I love eating dates. I like to bake with dates because they are naturally sweet and are an excellent sweetener, no need for sugar. Prunes are good too, good to stay regular hehe There is a Polish traditional holiday recipe (but we make it any time of year too) called Compot. It's basically cinnamon sticks, clovers, with water and a bunch of dried fruits (prunes, apricots, pears, apples and raisins). It's like a dried fruit soup. It's soooooo delicious. When I make it, I make to buy my dried fruits that don't have sulfites in them. When I was a kid, my grandma had her own pear tree and she would dry the pears herself. Dried fruit doesn't expire. It can begin to turn a strange colour, but I have never seen dried fruit expire and I've kept some for a long time (naturally dried, not store bought that is). Store bought does expire but in a long long time.