Sides and Extras – Nourish Wild

Cheesy Flatbread (Gluten-Free, Grain-Free)

January 24, 2016/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Sometimes you need cheesy bread. It’s a great snack or side dish to have on, say, a Sunday football afternoon with a fruit and veggie platter and other various finger foods. This flatbread is full of flavor, it’s creamy and gooey, and it has a crispy outer edge that just screams “comfort food.” Plus, it’s made with quality ingredients like grass-fed cheese and avocado oil, and is also gluten-free and grain-free!

We’re into Day 3 of being snowed in here in RVA. The sun is finally shining after a solid 36 hours of legitimate blizzard conditions, but the roads are still crazy bad at the moment because Virginia has no idea how to handle snow. Most of the Richmond area got about 12 inches, but my friends in the valley got closer to 2 feet. I can’t imagine how long they’ll be stuck at home! As for us, we can’t even get out of our parking lot (we’ve watched many of our neighbors try and struggle or fail), so we’ll just be over here eating. As usual.

Luckily, I planned ahead and bought lots (and lots and lots) of food. I was one of those crazy people fighting for a shopping cart and waiting 30 minutes to check out at the grocery store. We could probably be snowed in another few days and be a-okay in the food department. The sanity department though? Not sure about that.

One of the must-haves this weekend was this Cheesy Flatbread. I used to make this with store-bought pizza dough at least twice a week in college. These days, however, I make my own flatbread dough– that way it’s both gluten-free and grain-free. Less junky ingredients, less guilt in my book.

Who doesn’t want a nice crispy crust topped with spices, ricotta, and parmesan? No one I want to be friends with, that’s who.

Is that drool? You may want to check yourself…

Want to learn more about how you can make healthy lifestyle choices that you can live with? Plus eat food like this cheesy flatbread and not feel guilty because you know it has health benefits too? Check out our eBook, The Groundwork Guide: A Beginner’s Guide to Human Nutrition and Movement for Every Day Life.

Cheesy Flatbread

Flatbread:

1 cup tapioca OR arrowroot starch
1/2 cup avocado oil
1/4 cup warm water
1 yeast packet
1/2 tsp honey
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 free-range egg

Topping:

1/4 tsp sea salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1/4-1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/4-1/2 tsp onion powder
1/4-1/2 tsp oregano
1/2 cup grass-fed parmesan cheese
1/2 cup grass-fed ricotta cheese

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F, and line a rectangular baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a large bowl, activate the yeast by combining the 1/4 cup warm water, the yeast packet, and the 1/2 tsp of honey. Mix and allow to rest according to the yeast packet (approximately 15 minutes; the yeast will start to foam).
To the yeast mixture, add the tapioca/arrowroot, avocado oil, baking soda, baking powder, and egg. Mix until combined. The mixture will be very loose and pourable. Let this mixture rest for about 15-30 minutes to let the ingredients combine and the yeast start to rise.
Pour the mixture onto the parchment lined baking sheet. Use a rubber or off-set spatula to spread the mixture over the parchment paper into a rectangular shape. The batter should be about 1/4 inch thick, and the rectangle should measure about 8 in x 10-12 inches. Again, let it rest for about 15 minutes to let it rise slightly again. Note: This dough will only rise a little, not a lot.
Bake the flatbread at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Remove from oven.
Top the baked flatbread with an even distribution of the cheeses and spices.
Place the flatbread back in the oven under broil, until the cheese is bubbly and melted. Enjoy!

Bacon Leek Rice with White Wine Butter Sauce

December 20, 2015/in Blog, Food, Main Dishes, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

This bacon and leek rice is the perfect grown-up stunner that can serve as an entree or side dish. With a decadent white wine and butter sauce, plus veggies and brown rice, this comforting bowl of goodness can be easily cooked up with relatively minimal hands-on cook time, and is a good blend of healthier choices and holiday cheer.

If your family is anything like mine, Christmas and the holiday season brings on several pot-luck dinner events. My strategy is to always bring something that I know I want to eat a lot of, just in case the other options are not quite agreeable to my little tummy (people tend to like cheese in everything, and I ain’t about dat lactose yo). So this past weekend when I heard the main side was going to be mac-n-cheese, I knew I needed to bring something that I could pile high on my plate and be a happy (not hangry) camper for the rest of the day.

