even your creations

Maybe you're going to swap out a space or make something or add in a nut butter

I would love to see that because as much as we, you know, you're learning here today

we learn as well from you. So please tag us on your social channels as we'd love to see that

So I'm going to wash my hands and I'm going to place this into the fridge

So like I said, my whole philosophy is quick, fast and easy

How can we get nutrient packed snacks and food into ourselves, into our family, into

our children as quickly as possible and feel comfortable that they are packed with nutrients

They're going to give us some nourishment. They're going to give us some fuel, but it's going to be healthy

So I'm going to throw these into the fridge so that they can take its shape. Perfect

So that's it. So turmeric carrot cake bites. They are as good as they look and you are going to love them

So I hope you loved today's show on our cake bites and like I said, send us any comments

We're still going to be responding. We're still going to be answering any questions that you have

We're here to support and we'll see you here next week on Real Food Live

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