Chocolate Mousse Smoothie: Secret Smoothie Ingredient #2

When I was around 12 years old, my mother quit making chocolate mousse because good mousse = raw egg.

The break with good mousse remains a point of contention between her and my dad, thirty-something years later, not least of which because we all continued to eat our fried eggs happily ever after.

I'm only revealing my parents' personal life that way to say that it's been a good, long time since I've had my mom's chocolate mousse.  So the taste of this smoothie probably doesn't measure up quite as well as I imagine.  Still, I think most people would be amazed at the taste of such a healthy alternative.

By the way, if you haven't made friends with Secret Ingredient #1, you should probably go backwards and try this recipe first.  For real.  It's like, all Paleo and diet and stuff, but still tastes like yum.

Meanwhile, my boy was saying how he wanted bananas in our smoothies, because of the smoothie-ness of bananas. So I went searching for thicker-than-peanut-butter-but-still-not-a-banana thickener. You know...because I don't like bananas. Or fruit. And yet I keep trying to pretend I'm a healthy eater.

And here is the winner, hands down:

Why yes! As a matter of fact that IS a green thing about to make its way into my delicious chocolate smoothie...

Here's the rest of the recipe for a smoothie you won't believe is actually semi-kind'a healthy:

Liquids always go into the blender first:

1 1/2 cups almond millk
2 Tablespoons maple syrup
1/4 - 1/3 cup coffee
1/4 teaspoon vanilla

That's because otherwise the blender makes all kinds of unhappy blender noises (kind of like the ones it makes when one forgets to pit the dates).

If you want it to be all Paleo and stuff, make sure and use a grade "B" syrup.  For reasons that I assume have to do with processing, getting an "A" in maple syrup is not always a good thing.

Next up, the not-liquid:

4 dates, pitted
1/2 a delicious, buttery, (ok so it HAPPENS to be green!) avocado
1/8 - 1/4 cup cocoa

On the other hand, if you don't care if it's Paleo or has sugar or whatever, I highly recommend throwing in a handful of chocolate chips at the very end and then blending 10-15 more seconds.  It's delicious that way.

You can actually adjust the cocoa from 1/8 cup to 1/4 cup depending on how rich you want it, and the coffee from 1/4 to 1/3 cup, depending on...how much coffee your mom drank when you were a child.

And then blend!  I blended it forever. And ever and ever and ever. Because of my fears about dates.  But also because there's an amount of time that you're supposed to continue blending after everything has gotten all nice and blendy, and I can never remember exactly how much time that is.

In any case, it ends up all yummy like this:

And the only job left is to drink it!

Or, y'know...if you're me - photograph it while trying to keep your toddler from spreading the decorative coffee beans as far across the house as possible.

Happy Not-Drinking-Any-White-Sugar-At-All-While-Still-Having-A-Delicious-Treat Day everyone!!!!

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