I’ve made a similar dish with pasta a few times for dinner, but I wanted to change it up and make it a little more refined, so I took the bacon and leek combo to the next level. I also know that my palate is a little different than the majority of everyone else in my family, so I wanted to up the decadence points in hopes that it wouldn’t taste too “healthy.” Enter wine and butter. If that doesn’t say “happy holidays!” I don’t know what does. Wine, butter, and bacon… Close your mouth, you’re drooling. Don’t worry, there are some peas in there for good measure.

This recipe is meant to be shared, so it makes a pretty decent amount of food. If you’re making it for 2-4 people, I would cut this recipe in half.

The rice I used is brown rice, and I always try to get sprouted grains for more easy digestion, but you can use any kind of rice you prefer. If I were making this for just the two of us, I would have used wild rice, but I thought that may have been a little too “out there” for a pot luck event. Do your thang, whatever that may be.

With Christmas coming up this week, the New Year is right around the corner! And we have lots of exciting things coming that you should check back for in the New Year including:

The Groundwork Guide ebook: We are really excited about this and Andrew has been hard at work putting the finishing touches on his shiny new project. If you feel like you just need a good starting point to begin your journey of living healthier, and you want tips of how to incorporate healthier choices (both nutritionally and activity-wise) into your every day life, this ebook is the perfect beginner guide.

Free 7 Day Challenge: Don’t feel ready to make a monitary commitment to a new lifestyle, but instead just want to try it out for a few days? Our 7 Day Challenge is a great choice! The first one will be coming in early January 🙂

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Bacon Leek Rice with White Wine Butter Sauce

2 cups uncooked rice of choice (I prefer brown or wild sprouted rice) + the amount of water recommended on package
5 slices of bacon, cut into 1/4 inch strips
2-3 leeks, chopped into 1/4 inch strips (check out this video for a demo)
1 cup frozen peas
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
6 Tbsp grass-fed butter
1/4 cup stock (I used chicken stock)
1/3 cup white wine (I used sauv. blanc)
1 Tbsp lemon juice
salt and pepper to taste

Cook the rice according to the package. Note: you will add in the following sauce the last 10 minutes of cooking.
Start making your sauce by first cooking your bacon in a medium sauce pan. Cook until the bacon is crispy.
Once the bacon is crispy, add the olive oil, butter, leeks, garlic, wine, lemon juice and stock to the sauce pan with the bacon, and bring to a simmer. Let this sauce simmer until the leeks are soft and cooked down.
When the rice has 10 minutes remaining to cook, add the prepared sauce and the frozen peas to the rice. Mix together, and allow to cook all together for the remaining 10 minutes. Add salt and pepper to taste. Enjoy!

Stars and Stripes Sangria

July 3, 2015/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Are you in need of a last minute, quick and easy crowd-pleaser to bring to your 4th of July cookout? This Stars and Stripes Sangria is an Independence Day treat! With wine, champagne and frozen fruit, this sweet and bubbly sipper is super easy to throw together just in time to get out the door. Plus, people always love the guy/girl who brings alcohol, right?

Let freedom ring, it’s almost the fourth of July! Independence day here in the US always means an incredible amount of red, white and blue, fireworks, and (hopefully) some amazing cookout food. But sometimes it can be hard to figure out what to bring… let’s face it, 5 bowls of potato salad ain’t going to work out. Fear not, because I have a boozey crowd-pleaser that you can throw together as you’re running out the door (spraying bug spray on every square inch of exposed skin in the process.)

You can use fresh or frozen fruit with this, but if you’re in a hurry and haven’t had time to chill the wine and champagne, then frozen fruit is perfect! However, I will say that this drink gets better as time goes on and the flavors have a chance to get to know one another, so if you have time to put it together the night before (tonight! eek!) and let it sit in the fridge, the flavors will intensify. But if not, no worries! It will still be lovely.

I used a frozen fruit combo bag (antioxidant blend that I buy in bulk from Costco to make green smoothies) which had strawberries, raspberries, cranberries, cherries and blueberries, and then cut up some fresh Granny Smith apples. You can use any combo of red white and blue fruit though!

