Apricot Coconut Balls

Today I created a recipe. The reasons are multiple:

• I needed a healthy sweet to quell the insatiable sugar crave I've had since I've "had" Sam (maybe the lack of sleep contributes to sugar crave).
• I realized I had apricots, dates and prunes left over from my last healthy treat quest at Christmas time. Max, thinking I had sweets (his hearing the rustling in the kitchen and running in is indicative of the seriousness of my sugar cravings), requested a prune, and I gave him one. Seeing him chewing on it 25 minutes later as he colored, I realized I would need to get creative in order to use the fruit.
• Creativeness with food runs in my family, so I was not afraid of the task. I don't remember my dad ever using a cook book, and yet he cooked many a meal in our house. I didn't know that there were set ways lasagna was made until I went to college. Our lasagna was always garden variety: tofu with spinach, beans and broccoli, squash and zucchini, with some tomato sauce and cheese if we had any.

Here's my recipe, it's delicious! (in the fashion of my upbringing, all measurements are estimates) and super healthy. The inspiration came from the treats we would leave Santa as a child, and from George Mateljan's book, "The World's Healthiest Foods".

Apricot/Date Coconut Globes (sounds more intergalactic than balls)

1 cup chopped almonds (which George tells me I should eat 1.5 ounces a day to provide Vitamin E and mono unsaturated fats for a healthy heart.)

1 cup chopped pecans

1 cup chopped dates

2 cups chopped apricots

1 cup chopped prunes

1/4 teaspoon almond extract

1 teas. cinnamon

If you don't steam your dried fruit, you might need a little apple juice concentrate to hold it all together. Mix all ingredients together. Gather enough to make inch globes and mash it together. Dunk your fruit globes in warm water and roll in chopped, shredded coconut.

Refrigerate.

I rewarded my good behavior with a mint Oreo shake, so don't be afraid to do the same.