Recipe - Energy Balls. One bowl, no bake, too easy

Around the same time that I looked into doing my first marathon and ultra I also started reading "Born to Run". So, naturally, when I went Googling for fuelling on long runs I really wanted a recipe that would use Chia seed.
As with most things that I make I took ideas from a few sites and came up with this creation

One bowl, no baking required. Couldn't be easier.

The ingredients are things I always have in my pantry so I know that I can always make them.

I literally just put everything into one bowl and mix. Generally I start out using a spoon but then resort to hands as its the best way to gauge consistency

Once all of the ingredients are mixed simple shape them into balls. You could even make bars out of them but I need something little to easily pop into my mouth as I'm running.

I got 25 balls out of the mixture.

This is the size of mine

The best part of this recipe is that its fully adaptable.

Here are some things that I've tried:

* Toast the oats or coconut, or both. It's a lot nicer when toasted but most of the time I get lazy

* Add chocolate chips

* Regular oats or quick oats both work fine. Swap out with whatever you have on hand

* Shredded or desiccated coconut both work fine. As with the oats, swap out with whatever you have on hand

* Instead of coconut, use trail mix. Personally, I found this harder to chew/digest on long runs but it was really tasty

* Adjust the amounts of wet ingredients to suit your taste. I am not overly fond of honey, and too much peanut butter makes my mouth dry so I tend to add honey, peanut butter and chocolate spread into a 1 cup measure without really measuring any of them, as long as the total is 1 cup

In terms of calories I don't have an answer because I'm calorie counting challenged (ie I don't do it). 

On a few of the sites that I looked at when searching for a recipe the numbers varied between 90 and 200 calories per ball. The only time I consider calories is when I'm packing for a long run and know that I need to aim for 200-300 calories per hour. In which case I count these as 100 calories each. No idea how close to the truth that is and can't be bothered to work it out. Please tell me if you do though

Energy Balls

Makes: About 25 balls

Time: 5-10 minutes

Ingredients

·         1 cup oats

·         ½ cup shredded coconut

·         ½ cup honey

·         ½ cup peanut butter or chocolate spread (or a combination of the two)

·         ¼ cup LSA mix (Linseed, Sunflower seeds and Almond mix)

·         2 tbs Chia seed

Method

1. Stir all the ingredients in a bowl until well combined.

2. Shape into balls. 

3. Refridgerate (this helps them to hold their shape)

That’s it! Easy