By the way, I took about 5 extra minutes to cut out star shapes in some of my apple chunks, but I was totally being an over-achiever. Although, if you want people to swoon over how cute your pitcher-o’-goodness is, it’s so worth it 😉

Stars and Stripes Sangria

2 bottles of Moscato (750 mL)
1 bottle of champagne (750 mL)
2 cups of frozen fruit (red and blue colors of your choice, you also use fresh… see above post for my combo)
2 Granny Smith apples (cut into 1 inch pieces… or star shapes if you’re feeling fancy)

Combine all ingredients and stir. The longer it sits, the more the flavors combine.
Note that I had to use 2 pitchers to hold all of this goodness, so you may be able to fit this all into one large pitcher or punch bowl, or you may need two.

Grain-Free Drop Biscuits: Thanksgiving Cleaned Up Part 4

November 21, 2014/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful day. No presents, no pressure, just an abundance of food and family. But Thanksgiving can be a minefield of gluten-filled carbs, and sugar-overload. So in this series of “Thanksgiving Cleaned Up,” I’ve taken some classic Thanksgiving staple foods and made them a little bit less detrimental. You can check out my other posts, Sweet Potato Casserole, Garlic Kale Mashed Potatoes, and Pinot Noir Cranberry Sauce and have yourself a slightly less guilty, but certain not less hearty, Thanksgiving feast! Wonderful additions to this series would be my Autumn Salad and my Grain-Free Pumpkin Bread!

These biscuits are super easy to make (although they do require a little bit of clean up), and I pretty much always have the ingredients on hand. For that reason, they have become a weekend brunch go-to in our house. But they also fit right in while traditional Thanksgiving fare! I adapted this recipe from this one by Paleo Comfort Foods. I tried the original recipe first, but they tasted too coconutty, and crumbled way too easily. So I changed the flour combo, and they turned out perfectly. Slightly flaky, insanely buttery, with pockets to hold your jelly 🙂 Or in this case, Pinot Noir Cranberry Sauce!

Grain-Free Drop Biscuits

4 eggs, yolks and whites divided (place your egg white in a large mixing bowl, and your yolks in a small bowl off to the side)
1/4 cup coconut flour
2 Tbsp arrowroot starch
2 Tbsp potato starch
1/2 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
4 Tbsp cold butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.
In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine your dry ingredients (coconut flour, arrowroot, potato starch, cream of tartar and baking soda)
To your dry ingredients, cut in your cold butter. This is like making a pastry or pie crust. You can use a pastry cutter, but I just quickly use my hands to combine the butter with the dry ingredients, until the butter is in pea-sized bits. Place this flour/butter combo in the fridge so it stays cold.
Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they become a foam. Continue to beat until soft peaks form at the end of your beaters when you remove it from the mixture.
Carefully fold your egg yolks into your egg white mixture using a rubber spatula, until no streaks remain and the mixture is a solid, light yellow color. The whites will lose a little volume, but should still be pretty fluffy.
Fold in your flour and butter mixture with your rubber spatula, again being careful to mix thoroughly without losing too much volume in the egg whites. The batter will be runny, like a cake batter.
Spoon the batter onto the parchment paper into 4 equal drops. Give each biscuit space, as they will expand while baking. Do not flatten them out, just leave them in the shape in which they drop on the parchment.
Bake the biscuits for 12-17 minutes, or until they have risen and are golden brown on top.
Serve hot.

Makes 4 large biscuits.

Pinot Noir Cranberry Sauce: Thanksgiving Cleaned Up Part 3

November 21, 2014/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful day. No presents, no pressure, just an abundance of food and family. But Thanksgiving can be a minefield of gluten-filled carbs, and sugar-overload. So in this series of “Thanksgiving Cleaned Up,” I’ve taken some classic Thanksgiving staple foods and made them a little bit less detrimental. You can check out my other posts, Sweet Potato Casserole, Garlic Kale Mashed Potatoes, and Grain-Free Drop Biscuits and have yourself a slightly less guilty, but certain not less hearty, Thanksgiving feast! Wonderful additions to this series would be my Autumn Salad and my Grain-Free Pumpkin Bread!

