Coconut Apricot Balls

At our house near Christmas there was always 'the candy table'. Mom would spend day after day filling those 100 year old Christmas tins with goodies of all kinds. Imperial Stained Glass sugar cookies, cherry pecan fudge, apricot pralines, divinity, and coconut apricot balls, among others.

Fast forward to the past two weeks, when my sweet daughter has had us on a raw vegan diet. She's SO creative and selfless to cook, er, UNcook for us while we moan about no bread or meat. Ok ok its just her and me, so I'm the one moaning. Well anyway, I wanted something raw and sweet the other day so I whipped up these time tested favorites. Who'd have thought we were having a raw vegan dessert with our christmas dinner all those years?

In a food processor with the metal S blade put 24 dried apricots. That's most of a Baggie package of them. Yes I counted them, but it's about a cup. Process until they're really chopped and start to clump and stick together.

Put in a bowl and add 2 tbsp orange juice, 2 tbsp of some kind of sugar (I used raw coconut sugar but powdered works), and 1 1/2 cups of shredded coconut. Mom used the Bakers stuff but I used organic unsweetened. They both work great. Mix up well and then smush into large marble sizes balls, put in a Tupperware or tin container and store on the counter. Makes about 36 balls. Takes less than 10 minutes start to finish.

They'll last a couple of weeks, and they're best if they can sit for a day. Hope you like them. I think the recipe may have come from an old imperial Sugar cookbook way back when. Enjoy!