Caring. About Food.

As of May 1, 2010...

2010-04-29T22:10:00.002-07:00

...Blogger will no longer allow FTP publishing. Updates to this blog, if they should occur, can be found at http://caringaboutfood.blogspot.com. This section of the journal will also remain at in it's domain directory, so accessing links should not present a problem.

No More Cooking for Mom

2008-12-27T12:37:00.001-07:00

As you may already know, my mother died on December 8th, 2008 at approximately 0709. As you also know, I didn't do a lot with this section of The Mom & Me Journals dot Net, even though it was always my intention to do more. Thus, I'm not sure this is the right time for me to officially close out this section of the journals. I suspect, as time continues, I may have more to say about Mom, her food habits, and recipes I devised for her delight. We'll see. In the meantime, be assured, the main section of these journals continues; you can access it through the immediately previous link in this post.

Hoisin Pot Roast

2008-03-22T17:46:00.003-07:00

    Over the last few months, beginning sometime in December, I think, I've cooked more than a few pot roasts. Aside from the fact that I've been trying to keep my mother in beef in order to bolster her hemoglobin/hematocrit and keep her anemia at bay (which hasn't actually been successful), my mother is, at heart, a meat-and-potatoes (sans all other vegetables until about six or seven years ago) kind of girl. As well, I love a good pot roast especially when a variety of root vegetables (for us it's potatoes, carrots and onions; neither of us likes turnips or parsnips) and some peppers and celery stalks have been simmered with it over the last hour or so of cooking. And, the gravy! I'm not really a fan of gravy, but, when it comes to pot roast, bring that ladle a little closer, please!
    To keep my mother's senses alert, as well as my own, I've been experimenting with a variety of simmering liquids. So far I haven't ventured from starting with a basic beef broth out of a can; I've been adding a variety of other flavor enhancing ingredients, though. A couple of weeks ago, contemplating our second pot roast of the year, I was seized with the idea of leaning toward an Asian flavored roast. I decided to add Hoisin sauce (Dynasty's brand; although if you're curious about different varieties of Hoisin, give this page a try) and some other additions to the beef broth.
    Here's a list of what I added to the called for 1 cup of beef broth:

About 4 oz. of the aforementioned Hoisin sauce. I can't be more specific, as I didn't measure, but when I checked the newly opened 7 oz bottle after dumping what appeared to be a "good" amount into a bowl, it looked like about 3 oz were left.
About 3 oz Kikkoman "lite" soy sauce. Again, I'm guessing at the amount, since I added according to how thick I wanted the additional sauce to be. I know it was a bit less than the amount of Hoisin, but a bit more than 1/8 of a cup.
Two heaping tablespoons of freshly grated, freeze dried ginger root.

    I also fooled around with the minced vegetable mixture called for in the Joy of Cooking, 1997 edition (pgs 667-668) recipe, which holds the basic instructions I follow when making pot roast. Instead of measuring the onions, I simply chopped 1 small-medium yellow onion, 4 large cloves of garlic, 1 whole green chili (also known as an "Anaheim pepper" and about a 1/2 cup of celery and threw them into my food processor for mincing.
    I was expecting the roast to be imbued with a smoky Asian flavor after simmering. What I got, though, was better than expected. The "Asian" influence metamorphosed into a rich, extremely beefy, flavorful roast. The gravy I made from the simmering liquid (after straining out the dregs of the minced vegetables) was almost too beautiful to eat: A deep sienna with a touch of Van Dyke brown...and savory, oh my! This is the kind of pot roast of which I've dreamed; it's the kind of pot roast that you think only food stylists can create with non-food items for commercials!
    The roast was huge, between four and five pounds. More than half ended up in the freezer. In order to preserve the flavor of the meat I spread the minced vegetable dregs over the roast before wrapping it for freezing. I also froze what was left of the gravy, about two cups, considering that my additions had increased the "called for" simmering liquid by 100%. A week later we had our first "left over pot roast" meal from what was in the freezer. It was even better than the first time and, by the way, the gravy froze and thawed like it knew what it was doing. So did the left over chunked vegetables I'd also frozen: Carrots, a medium Bermuda onion, two medium sized halved red potatoes and a green bell pepper sliced into 4 strips. I warmed everything in the oven instead of the microwave because I'd wrapped the left overs in aluminum foil for freezing but, also, in order to scent the house with the aroma of the warming dish.
    By the way, although the above mentioned recipe recommends turning the roast every half hour, the day I made this version was a partial wheelchair day for Mom, she was still battling her cold and I was running on empty. I managed to turn it after the first half hour. Soon after that initial turn, though, Mom decided to take her nap and I couldn't resist collapsing on the couch for a "short" nap. Two hours later...well, the roast was fine and so was I. Pot roast is very forgiving, it seems.
    For those of you who've never attempted pot roast but are interested, this particular roast took four hours of simmering to reach it's personal perfection. Because the roast hadn't been turned as per the recipe, the "top" of the roast developed a thin, deep brown crust. The meat, throughout, though, was fall-apart tender and retained an inviting prime-rib pink inside. I should also mention, the cook book recipe above recommends a very low, almost inactive simmering temperature. When I make pot roast I use what I imagine is a slightly higher temperature: "3" on a burner marked from "Low (1)" to "High (11)". This keeps the liquid visibly active but not jumping.
    Yes, I intend to continue experimenting with simmering liquids, but, I have to say, I think I've hit upon our "family recipe" with this one. It's definitely a keeper and repeater!