Cranberry sauce is not something I’ve ever really been able to get into. Don’t get me wrong, we always had it on the table, but something about it’s square/canned jelly shape really turned me away. But I know it’s a traditional staple, and it’s a fruit sauce, so I knew I had to be able to figure out a recipe that I would actually enjoy. From what I understand (I’ve never eaten it, remember?) people put this on whatever they want… meat, biscuits, spoons, anything. Same goes for this sauce. It’s more on the tart side, so it would go well on meat, but it’s sweet enough to eat on a biscuit which is exactly what I did. The wine gives it such a wonderfully rich flavor, this stuff is hard to pass up.

Pinot Noir Cranberry Sauce

6 oz of fresh, organic cranberries
1/2 cup of Pinot Noir
1/2 cup of orange juice
1/2 cup maple syrup or unfiltered honey
1 Tbsp lemon juice

Add all your ingredients to a medium sauce pan, and heat over medium to medium-high heat, until the mixture just starts to boil.
Continue to stir over heat, until the cranberries start to burst.
Using the back of a spoon, or a potato masher, smash the cranberries into a paste, continuing to stir.
Allow the mixture to sit over heat, bubbling slightly, and the sauce will start to thicken.
Stir occasionally, and continue to allow the sauce to thicken until it is a thick, syrupy consistency.
Transfer to a serving vessel and serve.

Makes about 1 cup of sauce.

Garlic Kale Mashed Potatoes: Thanksgiving Cleaned Up Part 2

November 21, 2014/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful day. No presents, no pressure, just an abundance of food and family. But Thanksgiving can be a minefield of gluten-filled carbs, and sugar-overload. So in this series of “Thanksgiving Cleaned Up,” I’ve taken some classic Thanksgiving staple foods and made them a little bit less detrimental. You can check out my other posts, Sweet Potato Casserole, Pinot Noir Cranberry Sauce, and Grain-Free Drop Biscuits and have yourself a slightly less guilty, but certain not less hearty, Thanksgiving feast! Wonderful additions to this series would be my Autumn Salad and my Grain-Free Pumpkin Bread!

This is my favorite part of Thanksgiving: mashed potatoes. But sometimes it’s hard to feel like it’s okay eating an entire plateful (just me?). That is, until you add kale. Add kale and you can eat the entire pot. Those are my rules, and I’m sticking to them. These mashed potatoes are probably some of the best I’ve ever had. As I was mashing them up, I kept sneaking bites. Before I even took pictures of it, I’d probably eaten a few spoonfuls. Oh and they were gone by the end of the day. And like I said, totally not even feeling guilty because that means I ate a bunch of green goodness as well. These potatoes are everything you want from your comfort food friend, and then some. Bring this one to your Thanksgiving potluck and tell people to eat freely because it’s healthy (healthier…)!

Garlic Kale Mashed Potatoes

2 lbs of red potatoes, chopped into 1 inch chunks
2 large leaves of kale, chopped (about 4 cups)
2 cloves of garlic, minced (Hey, learn how to prepare and maximize the benefits of garlic here!)
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 Tbsp grass-fed butter (I use Kerrygold)
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to taste

In 3-4 quarts of water, boil your chopped potatoes until fork tender (about 20 minutes)
While the potatoes are boiling, add your olive oil, minced garlic, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes to a saute pan over medium heat. Allow the garlic to cook and flavor the oil until just slightly golden.
To the oil mixture, add the chopped kale to the saute pan. Allow the kale to wilt and cook down, until it is completely shrunk down in size and wilted.
Drain the potatoes, and add them back to the now empty pot that they cooked in. Add the kale and flavored oil to the potatoes. Using a fork or potatoes masher, mash the potatoes until smooth and combined the kale and flavored oil into the potatoes.
Add the butter and Parmesan to the mashed potato mixture. Again, mix until melted and combined.
Serve hot.

Makes about 4-6 servings of potatoes.

