The proof is in the pudding and this cottage cheese pudding proves to be pretty bad

We’re about to take a long-delayed trip to visit my husband’s parents in Wales. It’s been 14 years since our last visit, mainly because the cost of such a journey overshadowed our ability to fund it. We hoped to go in 2020, but you all know what happened then. Now my in-laws are both in their 80s and time with them is more precious than ever.

In fact, my mother-in-law has just come home from the hospital, where she was treated for pneumonia. She’s still very weak, not at all like her former bustling self, a woman whose house was always sparkling clean, who always had a load of laundry in the wash or drying on the line and somehow had a homemade dinner every night for her family of six. She was in her 50s when I first met her, and I was in awe of her ability to get 3,000 things done in a day and never breathe a single word of complaint. My peak productivity is getting eight things done and loudly complaining about every one.

I’m glad we’ll be able to help care for her, to take the burden off her husband and two daughters (one of whom has just had hip replacement surgery). But this will not be the celebratory trip that we’d envisioned. We will probably not be accompanying my in-laws on fun outings to tea houses, ancient castles and the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park. (Adorably, the Welsh call the hills in this park “mountains” with the highest elevation at 2,907 feet, compared with our magnificent Mount Hood at 11,249 feet.)

More likely, we’ll be at my mother-in-law’s bedside, encouraging her to eat and bringing her cups of tea. We’ll help with laundry, dishwashing and cooking, doing what we can to keep her home tidy so nothing in her sight troubles her. It will be hardest for my husband, who remembers the capable and caring woman she was 50 years ago. That’s the mother he holds in his heart, and it will be difficult to match that image to her diminished capacity. Age certainly never loses its ability to shock us.

I was going to make scones in anticipation of our trip, but the desire has gone right out of me. Instead, I made something absurdly simple: a no-cook chocolate pudding with cottage cheese. The recipe keeps popping up in my news feed, so I thought I’d give it a whirl — literally, since it’s made with a blender or food processor.

It’s supposed to be healthier than regular chocolate pudding because it’s low-ish in fat while being high in protein, but I was skeptical about how it would taste. This recipe is so easy it’s practically not even a recipe. The basic formula is 1 cup of cottage cheese plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder plus 2 tablespoons maple syrup. Variations include adding frozen bananas or folding in whipped cream to make the pudding more mousse-like (but then it’s a high-fat treat). Health-food-oriented folks might blend in chia seeds or protein powder. On the other end of the spectrum, you can also add chocolate chips or create a magic shell topping by drizzling melted chocolate chips over the pudding, then letting it cool. Alternately, you could add a dollop of marshmallow fluff and a graham cracker and pretend you’re eating s’mores. But if you’re going to do that, why not just have real chocolate pudding? Or better yet, real s’mores?

Since I always have frozen bananas on hand, I decided to try this pudding with a banana. I also added a tablespoon of vanilla and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon, because I love vanilla and I love cinnamon (obviously). My husband swears he doesn’t like cinnamon, but my actual experience with putting cinnamon in many desserts contradicts that claim. The only place he can taste it, apparently, is in coffee. He takes a sip and makes a particular “yucky face” that I find both irritating and endearing. Ahh, marriage!

Here are the directions for the chocolate cottage cheese pudding: Put everything in the blender and blend until smooth, then pour the pudding into custard cups or ramekins. Chill it for an hour or eat it right away, sprinkled with a dusting of cocoa.

The internet makes this pudding sound miraculous, but in the real-life world of my kitchen, it turned out to be distinctly underwhelming. It tasted strangely of peanut butter, even though I never added any. It was also considerably less sweet than I liked, so I ruined the low sugar content by adding an extra teaspoon of maple syrup. OK, fine. It was sugar, and it was 2 tablespoons. In short, the internet misled me.

I chilled the soupy chocolate in the fridge overnight and it thickened ever so slightly but never truly reached pudding consistency. I tried making another batch of pudding and mixed it with half a container of frozen Cool Whip. That tasted marginally better, but neither version tasted as good as a regular ol’ pudding cup. A friend familiar with my soupy struggles recommended replacing the cottage cheese with ricotta. (Internet, take note.) I wish I’d thought of that! Now we have a lot of not-very-tasty chocolate cottage cheese pudding that we have to eat before we leave for our trip — or maybe we’ll leave it as a “gift” for our housesitters.

I’m sure the next few weeks will be tough. It could be the last time my husband sees his parents and I know it’s going to be wrenching. For my part, I intend to thank my in-laws yet again for raising the good, kind, loyal, dependable, incurably goofy and gentle-souled man who is my husband. I’m going to cry, and they won’t like it because they’re British but they’re just going to have to bear up under the strain of bald-faced emotion. Then I’m going to hug them, and I’ll probably cry some more. And then I’m going to hug my husband and daughter, and we’ll come back home and I’ll never make weird cottage cheese pudding again.

Chocolate Cottage Cheese Pudding

1 cup cottage cheese

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa

2 tablespoon maple syrup (or sweetener to taste)

Optional: Frozen or fresh bananas, whipped cream, chocolate chips

Put everything in a blender or food processor or use an immersion blender to blend all ingredients. Pour into custard cups or ramekins and chill or serve immediately with a sprinkle of cocoa powder or chocolate chips.