Ball recipe and gratitude shout-out

This is a raw ball - a recent staple on my menu. I have celiac disease and I have known about it for about two years, so some time ago when I first encountered the "raw food" idea I wasn't really hooked - I was a little too bogged up in dietary concerns already to consider any more alterations. But a sit turns out now, raw food is s a huge inspiration.

Averie here is an absolute ball-expert, and I read her blog often, as it is a kind of triple whammy of most things I'm interested in: she does yoga, and (un)cooks raw food, shares her recipes generously and avoids dairy and gluten. Yay! The ball of the day, however, is from a recipe posted by "jenergy" at rawpleasure.com.au. It is vanilla-laden, sweet, and just the thing if your stomach cannot handle gluten and corn and there is nowhere to turn when you feel peckish for something sweet. I found the recipe while browsing for a recipe to use my newly purchased mesquite meal some time ago - I think the taste of mesquite, and maca is well, is a bit of an acquired taste, perhaps mostly appealing to those who are barred other types of sweets? I am the kind of person who will eat mostly anything if told that it will be good for my health and my tummy, but I find that many of the things that were setting my nose out of joint when I started experimenting with things like tempeh and incan berries are now those that I enjoy most - it seems like a taste-bud-process kind of like what happens when you drink wine or eat blue cheese. Anyway, the little vanilla mesquite fellas go like this, the recipe calls for macadamia nuts but I used altenatives like almonds, or a combo of sunflower seeds and brazil nuts with success. I also halve the recipe because like Averie, I find that there are so many recipes out there I want to try so I never make a huge batch of anything. The other day I accidently cooked up far too many cookies that it turned out I didn't even like. Ouch, since many of the ingredients are not exactly cheap.

I am not saying I would never have gotten into raw food if I had not been diagnosed with celiac disease, I think I might have given it a shot anyway, but I don't think I would ever have been so dedicated as to really change what I eat for most meals of the day. So here is a huge THANK YOU to all you people out there who are gourmets, health conscious, open-minded and curious enough to develop and share all the raw food recipes out there and blog about your raw life styles, its an inspiration and if not literally a life-saver, then at least a real life-changer. I've always been fairly healthy so I eating my vegetables hasn't been an epiphany for me, but looking at all the great recipes you are putting out there has given me back the joy of cooking.