Peppermint "brownies" or balls

I adapted this recipe to what we had on hand and to our tastes.  Andrew liked it.  Try it and see what you think.

Peppermint "brownies" or balls

1 c raw almonds

1 c raw cashews

20 dates, pitted (Note: I don't have the nice juicy medjool dates, we get ones in bulk from Winco so if you have the medjool they are probably about half the size)

1/2 tsp peppermint extract...I used some concentrated stuff from Market Spice in WA so they were extra minty!

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3 T cocoa powder (Note: No fancy stuff here, just the Hershey or whatever brand is in bulk at Winco again)
couple pinches of salt

Grind the nuts to a powder in your food processor or Vitamix in our case.  Dump most of them out into a bowl.*  Add the rest of the ingredients and grind into a paste.  Dump into the bowl with the rest of the nuts and mix together by hand.  Press into an 8x8 pan and enjoy or roll into bite sized balls!  Chill in the fridge or freezer.

* One more note: I tried to do all of this in the Vitamix at once...basically, grind the nuts and then add the other ingredients.  It bound the machine up.  I had to dump everything out and then grind in about 3 batches and dump in another bowl and mix with my hand.  So, that's why I suggest dumping most of the nuts out.  Just a thought.  Some other way might work for you or if you have a food processor you might not need to dump stuff out ;)