Sweet Potato Casserole: Thanksgiving Cleaned Up Part 1

November 21, 2014/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Thanksgiving is such a wonderful day. No presents, no pressure, just an abundance of food and family. But Thanksgiving can be a minefield of gluten-filled carbs, and sugar-overload. So in this series of “Thanksgiving Cleaned Up,” I’ve taken some classic Thanksgiving staple foods and made them a little bit less detrimental. You can check out my other posts, Garlic Kale Mashed Potatoes, Pinot Noir Cranberry Sauce, and Grain-Free Drop Biscuits and have yourself a slightly less guilty, but certain not less hearty, Thanksgiving feast! Wonderful additions to this series would be my Autumn Salad and my Grain-Free Pumpkin Bread!

I’m starting this series off with dessert. Gotta eat dessert first ;). I know the classic dessert for Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie, but I don’t actually particularly like pie (except Key Lime… I know, apparently there’s something wrong with me.) So this “dessert” substitute is something we always had on our Thanksgiving table growing up: Sweet Potato Casserole. Complete with the toasted marshmallows, because that’s a must-have element. I also added some bacon, because everything is better with bacon and this is no exception. No added sugar to the potatoes because sweet potatoes are just that: sweet. And the marshmallows already add that little extra sugar. The sweet, spicy and salty combo is perfect to round out your Thanksgiving table for dessert, with your meal, or as a pre-feast snack… I won’t tell!

Sweet Potato Casserole

2 lbs of sweet potatoes, roasted and mashed
1/2 cup coconut milk (from a can)
1/2 tsp each of ground clove, ground nutmeg and ground ginger
2 tsp of ground cinnamon
2 Tbsp grass-fed butter (I use Kerrygold)
Homemade Marshmallows (about 1 cup)
4 strips of bacon, cooked and crumbled

Roast and mash your sweet potatoes. Transfer into a large mixing bowl.
Add the butter, coconut milk, clove, nutmeg, ginger, and cinnamon to your sweet potatoes.
Use an electric mixer to combine the ingredients, and whip until smooth.
Transfer your potato mix to oven-safe bake ware (I used an 8×8 Pyrex dish)
Dig out a hole in the middle of your potatoes. Add a handful of marshmallows in the hole.
Place your potatoes with the marshmallows in the oven under broil, and allow the marshmallows to toast until golden brown.
Remove from the oven, and sprinkle the crumbled bacon around the edges, around the marshmallow middle.
Serve hot.

Makes about 4-6 servings of potatoes.

Anti-Inflammatory Turmeric Tea

November 16, 2014/12 Comments/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

This tea has gotten me through some hard times recently. And by hard times I mean this cold front that has taken the entire country in its icy grip and refused to let go. Luckily, here in RVA we have yet to see snow, but the cold and I don’t get along too well. On top of that, I’ve been fighting hard against a cold that has been trying to turn into a sinus infection (and so far I’m winning… huzzah!) and this tea (plus my handy dandy netti pot) has been one of my closest fraaaands. Not to mention this tea is a combination of things that will do a body good. I mean GOOD. Let me break it down for you:

Turmeric: This spice is a member of the ginger root family, and is known for its anti-inflammatory effects. In fact, in India, it is widely used for arthritis and joint pain relief. A main compound of turmeric, curcumin, has been shown in at least 30 different studies to have anti-tumor/anticancer and antioxidant effects. This spice has also been shown to be a wonderful detoxing agent for the liver.

Ginger: A classic for settling an upset stomach, this root too has anti-inflammatory effects. Ginger has also been shown to improve circulation, and has been used in Asian cultures for hundreds of years to treat cold hands and feet.

Cinnamon: Cinnamon has been shown to lower blood sugar by increasing glucose metabolism, and also to improve capillary function. This spice also has antimicrobial and anti-inflammatory effects.

Source for spice information:

Aside from all of these amazing benefits, personally I think this tea tastes amazing. And I am not a tea drinker. My idea of tea used to be McDonald’s Sweet Tea… yeah, I’ve moved on to bigger an better things these days.

Ready to learn more about how to nourish your body with basic nutrition principles? We have an eBook for that!

