I’ve been having fun adding fruit back into my diet – didn’t realize how much I missed bananas…and berries…and apples…and clementines!! But with only one (sometimes 2) servings per day, it’s taken me a while to get to all the fruit I’ve been missing out on over the last several months!
This last week I rediscovered DATES! And I HEART dates!! They are sweet like candy but for those of you watching your caloric intake like me – they are a whopping 66 calories EACH – yikes! But I think they are so worth it. So I have 2 quickie recipes for ya, if you too would like to enjoy some dates this weekend:
DATE SHAKE
Ingredients
- 1 small banana
- 1 date (remember to pit it!)
- 1 cup almond milk (I used vanilla – but any kind will work or coconut milk or soy milk or milk milk!)
- 1 handful of spinach (optional – I’ve been trying to get more veggies in and this was a quick and easy way to do it and I swear to you I did not taste the spinach!)
Directions
Put all of your ingredients in a blender/vitamix and blend to your heart’s content. Makes one yummy (and green if you use spinach) date shake. (sorry no pic…it wasn’t that pretty – but very yummy)
Calories - 250, serves 1
DATE ROLL
Ingredients
- 12 dates (again – remember to pit them…can you tell I had an incident where I did NOT pit them…it was loud in my vitamix).
- 1/2 cup crushed walnuts
- 3/4 cup unsweetened shredded coconut flakes
Directions
- Put the dates in your blender/vitamix and crush them up into a paste.
- Add the walnuts and half of the coconut and mix in with the date paste.
- Remove from the blender and roll into balls.
- Coat in the remaining coconut.
- Refrigerate and enjoy!
Calories - I made 10 date rolls but had excess coconut leftover so I figure they were about 150 calories each.
Knowing that each date roll was the equivalent and then some of a Medifast meal, really helped me savor each and every one of them. If I didn’t know how many calories were in each, I probably would’ve eaten the whole batch in one sitting, which I don’t suggest you do. But they are that good – and worth the splurge!
Enjoy!