Christmas 2007 Recipes

2008-01-01T02:02:00.000-07:00

Since the Sauerbraten recipe resides in the 1997 edition of Joy of Cooking {page 668-669} I won't challenge the copyright and publish the recipe here. A few comments I want to make about my own preparation.

Our roast marinated a little over five days. I read somewhere that the longer the roast marinates, the deeper the flavor, which I'm sure is true. One recipe I chanced across on the web recommended a seven day soak; another a 14 day soak. I guess I was well within outer marinating limits.
I used a chuck roast measuring a little over four pounds. It took four hours on barely a simmer (which the recipe recommended) to braise the roast to the point of almost falling apart.
I did, indeed, add 1/2 cup of crushed gingersnaps (out of the box; a generic brand) to the gravy. I imagine some people would enjoy the flavor. My mother did. It was a little too sweet for my taste.
- Regarding this step, I reduced the liquid left from roasting a bit too much, although no more than the recipe called for, down to "2 to 3 cups". At this stage, the sauce without the gingersnaps was what I consider a good consistency for a slightly thick meat sauce. Adding the gingersnaps thickened it almost immediately beyond the point of what I would consider likable gravy. Take into consideration that I'm not a gravy fan and rarely make or serve it. This gravy, though, was so thick it could have been served as a meat pudding side dish.
- I did not add the suggested "1 tablespoon red currant jelly or brown sugar" to the gravy.
- I did not sieve the gravy in order to smooth it, thus, it was hearty with bits of pan drippings, meat and the minced vegetables used to flavor the braising liquid.
Although the recipe recommends browning the roast "over medium-high heat", I found this a little too hot for the described subtle, 20 minute browning "on all sides". Almost immediately after placing the roast in to Dutch oven, I removed it, turned the burner down to medium (my burner setting goes from "Low {1}" to "High {11}" with "Medium" falling at the sixth setting), gave the pan about 10 minutes to cool, then browned the meat.
I used gin instead of crushed juniper berries. I bought the gin in one of those "single serving" bottles and added the entire bottle to the marinade. I think that comes to 1.5 oz, maybe a little more. I'm not sure this made much difference in the final flavor.
Some months ago I had a bad experience with using dry red table wine in a beef stew. Although I followed the recipe's recommendation for the amount of wine to add, the stew had such an overwhelming wine flavor that Mom and I found the it inedible. This time I used red cooking wine, which I assume is a somewhat lower grade than table wine. To my taste, it was perfect.
I followed a pot roast family tradition in that I added large chunks of traditional pot roast vegetables to the roast during the last hour and a half of cooking, as follows:
- potatoes, quartered, an hour and a half before the end of the braising;
- chunked carrots at an hour before the end; quartered Bermuda onions at 40 minutes before the end; a quarter of a head of cabbage, cut in half, 20 minutes before the end.
None of the vegetables overcooked or fell apart at these time limits.

I found the Rum Date Sauce recipe for the dessert on the web on the page linked to its name. I read through several recipes, including commentary on some of them, before I decided on this one. I chose this because of the use of cornstarch, and very little at that. I doubled the recipe and followed it exactly except:

I used chopped dates instead of raisins.
I used dark brown sugar instead of granulated sugar.
I used blackstrap rum, the darkest rum available.
We stored the left over sauce in the refrigerator, heated it in the microwave for a minute on high a couple of days later and used it again with great success.

