Cookie Dough

These aren't really cookie dough...if you bake them, they will not turn into cookies.  However, they taste remarkably similar to actual chocolate chip cookie dough, but are composed of fuit, nuts, and (gasp) some actual chocolate chips. 

This is way more than a serving size

I know that I got the inspiration for a date/nut based snack bar from somewhere on the internet that I cannot remember at this time and I apparently forgot to bookmark it.  However, I tweaked this one a bit, and I'm sure that the place that I first read about it didn't invent it, so I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. 

Ingredients are as follows:

• 2 cups whole medjool dates, pitted
• 1 cup whole almonds
• 1 cup whole pecans (or crushed if that's what you have; it really doesn't matter in this recipe)
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 2 Tbsp coconut oil
• 1/2 cup finely shredded coconut
• 1 tsp real vanilla extract

1. Put the dates, almonds, and pecans into a food processor and process them until they begin to look like a coarse paste.
2. As the mixture starts looking pasty, pour in the coconut oil, coconut, and vanilla extract
3. The contents of your blender should be a paste by this point in time.  Dump out into a bowl and stir in the chocolate chips.  It would be tempting to just throw the chips into the food processor and let your handy dandy kitchen gadget do all of the work.  Don't.  It will pulverize your chocolate chips, and the resultant heat of friction will also melt them and just make a big mess.  Yes, I am speaking to you from experience at this point.
4. Press the mixture into a baking dish lined with a sheet of wax paper.  It doesn't have to be a baking dish, as you won't actually be baking these.  It could be a serving dish, or a platter with high sides, a large tupperware container, a firm hat, or a pair of crocs...so long as you can easily remove the bars from the container once they have cooled down and become firm.  Once that happens, pop the sheet of "dough" out onto a cutting board and cut into portions.  I wrapped them in foil for easy transportation.

I'd sell out my own brother and sisters to a stranger in a sledge for a tray full of these.

Oh, so the chocolate chips that I bought happened to be organic.  Fancy, right?  I almost mentioned that in the ingredients list...like, "your chocolate chips must be organic, or this whole recipe will be a giant bowl of fail".   I don't really have a firm stance on the benefits of organic chocolate chips, as I have not done much research on the topic.  I didn't even buy organic chips to be hip and/or cool.  I bought them because they were available in the bulk bin of my grocery store, whereas I would have otherwise had to buy an entire bag of 'regular' chips.  Since this is not an ingredient that I keep on hand regularly, I opted to just purchase a cup of the fancy chips, which I'm sure I ended up spending as much money on as I would have if I got a whole pound bag of the non-organic.  /rant

-J