I have been on a huge fruit and veggie kick lately. Our local Albertsons recently remodeled their produce section and there are always new and exciting things to try. Honestly though, even without the crazy looking yellow pokey melons and fancy pink dragon fruits, I have no idea what I’m doing in that part of the grocery store. As sort of a a New Years resolution I started buying one or two fruits or veggies to cook up something new with. My first day I picked up an eggplant and used it to sample four different eggplant recipes. I ended up eating eggplant all day.

Like the typical American family we are massively addicted to sugar. This morning I came across a recipe list of healthy meals and snacks that claimed kids are SURE to love. Great! I clicked on the chocolate pudding recipe link and headed to the grocery store with high hopes. (Recipe here: https://www.furtherfood.com/recipe/avocado-date-chocolate-pudding-recipe-ibs-diet/)

Avocados are on sale here so I picked up a couple. Even if everything goes terribly wrong at least I can fall back on some guacamole. Finding the dates was a serious game of produce hide and seek. After my three year old daughter basically touched every piece of fruit in the entire store I finally found them. Hint: check the weird stuff under the fruit carts or in the back corner with all the boxes of nuts and seeds. If it doesn’t bother you intensely it would probably just be easier to immediately ask someone who works there. I wish that had been me today. It would have saved me from buying a bruised apple I felt obligation to because my daughter chucked it when I said no.

Dinner was a sensible and quick spaghetti. I try not to spring too much new in one sitting on the kids. Sure as the sun rises, it was about 37 seconds after we clear the plates that the children started clamoring for something sweet.

I assembled my ingredients.

That’s it. Some avocado, 8 dates, some cocoa powder, a splash of vanilla and some water.

I am not going to lie. At this point I was extremely skeptical. Pitting the dates kind of grossed me out. I can’t even say for sure why but the insides seem suspect to me. I googled it, they were exactly what was expected but it was weirding me out. Plus, sweet avocados. I just wasn’t sure. But I felt really great, I mean, I’m whipping up some pudding with this stuff! My insides are gonna love it!

Then this happened.

I still don’t get what happened. It started spewing everywhere. It’s never done that before ever. My 8 year old said it was probably a sign. I took the whole thing apart, cleaned it, and put it back together. I was determined to make pudding. When I started it again I may have closed my eyes. Luckily it worked without any further issues.

The consistency was spot on with pudding. It took about 3-4 minutes of high speed processing. If I had followed the directions about soaking the dates first it probably wouldn’t have taken as long.

But here’s the real test. The kid test. First Charlie took a spoon lick.

She was less than pleased. This picture seriously makes me laugh so hard.

Then Oliver, who hadn’t seen Charlie’s “what the hell?!” look of he probably would have declined the taste test.

Yeah. That’s a definite no from both kids.

From the adult palate: I honestly thought it was pretty good. I was really surprised at the texture honestly. It was definitely a more semi sweet dark chocolate type taste which is probably why the kids rejected it so hard. Maybe add a few more dates next time and less cocoa powder to bring a more sweet flavor to it.

Definitely making some guacamole tomorrow to soothe the kids poor taste buds.

Have you tried it with better results or have a tip for me? I do still have all these dates I have to do *something* with. Let me know!