*  *  *  *  *Family Date Bar Recipe
    This recipe is not a typical date bar recipe, although it's the first one to which I was exposed as a child, so it came as a shock to me, several years later, that most people think of date bars as a sort of date jam baked between layers of a sort of oat streusel. If you like dates, this is the date bar recipe you want to try. A woman for whom I used to babysit made these. This is her recipe. When I asked her for it, she wrote it from memory onto a blue index card. I've never seen its like, before or since, outside our household, so I'm betting that she originated the recipe. Sometime within the next few days I'll be making this with dried apricots and toasted, slice almonds; and serving it with an Brandy Apricot Sauce, based on the above Rum Raisin Sauce recipe, but substituting Apricot Brandy for the rum, Apricots for the raisins and using granulated sugar instead of dark brown sugar. I'll report back on the results.

Dry Ingredients:
1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp Pumpkin Pie Spice
1/8 tsp salt

Other Dry Ingredients:
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups chopped dates
1 cup chopped nuts (I used walnuts)

Dry Ingredients Preparation:
    Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and spice.

Wet Ingredients:
3 eggs
½ cup butter or margarine
1 tsp vanilla

Wet Ingredients Preparation:
    Beat butter and sugar until fluffy and creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, and beat with each addition. Add vanilla and beat a little more.

Inclusion Preparation:
    Add the flour, baking powder, salt and spice mixture to the wet ingredients a little at a time, stirring with a rubber spatula. Stir only until moistened.
    Quickly fold in dates and nuts.
    Pour batter into a 9" x 13" baking pan lightly coated with non-stick cooking spray.
    Bake in preheated 325° oven for 25 minutes until golden brown.
*  *  *  *  *

I want to be sure and get these Mother's Day recipes down...

2007-05-13T13:42:00.000-07:00

...before I forget them.
*  *  *  *  *Fresh Raspberry Cobbler Recipe

Preheat oven to 375°.

Fruit Prep:
36 oz (dry ounces) fresh raspberries
½ cup flour
½ rounded cup sugar (white sugar is best)
grated zest from about ¾ of a lemon

Toss raspberries, flour and sugar in bowl. Grate the lemon zest over the bowl. Retoss the mixture. Some of the raspberries will come apart and mix with the flour and sugar. Don't worry about this; it'll make a rich filling. Dump raspberry mixture into a 2 qt oval gratin dish.

Bisquit Crust:
1 cup white flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
1½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
½ heaping tsp Allspice
6 Tbl stick margarine or butter
¾ cup milk

Whisk together all dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Cut in magarine until mixture looks like meal with some coarse crumbs and some fine crumbs. Add milk and stir with a flat wooden spoon or rubber spatula just until mixed. Drop spoonfuls or spatulafuls of dough on top of the fruit mixture.

Bake for 40 - 50 minutes, until crust is deep golden brown and raspberry mixture is bubbling.
*  *  *  *  *Sauced, Baked Meat Recipe

Preheat oven to 300°

Sauce Ingredients:
1 7 oz jar Dynasty Hoisin Sauce
¼ cup light soy sauce (Kikkoman is a good brand for this recipe)
1 Tbl grated fresh ginger
3 cloves garlic, slice and smashed or 2 tsp garlic powder

When I made this on Mother's Day, 2007, I had about three quarters of a jar of Hoisin Sauce in the refrigerator, so I made up the difference with a ginger/soy Asian vinaigrette.
Whisk sauce ingredients together.

Spray with cooking spray a 13 x 9 glass baking dish. Arrange 3.75 lbs. of beef loin tri-tip strips in the dish. Pour in the sauce. Turn and brush the meat so that each piece is well covered. Tightly cover the baking dish with aluminum foil Bake for three hours. Turn the oven to 350°. Turn the meat in the baking dish. Return the meat to the oven uncovered and bake for an additional hour.
Remove meat from oven. Allow to sit at least 15 minutes. Before serving, spoon or drain the fat off the meat. Transfer meat to serving platter (if you wish), set it on the table and dig in.
*  *  *  *  *

