Nutty chocolate coconut no bake snack bites

You're only four ingredients, five minutes and a food processor away from these healthy nutty chocolate coconut snack bites.

With Halloween just around the corner and frightened by stories from of trick-or-treaters arriving by the busload in our new neighborhood, I have a cabinet full of giant bags of snack-sized candy that are screaming out my name.

I can hear them in my sleep: "Eat meeeeeeeeee. I'm yummmmmmmmy. I'm sweeeeeeeeeet."

Little devils! So what's a Ninj with little willpower to do?

Healthy No-bake Snack Bites

Make a healthy sweet snack to stop the voices, that's what.

Skinny slow cooker peanut butter cup blondies

Use your slow cooker to make easy, skinny peanut butter cup blondies, a healthier choice for dessert, snacktime or school lunchboxes.

This is getting sort of crazy, isn't it? Another slow cooker recipe: Maybe I should have made 2016 the Year of the Crockpot.

But come on: I'm giving you a dessert recipe. A skinny dessert recipe. A skinny dessert recipe made in the slow cooker.

You can't blame me for being pretty excited about this one.

Regular readers are by now aware of my penchant for using my slow cooker as a water bath for making yummy things like overnight oatmeal and bread pudding. This skinny peanut butter cup blondie recipe is similar in that it uses the slow cooker in a non-traditional way -- like an oven; all you need is a springform pan that fits inside your cooker.

Maple date scones

Maple date scones are an easy-to-make, healthier, less-sweet treat for breakfast, dessert or an afternoon snack.

While I like sweet snacks and desserts as much as the next ninja, I generally prefer my baked goods to be a little less on the sweet side.

Which is why I'll choose a scone over a cupcake any day.

(True story: My sister used to love sitting next to me at family birthday celebrations when we were young because I didn't like to eat the frosting. I would eat the cake part of my piece and give the frosting to her -- that's how much I prefer my sweets less sweet!)

And any time I can sweeten a sweet more naturally than simply using refined sugar, I'm all over it.

As their name implies, these maple date scones are sweetened with pure maple syrup, chewy dates and almost no added sugar.

Salted dates

Warm salted dates: serve atop crackers or toast rounds spread with creamy goat cheese for a quick and easy, sweet and savory appetizer.

I'm a huge fan of simple but delicious food, particularly when it comes to entertaining. I prefer to be part of the party, enjoying the food and sipping a cocktail, rather than stuck in the kitchen heating up trays of appetizers or tending the sterno.

(Does anyone even use sterno anymore? And what the hell is that goey crap anyway?)

So if, as I am, you are a fan of Molly Wizenberg, she of Orangette and A Homemade Life fame, you'll know that I expected simple but delicious food when I started reading her latest book, Delancey, for the FSC Book Club.

And I was not disappointed.

Molly's recipe for sauteed dates with olive oil and sea salt jumped out at me for two main reasons:

1. I'm a new convert to the awesomeness of dates, naturally sweet and just a little chewy -- and way more ass-kicking than a freakin' raisin
2. The name of the recipe is also the ingredient list -- nothing could be simpler than that.