Nut Free Chocolate Balls fo Humans

So, this blog has NOTHING to do with animals at all. The recipe we are about to share with you is for HUMAN CONSUMPTION ONLY. Last week I (Steph) came home from work and Lukas had cooked me dinner AND dessert. It has taken 5 years for this to happen, but I guess better late than never (let’s hope it doesn’t take another five years!!).

The dessert was the YUMMIEST chocolate I have EVER tasted!! Words alone cannot describe the divine, delicious, moist taste of these nut free chocolate balls. As such this recipe is too good not share which is why we have randomly decided to include it in our TED-Animals blog.

Lukas made this recipe up himself...yes, I am exceptionally impressed by this as well :) He said he wanted to make chocolate balls that had a moist, creamy consistency as a change to the chocolate balls we make with nuts.

Here is the recipe for the most EPIC and AMAZING Nut Free Chocolate Balls:

Ingredients:

15 fresh organic medjool dates

2-4 tablspoons of cacao powder (or to taste)

¼ cup coconut oil (melted)

1/3 cup desiccated coconut + more to roll the balls in

Method:

1.      Make sure all the dates are pitted. Place them into a food processor until they are of a creamy consistency.

2.      Pour the dates into a bowl and add the cacao powder and coconut oil (melted). Stir until well combined.

3.      Stir in the desiccated coconut.

4.      Roll into balls. Pour some desiccated coconut into a bowl and coat the balls.

5.      If you would like them well presented you can place the balls into mini pattie cake pans.

So there you go, as with all desserts on TED it is simple and easy to make. All the ingredients are provided naturally by the earth...and even though these chocolates are really rich you don’t have to feel guilty about eating them!!

I suggest you all go out and impulse buy these ingredients because it will seriously be the BEST chocolate you ever taste :)

Love & Light xox

BUDGIES - Meet Indie & Hermes

We apologise for not posting a blog in a few weeks, it has been quite busy lately. However, we do have a few blogs in the works and will be posting them over the next couple of weeks. 

For this blog we have decided to introduce you to two other animals in our family. Meet our 2 budgies:

·       * Indie (short for Indiana) is a two year old budgie who looks exactly like Tweetie Bird. He found us two years ago while we were living in Canberra. When Steph drove into her carport after coming home from work, he was sitting on the windowsill of the garage as a tiny baby budgie. He immediately jumped onto Lukas’ shoulder. We went around the neighbourhood asking if anyone had lost a budgie; no one had. So we decided to welcome Indie into our home. As a young budgie we could not tell whether he was male or female so we gave him the name Indiana as this is a unisex name. Later the cere (coloured area above his beak) turned blue so we knew he was a boy (female budgies have pink/tan coloured ceres). 

     *Hermes is our other two year old budgie who we adopted as a friend for Indie. Hermes was meant to be a female (we got him off a friend’s Aunty who had a lot of baby budgies needing new homes). After awhile we realised he was in fact a boy (which Indie probably knew the entire time). They are best friends and never fight. 

So now you have met these two beautiful budgies, we will be including them throughout our blog posts on TED – Animals. 

 

Today we thought we would discuss providing budgies with the nutrients they need outside of the regular and natural seed mix they get every day; in the form of green vegetables. About three times a week we put a few leaves of baby spinach in their cage which is consumed in minutes. Baby spinach is high in a lot of nutrients both beneficial to budgies and humans; such as sodium, potassium, Vitamin A, it also has dozens of anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties. 

Occasionally, we will also use broccoli, lettuce, spinach which have similar nutritional value to baby spinach. Green vegetables are as important to budgies as they are to humans due to the high mineral content found in them. These mineral nutrients are not as numerous as those found in seeds, and therefore if only fed seeds a budgie’s mineral levels will deplete over time. 

You will know if you are feeding your budgie too many green vegetables as they will tend to get diarrhoea. If this happens, just reduce the amount of greens you feed them. 

The only green vegetable budgies CANNOT eat is avocado which is toxic to their system. Avocado is toxic to a lot of animals and therefore should be avoided entirely in their diet. Generally in the case of budgies and other parrots they will get asphyxia, with death occurring 12-24 hours later. This does not happen in all cases, but why would you risk it? The reason this is toxic is because all parts of an avocado (skin, flesh, leaves, pit, etc) contain a fungicidal toxin called Persin which budgies and other animals cannot tolerate/digest in their system. 

Until next blog post, have an amazing week :)

Love & Light xox