Some Damned Good Banana Bread

2007-01-12T10:04:00.007-07:00

    What makes this banana bread so good is that it has a story behind it.
    This is the second time in a month I've purchased bananas with the intention of letting them ripen, then making banana bread. I forgot about the first batch, swinging in the fruit basket, and they ripened to the moldy liquefaction, which I noticed when observing some sort of sticky substances dropping onto other fruit in the baskets below. A few days later I came home with replacement bananas...
    ...about which I forgot until yesterday. They were blackened and had begun to host mold on the skin, but no liquid was evident in the bag. "Why not," I reasoned, "just peel the mold off with the skin? I'll bet the fruit inside is so ripe it's only fit for banana bread."
    That's when I noticed the winey smell. I think I mentioned that yesterday. Or, maybe that was mentioned to my mom, not you. Anyway, I do remember commenting on this to Mom and saying, "This bread should have a really robust flavor."
    My mother saw fit not to comment except with raised eyebrows. She likes banana bread, you see, but it had better be so rich with banana flavor that it could pass for the fruit. Her favorite way of eating bananas is out of the skin, slightly soft. She doesn't like banana flavoring in other foods, except in well appointed banana bread. I'm this way about bananas, too, only more so; I won't eat the banana raw unless it's just this side of green. So, it's not hard for me to find appropriate banana bread recipes.
    The last try was straight out of Joy of Cooking, and was good, but needed some work, primarily because of our high altitude. I made no adjustments and it showed. It's primary attraction is that all the liquid comes from bananas, except for the inclusions of eggs. Thus, it is loaded with bananas.
    I wondered, though, if, somewhere along the line, I'd bookmarked any promising banana bread recipes. Sure enough, there was the one I was destined to use, with enough alterations so that I can confidently publish it without citing the source...it would be too confusing if I did that, anyway, because my changes, while they seem to be minor, turn out to be important.
    This recipe also features all fluids from bananas and eggs. Here it is. I'll talk about it, later.*  *  *  *  *Damn Good Banana Bread Recipe

Dry Ingredients:
1⅓ cups unbleached, high altitude, all purpose flour
⅔ cup unbleached, high altitude, wheat flour
¾ tsp baking soda
¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

Other Dry Ingredients:
¾ cup (or more, to taste, I think I used close to a cup) finely chopped walnuts.
scant ¾ cup brown sugar

Dry Ingredients Preparation:
    Whisk all dry ingredients together in a large bowl (which will be your final mixing bowl).

Wet Ingredients:
2 cups mashed overripe bananas
¾ cup butter
2 jumbo eggs

Wet Ingredients Preparation:
    In a separate bowl cream the butter (which should be room temperature or a bit warmer, but not liquid) and brown sugar with a mixer until it looks a little like whipped cream.
    Mix in eggs one at a time (I did not beat them, first) with mixer. Stir in mashed bananas until well blended. Yes, the mixture will look ooky...the butter and bananas will not combine smoothly. Don't worry about this. You don't want them too because part of the magic of this recipe is what happens to the bread as the small chunks of banana bake into it.

Inclusion Preparation:
    Stir banana mixture into flour mixture. Stir enough to moisten. Fold in walnuts. A note on the walnuts: My preference, often, this loaf included, is to chop the nuts so fine that they're like a coarse meal. This releases oils, thus the flavor. In banana bread, this makes a BIG difference.
    Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. This recipe well fills, not too little, not too much, a flared, 9¼" x 5¼" x 2¾" aluminum pan; a pan that is part of Mom's original collection of fruit cake baking pans and was originally purchased on Guam or previously. It and its kin remain my favorite loaf pans. For reasons discussed later in the recipe, it is smart to line the pan with overlapping aluminum foil, heavy gage, and grease (or, as I did, Pam) the interior of the lined pan.

