Here are some delicious energy bites that will impress your foodie friends and nourish your soul!

They’re super quick and simple to make, incredibly nutritious, and visually beautiful.

I love to eat seasonally as part of my walk in the Wise Woman Tradition (or you can call me, witch). This supports my mission to be as kind to the planet and my body as possible. Whenever I have a chance to find something grown locally, to forage in my neighborhood, or to grow any part of my meal, I’m in! In this case, I had some dried rose petals from this spring’s harvest and a jar of fresh nettle seeds I’d recently collected in the garden.

Incorporating flowers into many spring, summer, and autumn recipes has truly elevated my food experience. They add color and a sense of wonder to eating while supporting mood through their essence and beauty.

Rose is the flower of love and the heart. Use it in recipes, tinctures, or teas whenever you need a little boost of heart salve; it is such a generous plant. Roses are high in polyphenols—antioxidants that protect from cell damage—as well as containing vitamins A, B, C, E, and K, plus phosphorus, iron, and calcium.

Nettles (Urtica Dioica) are a woman’s ally, providing the minerals so often missing in our diet and especially depleted through hormone surges. I have used nettle tincture during perimenopause successfully and cooked nettles in soups or dried them for tea. This is the first year I’ve gathered the seeds to use on porridge and now in these cacao bites. They are the most nutritious part of the nettle plant—worth finding a patch to forage sustainably or to grow in your own garden.

Nettle seeds are rich in iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, silicon, beta-carotene, folic acid, and vitamin C. They also contain all the goodness of nettle leaves such as vitamin A and C, iron, calcium, magnesium, and silicon. Be sure to gather nettles with protective gloves; they love to sting and bring one sharply into the moment. I suppose that is one of nettles many gifts: presence.

The inspiration for these bites came from herbalist Brigid Anna McNeill whom I follow on Instagram. I saw them on her feed and since I had the ingredients, I jumped right to it. I’d made cacao bites before rolled in hemp seeds, so if you can’t find nettle seeds anywhere, these are a good substitution.

Recipe:

1 cup dates, pitted

1 cup walnuts

1 cup pine nuts, hazelnuts, or almonds*

¼ cup organic cacao powder

1 tablespoon coconut oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

Ahead of time: Pulverize some rose petals in your mortal and pestle or in a spice grinder. Can be to a powder or coarser. Place them and the nettle (or hemp) seeds in a dish and mix together.

How-to:

1. Blend the nuts until medium-coarse in short bursts in your food processor.

2. Add vanilla, cacao powder, coconut oil, and dates. Process until the mixture is sticky and clumpy.

3. Scoop a scant two tablespoons worth into your hand and roll until you have a smooth ball. You can make them smaller, depending on how big of a snack you desire.

4. Roll bites in the rose petals and nettle seeds. Enjoy them with all your senses.

*Use whatever nuts you have, except peanuts, in this recipe. Just mix and match proportions as long as you end up with two cups worth. I had only 1/2 cup pine nuts so I added more walnuts this time. You can also source wild nettle seeds for eating online.

The Wise Woman Path for ReWilding, Healing, and Wholeness. Blessed Be, Witches.

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