Halloween candy gone? This healthy treat will cure your cravings!

One of the rewards for the labor of creating a magical Halloween is sneaking in a little candy from the stash. It wasn't until adulthood that I realized my parents likely stole some pieces here and there from my bag. The betrayal.

Except now I'm a parent, and though I know how protective these kids are about their collection, I know this: They will live. And in most cases, not even notice. That being said, I buy extra candy every year so that I never worry about running out, and .....juuuust in case I have some left over, it's the good stuff. And since I live in a neighborhood where children come in by the busload from other parts of the city, it's a lot of candy.

I make sure the top of my bag is filled with the stuff I like the least, and the bottom layer holds my favorites, so should we not give away all we bought, we are left with the good stuff. But this year? We ran out of candy - every little piece.

 

Lucky for me, I know of an amazing treat that won't have me running to my son's stash whenever I crave something sweet.  It's sweet, healthy, and only 6 ingredients. Let's call them...chocolate chia fruit bites? Ugh...I'll workshop that name. But in the meantime, they are delicious and packed with protein from chia, so they they're satusfying. Take that, Snickers!

Chocolate Chia Fruit Bites

Ingredients

• One cup of strawberries
• One tablespoon of chia seeds
• One tablespoon of honey
• Half a bag of semi sweet chocolate chips
• One teaspoon of coconut oil
• Flaked salt

Instructions

• Cut the stems off the strawberries, rinse, and place in a flat plate with high ridges, like a pie dish (you don't want the juices to escape).
• Take a fork or potato masher and flatten the strawberries into a mush. You can have chunks, as long as they are small.
• Drop in the chia seeds and honey.
• Mix well
• Let the mixture sit for 20 minutes, so that it can thicken up as the chia seeds expand.
• After 20 minutes, drop tiny dollops of the mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper.
• Freeze
• Once frozen, heat up a half bag of chocolate chips, mixed with the coconut oil.
• Note: I made a mistake and siezed the chocolate. That's when chocolate gets clumpy from getting too hot. If you have a double-boiler, this will not likely happen. But if you are using a microwave, avoid this mistake by:
• Using a glass, temperature-resistant bowl
• Only zap the chocolate in 30-second increments or less
• And stir like crazy with a spatula in between zaps to get the warm chocolate chips to melt the others, rather than have the microwave do it.
• Note: Once a chocolate is siezed, you'll never get back to that smooth, melty texture. 
• Take the frozen discs out of the freezer and quickly dip into the chocolate, covering them.
• Drop them back onto the baking sheet with parchment paper, top with flaked salt, and freeze again.

These tangy, chocolaty treats are now going to be a staple in my freezer. I am going to play around with other types of berries (next stop: blueberries), and I even saw online that you can mix yogurt in with the strawberry-chia mix to switch up the flavor profile.

Enjoy, and hope you had a wonderful Halloween!