    Bake in preheated 350° oven for 60 minutes or until the loaf has raised, is golden brown and a thin skewer inserted one inch from the center of the loaf comes out clean. In my oven, it took exactly 60 minutes. The crust was an attractive Burnished Old Gold brown. The loaf had been scenting the house delectably for the previous half hour.
    If you did not line your baking pan with aluminum foil, let the loaf cool for 10 minutes before removing it from the pan. Immediately wrap the loaf securely in aluminum foil and put it up to mellow for 18 - 24 hours. I usually also encase it in a large plastic bag and close the bag securely, just to "make sure". I recommend doing this with all quick bread loaves. It enhances the moisture, texture and flavor.
    You may need to increase amounts of leavening ingredients or decrease, slightly, liquids, for this to work perfectly at lower altitudes.
*  *  *  *  *    The use of brown instead of white sugar, by the way (I always use the darkest brown I can find), adds a hint of caramel, which enhances the banana flavor. It reminds of me eating fried bananas on Guam. These bananas were the local variety, closer to plantains, really, except the color of bananas. We had three prolific trees on the swampy side of our house. They were small, pungent in both aroma and flavor, very firm even when very ripe and could be stored (on the tree) almost forever. One of the local desserts, which Mom occasionally cooked for us, was peeling these ripe, firm bananas, splitting them lengthwise, rolling them in brown sugar and frying them briefly in a hot skillet full of sizzling butter.
    You'll also notice that this recipe doesn't include vanilla. It wouldn't hurt if you want to add a teaspoon, but I don't think it needs vanilla; the bananas, finely chopped walnuts and dark brown sugar give this load a superior flavor.
    Our loaf ripened overnight in its aluminum foil plaster. I tried a piece just a half hour ago. Oh, my, my! At room temperature, without any kind of smear, this bread is perfect. It is moist and firm, highly fragrant and flavored, its texture much enhanced by the addition of whole wheat flour. It has some heft. It is not melt-in-your-mouth cupcake sweet bread, although it's plenty sweet. You have to chew this stuff...and reap the benefits!
    So, needless to say, I'm pleased with this one and want to be able to refer back to it, so I'm cybermortalizing it here.
    If you like banana bread, you've gotta try this. I recommend, though, you let your intended bananas go at least until the skins are completely black...perhaps it is not necessary to wait for skin mold. If skin mold happens, though, never fear. That's where my bananas were at. I discarded none of them. Although I can't attest to the flavor of the winey smelling fruit, in the bread, the condition of the meat only deepened and ripened the banana flavor.
    No, Mom hasn't tried it yet. She's not up. I'll report back.
    I did, by the way, use real butter. When I type "butter", I mean "butter". Otherwise, I'll type something else.
    I think I'll slice myself another piece before I go over to the main journal and direct visitors here.
    Mmmm...even the bread smells like wine. I assure you, though, it does not taste like wine.

Oh my! Our house smells like Carnivore heaven!

2006-11-23T16:44:00.001-07:00

The pot roast is just beginning its second hour. Our house is so fragrant my mother has arisen twice to comment on the wonderful aroma since she went down for her nap at 1615. Believe it or not, this is the first time I've cooked a pot roast. I don't think my mother ever did a classic pot roast, either. Her roasts were always done in a pressure cooker. She's throw all the accompanying vegetables in there with the meat, a bay leaf and a generous sprinkling of seasoning salt and let 'er rip. By the time it was done, while the meat may have been good, the vegetables were crumbly and barely distinguishable from one another; rather like canned. I liked my mother's roasts, but I can tell you, her roasts never smelled like this! She always made gravy for my dad, but she was never good at it; thus, after the first try when I was probably just beginning to eat solid food, I eschewed her gravy. No one else ate it, either, that I can remember; except my dad. Whatever juice leaked out of the plated roast was enough for me. And, anyway, our family was not big on potatoes. If a starchy side dish seemed to be required, and it rarely was, it was white rice, usually Minute rice, for which I didn't care, either.
This meal, though, the one begin prepared as I write, is going to be completely different than our typical born-into-family roast dinners:

