Guilty Pleasures

Tis the season to get carried away by snacking and sweets. Considering my great weigh in on Sunday afternoon, I don't want to throw the whole week away. I do want a little something that tastes nice too, though. I don't work in an office, so I don't have vendors plying me with gift baskets and goodies. It's up to me to make them if I want them.

Yesterday, a person that I tweet with occasionally tweeted about some coconut macaroons that she had drying in her dehydrator. Curious, I asked her about them. Turns out, they were vegan/raw macaroons. I wasn't really into pulling my dehydrator off of a high storage shelf, and I don't follow a raw food diet anyway, so I have nothing against baking macaroons. I also don't want to wait 7-10 hours to eat my macaroons. There are a bunch of similar recipes floating around the interwebs, but you know I like to tweak things. Since I really like Almond Joy candy bars, I used almond extract in my cookies to get that flavor.

Coconut Cocoa Almond Bites (makes 78 cookies at 1 WW point+ per cookie)

3 cups shredded coconut (I had sweetened in freezer, 1 cup had been toasted previously)
1 cup dark cocoa
1 cup of ground almonds
1/4 cup sugar free "maple" syrup
3/4 cup agave
1 T almond extract
1 t salt (which I forgot to put in)

Preheat oven to 250. Cover baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine all ingredients together. With a small teaspoon, place small scoops on baking sheets. Bake for 30 minutes.