A few months ago I was working on a handful of recipes for one of my Oxygen magazine articles. It was a recovery themed article so my recipes had to include ingredients that would work well for a pre- and post-workout snack. One of the ingredients I wanted to include was Avocado. Maybe it was bold thinking but I thought I could come up with a lean protein bar with the creamy fruit. Every attempt was a fail. That's where Coconut Avocado Protein Bites come in. Note: Oxygen decided not to use this recipe in the article so you get to see them here on my blog instead!

These little snacks are found all over the internet and various blogs I frequent. So I thought, "why not give them a try." You can almost make protein bites with any flavor you'd like and they will still turn out tasting like candy. I know it's hard to believe, but my Coconut Avocado Protein Bites taste like candy too! If you've tried my Double Chocolate Mint Protein Bites then you'd know just how decadent these little balls of goodness can truly be.

Just last week we were snowed in with 35 inches of snow from our dear friend Nemo (or the blizzard of 2013 for those not in-the-know). That's right - 35 inches! I sure wish I had made an entire batch of these bites for our weekend indoors. On the bright side, we spent 2 hours on Saturday shoveling snow and 3 hours on Sunday shoveling some more snow. Not that it really mattered, our street had not been plowed until late Sunday evening so it's not like we could move our cars if we wanted to. Nevertheless we still shoveled and shoveled and shoveled to make sure our cars were clear of snow and we could move them the first chance we got. Whatever. That's what we get for living in NY, right? If you check Google and look up how many calories you can burn shoveling snow you'll see that our efforts were totally worth it! Apparently shoveling snow burns about 300 calories per hour!

Here's Rich looking pretty proud of his our pile of snow. It got about another foot taller, this photo was taken I believe on Saturday.

And here is Rich looking pretty pissed off that it is now Sunday afternoon and plows have yet to show up. Behind Rich is our street, full of snow. In front of Rich is his car all clear of snow.

This is me feeling pretty sweaty after shoveling for a while in the sun on Sunday. Good thing the sunglasses are hiding my makeup-less face!

And after we shoveled snow on Sunday, we decided to do a workout indoors - give it a try, it was a real lung burner!

For time: 20 hand-release pushups 40 walking lunges holding 25# weight overhead (I used my 26# kettlebell cuz that's all I had) 80 double unders 80 situps 40 jumping squats 20 hand-release pushups

Not sure how long it took me to complete this workout, maybe 10 minutes at the most.

What other ingredients would you like to try in a protein bite or protein bar?

Coconut Protein Bites

makes 4 servings - prep time: 40 minutes - cook time: none

Ingredients:

• ¾ C Oat Flour (if you can’t find oat flour, you can grind rolled oats in your blender or food processor)
• ¾ C Vanilla protein powder
• ¼ C Avocado mashed
• ¼ C unsweetened shredded coconut
• ½ tsp. vanilla extract
• ¼ C water
• dash of salt
• 1 tsp. powdered Stevia
• 1 tbsp. Carob Chips
• ¼ C Flax Meal (or ground flax seeds)

Instructions:

1. In a medium size bowl, combine oat flour, protein powder, flax meal, salt, stevia and coconut.
2. Add mashed avocado, vanilla extract, and carob chips to the dry mix.
3. Slowly add water while stirring. Batter should be slightly dry and not too sticky. If you add too much water batter will be sticky and you’ll have to add more flour and/or protein powder to balance it out.
4. Scoop about 1 tbsp. of batter in to your hand and roll in to a ball. Optional – roll bites in shredded coconut before allowing to set.
5. Place bites on a parchment lined tray or plate. Let set in fridge for 30 minutes.

Notes:

Be careful when adding water to this recipe. If you add too much water too fast you will have a very sticky ball to deal with. Add water slowly.

Nutrition per serving: Calories: 227, Total Fats: 8 g, Saturated Fat: 4 g, Trans Fat: 0 g, Cholesterol: 0 mg, Sodium: 90 mg, Total Carbohydrates: 19 g, Dietary Fiber: 6 g, Sugars: 4 g, Protein: 22 g, Iron: 1.4 mg