New Recipes Crash and Burn

I tried two recipes for dinner tonight that should have been AWESOME: cream of zucchini soup and stuffed mushrooms.  Both recipes were from raw food "uncook" books and included things I LOVE:  avocados, zucchini, mushrooms, olives ... but I almost couldn't eat the mushrooms and the zucchini soup tasted more like watery guacamole than zucchini.  My husband actually ate it as a dip with some tortilla chips!

I have to admit, I got pretty depressed.  Why did I want to do this again?  I hate trying new foods!  I'm a picky eater!  But, then again, doing things that challenge us is what makes us grow.  Right?

So then I decided to make dessert:  Chocolate pudding.  It also calls for an avocado, so I had my doubts.  But I made coconut cream to go with it, and I figured, even if the pudding doesn't turn out, I could just eat that to get the taste of the mushrooms out of my mouth.

I'm still waiting to eat it, but I licked the spoon, and it tastes really good!  It was a bit too much like a chocolate avocado, so I added some powdered sugar, and that seemed to make a HUUUUGE difference.  Not the healthiest ingredient, but hey, I can eat ONE thing that's not so great for me.

I already have ingredients for the rest of the week, so I'm going to continue with my raw food recipes and see if I can hit upon something good (I've got Not Meatballs and pasta as well as spring rolls and stir-fry veggies).  Next week I'll try a few of the KickStart recipes, and the third week the Thrive Diet recipes.

Here's the recipe for the chocolate pudding (which I think doesn't even need the coconut cream)!  I added my substitutions in italics, because it seemed silly to use a "raw" version of something when I had other ingredients available (and since I'm doing a vegan diet and not a raw, it's not cheating).


Chocolate Bliss Pudding

1 avocado

10 pitted dates, soaked 15 minutes

1/3 cup water

2 tbsp raw carob powder or substitute 100% cocoa powder

1 tbsp raw cacao nibs or substitute cacao chips

1 vanilla bean or substitute 1 tsp vanilla extract

1/8 tsp salt

powdered sugar to taste

For the pudding: Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor, process until smooth. Chill thoroughly.

Namarie.