The Groundwork Guide is the best place to start if you’re looking for the “hows” and “whys” of healthy living, particularly from a scientific perspective. This guide will arm you with the very basics of human health, and help you be able to navigate the often muddy waters and mixed signals we are given every day about our bodies. Perfect for those who want to understand the most foundational levels of nutrition and movement, you can learn more about what is included in this very special manual here.

Anti-Inflammatory Turmeric Tea

1 cup of water
1/4 tsp ground turmeric
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2-1 tsp unfiltered honey (depending on your preferred sweetness)
1 Tbsp lemon juice

In a small saucepan, bring the water to a steam (not quite to a boil, the hotter it gets, the longer you have to wait for it to cool.)
Add the spices, honey and lemon juice, and stir to combine.
Remove the saucepan from heat, and cover with a lid.
Allow the mixture to steam and combine for 10 minutes.
Drink once cooled. This tea will settle as you drink it, so you will need a spoon to redistribute the spices.

Cinnamon Goat Cheese Stuffed Dates

August 13, 2014/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Okay, so this is more of a concept than a recipe since it’s so simple, but it’s a darn good concept at that! Vaguely reminiscent of a cinnamon roll (Andrew says my imagination was stretching on that one… maaaybe I just really wanted a cinnamon roll), this sweet treat is easy to whip up by the army-full. Just be careful, dates are only of the most sugar-filled fruits you can eat– about 5 grams of sugar per date. And trust me, it would be easy to go wild with these. These sweet, creamy, spicy bites were part of my post-workout routine a couple of days ago (the other part included a big ol’ hunk of grass-fed sirloin, ohhh yeahhhh), and they hit the spot perfectly. The slightly sour, creamy bite of the goat cheese pairs perfectly with the cloyingly sweet dates, and the cinnamon brings both flavors together perfectly for an addictive, small snack, appetizer or dessert. By the way, have you noticed a theme in the recipes lately? Lots of goat cheese… LOTS O’ GOAT CHEESE. Our fridge and freezer has been filled with it lately, because a friend of Andrew’s went out to a local goat farm and brought us back several tubs. I’m not complaining though, the stuff is amazingly fresh (straight from the source is always the best tasting!), and the exact consistency of ricotta but without the lactose and casein. Plus a lot of good stuff, like calcium. So, hang with me on the goat cheese recipes, I promise they will run out… eventually.

Cinnamon Goat Cheese Stuffed Dates

4 pitted dates
1/4 cup soft goat cheese (like Chev)
cinnamon for dusting

Using about 1 tbsp of goat cheese per date, use a butter knife to stuff the dates with the goat cheese.
Dust the stuffed dates with cinnamon, or you can alternatively mix the cinnamon into the goat cheese prior to stuffing the dates.
That’s it.

Raw Brownie Energy Bites

July 23, 2014/in Blog, Food, Sides and Extras/by Morgan Carr

Sometimes my kitchen turns into an episode of Chopped. “I’m hungry, I have these ingredients, GO.” Interestingly, sometimes these spontaneous ventures turn out to be a hit on the first try. Such is the case with these bites. Okay… balls. There I said it… we were all thinking it, let’s move on. I really wanted something sweet, but also filling, and TAADAA. Brownie bites. That are raw. And proteiny. (Read: filling.) Emphasis on the brownie, because yum. Reminiscent of a Lara Bar, or energy bar, these are the perfect snack to throw together to get you over the afternoon hump. I used watermelon seeds to keep these protein-filled yet nut-free, but you can sub any kind of nut or seed you want. DO NOT BE ALARMED BY THEIR APPEARANCE. Just dive right in, the brownie is divine.

Raw Brownie Energy Bites

3/4 cup Watermelon Seeds (or other seeds/nuts)
7 pitted dates
2 tbsp cocoa powder
2 tbsp tahini (sesame seed paste)
2 tbsp water
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Add dates, cocoa powder, watermelon seeds, vanilla and cinnamon to a small food processor. Process until finely chopped, like the consistency of wet sand.
Add the tahini and water to the mixture, and process until it comes together in a thick paste/dough. If needed, you can add more water, drop by drop, until the mixture is the right consistency to be able to mold.
Remove mixture from processor, and form into balls. Mine were a little over a tablespoon each.

Makes about 7 bites.