These little bites are the perfect little treats to store in your freeze for those three-thirty sweet cravings, put on skewers to make fruit kebabs as a party snack, or to top your smoothie bowls for a little extra yum!

I'm currently on prac for uni, which means I am basically working full-time, mon to fri so during the week I'm never home during daylight hours, so my time to create and share recipes is limited only to the weekends for the next few months, luckily I love creating recipes so I'm basically filling my weekend days with making and creating in my kitchen (its like a de-stress mechanism for me), I promise I will try my best to keep some exciting, fresh content and healthy delicious recipes coming, also this means when i get home of an evening I am absolutely starving, so having a stash of these in the freezer means I get have a little snack while cooking dinner, which means I'm not a h-angry lil Elsa in the kitchen.

I find peanuts ever to intriguing, fun fact: they are actually a legume, not a nut! as they grow under the ground, how cool! anyway, nutritionally they are also awesome as they are high in protein and mono and polyunsaturated fats (the good guys!) to give these bites an even bigger nutrition kick I have also added some plant protein from Nutra Organics which I love as its a complete source of protein that I have been adding to smoothies in the morning (as I definitely don't consume enough sources of plant protein to meet my requirements, especially after working out for over an hour most days). I've been using the 'vanilla clean protein' which tastes really good in smoothies as all the other goodies in it give it a nice sweet flavour. On that note, I was also intrigued as its sweetened with thaumatin, which I hadn't heard of before, so I did a little research (well not research, more google searching) after reading it and thought it was pretty cool that its a natural protein extract from Katemfe fruit (from the West African rainforests)

I have also included a little smoothie bowl recipe at the end of this to show you how you can use these little bites in your breakfast :)

I've sweetened using dates, your probably starting to notice I use dates to sweeten any of my treats. I absolutely love dates! they're creamy, caramel-ly, and full of fibre! but I always treat them like treats as they have a high sugar content.

Peanut-Butter Fudge Protein Bites

v, df, gf

Ingredients

1/2 cup peanuts

1/2 cup natural peanut butter (I buy mine freshly crushed from the source bulk foods, no sugar and no salt added)

6 medjool dates

2 tbsp vegan vanilla clean protein powder

pinch of salt

2 tbsp hot water

How to make:

1. Blend the peanuts, peanut butter, dates, salt, protein powder until smooth, add the water and blend again.

2. Transfer to a small lined baking tray and press out flat using a spatula

3. Place in the freezer to set for an hour

4. Transfer to a bench and using a star shaped cookie cutter cut out some shapes (you can skip this step and just cut into little square bites) don't discard any off cuts, you can keep them to snack on

5. optional: decorate- I dipped mine in melted chocolate and sprinkled with various toppings (cacao nibs, puffed quinoa)

Other suggestions: place on skewers with fruit- makes a great little picnic treat.

Store in the freezer for up to 1-2 months.

Top your smoothie bowl with your little peanut protein bites

To turn this into a smoothie bowl such as I have pictured follow the below recipe :) ps. this smoothie bowl is perfect sweet craving killer, its soo yum! and perfect if you love something fruity and cheeky in the morning.

Ingredients:

2 frozen bananas

1 tbsp cacao powder

1 tbsp vegan vanilla clean protein powder

1/2 cup cocobella water

Toppings:

1-2 peanut butter fudge protein bites

handful of fresh berries

1/2 banana

1 tbsp natural peanut butter

1-2 pc dark chocolate- grated

1 tbsp chia seeds

1 tbsp puffed quinoa

How to make:

1. Blend the bananas, cocobella, and protein powder until smooth, thick and creamy, scoop half into your bowl, add the cacao powder to the blender and then blend the other half of the mixture, then scoop into bowl (this just gives the smoothie the two tone effect)

2. Top your bowl with all of the ingredients, then dig in before it melts! I would normally share this with my partner as a tasty dessert sundae