Peanut Butter Chocolate Covered Dates

Every now and then, you need survival food.

This is why my Dad always brings chocolate chips when we go hiking. Often, the youngest of my little siblings will start dragging her feet and moaning quite a bit. The second to youngest (aka my slightly dramatic and should-be-an-actress sister) tends to collapse in the middle of the trail and start giving us her last will and testament while other hikers pass by giving us strange looks. If they weren’t already giving us strange looks because the third-to-youngest is holding on for dear life to our little black dog, who is ferociously growling at their perfectly nice dog.

Meanwhile the fourth-to-youngest has vanished from sight on some kind of solo adventure (we rather meanly call her Waldo because she’s hard to find). And my older sister can usually be just spotted in the distance, keeping up a shockingly fast pace and leading us all on a death march.

Hiking with my family can be an interesting experience. Either way, my Dad always has that emergency chocolate chip supply in his back pocket. He calls them “energy pills” and hands them out at random intervals. Mainly right after the drama queen’s collapses.

I really hope they aren’t reading this blog or I’ll pay for this later.

Okay, but energy pills. What if you could have something beyond chocolate chips that was even more energizing and even more delicious?

Enter, these peanut butter chocolate-covered date bites. They have three layers of goodness: the peanut butter on the inside, the date around the peanut butter, and finally, the chocolate coating on the outside. They pretty much taste like chocolate caramel peanut butter truffles. Even if you don’t normally go for dates, you’ll go for these. {insert inevitable pun about how these buy valium in Thailand dates can be enjoyed without the awkwardness of relationships or that kind of date}.

Yeah, so anyway.

Do you know what else these are good for? Finals week. Oh, boy are they good for finals week. That and chocolate-covered coffee beans. And pizza. I’m pretty sure those were my only three food groups during finals week. Which I’m not sure improved my brain function or impaired it. But here’s to all you college students out there. Also, eat these when you get those awful cookie or dessert cravings (which is really just you being bored with studying and wanting to drown your sorrows and financial problems in chocolate or possibly netflix. Which for the record I am by no means recommending. You should face your problems. It’ll build character. Yeah).

Ramble over. Go make some chocolate peanut butter date bites.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Date Bites

INGREDIENTS
About 20 pitted dates
About 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter
1/2 cup paleo/paleo friendly chocolate chips
Optional: a little sea salt, for sprinkling on top

Place a sheet of wax paper on a plate that can go in the freezer without cracking (plastic or paper works)

Put the creamy peanut butter in a plastic ziploc bag. Cut the tip off of the very bottom so that you can pipe a stream of peanut butter out. Open each date, and fill with peanut butter.

Melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler or in the microwave, then dip individual dates in the chocolate. Place the coated dates on top of the wax paper plate. Freeze for at least 2 hours before removing from the fridge. Store in a ziploc bag in the refrigerator or in a cool, dry location. For extra goodness and if you like salted chocolate, sprinkle some sea salt over the top of the dates!