First, the pot roast isn't being pressure cooked. I've never used a pressure cooker and can't imagine every needing one.
I followed a recipe, as much as I am able (which means I made only a few adjustments) since I'd never made pot roast. This recipe appears to be a winner.
Although I have decided to cook the vegetables with the meat, which the recipe doesn't cover, I'm using my own technique to do this to keep the vegetables from turning into mush:
- The vegetables have been cut into large chunks and include: 1 russet potato, one and a half carrots, 2/3 of a green pepper, 1/2 a Bermuda onion, some left over Portabella mushroom slices.
- I'll add them as follows: Potatoes: one hour before the roast is done; carrots: 45 minutes before it's done; Onion: 1/2 hour before it's done; green pepper and mushrooms: 20 minutes before it's done.
I used bacon fat to brown the roast.
The simmering liquid includes a cookbook suggestion: After browning the roast, add approximately 2.5 cups of finely chopped (I used a food processor) onions, celery and carrots, to which I added 1/2 a finely chopped green chili, sizzle them in the fat until they "begin to color", then add beef broth (canned; I've got home made chicken and vegetable broth in the freezer, but not beef broth), a bay leaf and, the recipe suggested, fresh or dried thyme. Instead, I used a bouquet garni; 1/2 tsp per pound (the roast is almost four pounds, I used 1.5 teaspoons, knowing that dried spices are extremely concentrated and can sometimes be overwhelming). For body, I added 1/2 tsp. allspice. You can't really tell it's there, but when I don't use it the meat and juice aren't quite as rich. I also splashed some apple cider vinegar into the liquid; not a lot, maybe an eighth of a cup. Oops, hold on, time to turn the roast.
Although I salted (kosher salt) and peppered (four peppercorn blend) the roast before browning, salted it very lightly, since the canned beef broth and the bacon fat both contain salt.

    As per the recipe, I'm keeping the liquid on a low simmer, using a tight fitting lid. Our dutch oven's lid isn't particularly tight, so I wrapped aluminum foil around it to create a better seal. I just turned it for the third time (turn every 30 minutes) and it's beginning to yield nicely to the fork.
    It has always been a policy of mine, when cooking for my mother, to find the most aromatic way to do it. There's something about the flavor of favorite simmering foods that heightens alertness and enjoyment, I think. I also think that this is particularly important for Ancient Ones. Despite all the information that tells us that our Ancient Ones lose their senses of smell and, thus, taste, especially since my mother forgot that she used to smoke, although I noticed this before, as well, food fragrances remain, for her, not only enjoyable, but a reliable way to increase her moment-to-moment alertness and interest in life. Thus, I was both surprised and pleased to notice that in Dr. Thomas' book, What Are Old People For?, when describing Green Houses, he talks about the importance of communal kitchens, residents helping with the cooking and the production of tantalizing food aromas throughout the day. You get the idea that he is four-square against institutionalized food, even if it's handier. Access to all the delights of cooking should be available to all Ancient Ones, he believes. I believe I agree with him. I've noticed it's salutary effects over and over on my mother.
    As well, it is also my belief, and my experience, that trying new foods, playing with spices and surprising taste buds with strong, unusual flavors, far from being either wasted on our Ancient Ones or not appreciated by them, are, rather, part of the spice of life that shouldn't be deleted from anyone's life until the smell and taste of food makes them sick or turns them cold. To this, though, I have to add a caveat. During the times in the last four years when my mother was so ill she lost her appetite, she continued to appreciate kitchen produced fragrance. She may not have wanted to eat much, or anything, of what I cooked, but the aromas always brightened her up. If the fragrance was coming from a soup, or something creamy like More Than Mac & Cheese, it wasn't uncommon for me to be able to get a little down her gullet.
    I don't know why we underplay the importance of food in our lives, especially considering that food is fraught with all kinds of emotional connotations, over which we have little to no control, considering that most of them were formed when we were too young to remember and encouraged when we were too young to object. I think that it is especially tricky to consider food of no more importance than simply sustenance when we take care of Ancient Ones. While it's true that dementia may make it seem to appear that our Ancient Ones have very little, and corrupted interest in food, make them a part of a holiday family feast and you might be surprised at the lively consequences.

Thanksgiving dinner, this year...

2006-11-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

...will be less than traditional, thanks to my mother's and my nonchalance over turkey and my decision to remain "Home for the Holidays" (good movie, by the way). Here's the menu:

Pot roast with a spirit sauerbraten accomplished by adding some apple cider vinegar to the roasting liquid. This is one of my yesterday inspirations that sounds promising, don't you think? I don't think I'll go so far as to add sour cream when I thicken the roasting sauce, but, well, we'll see how it "feels" when the time comes.
I'll be adding a variety of vegetables, including russet potatoes, carrots, Bermuda onion, green pepper and celery, to the roast as it cooks, adding times dependent on how long it will take for the vegetables to soften a bit but not fall apart. I considered cabbage but my mother nixed this. She likes sauerkraut, she says (she actually loves it), but "not with her pot roast, please."
The recipe I have recommends flavoring the liquid with, among other things, finely diced onions, carrots and celery. On a whim as I shopped for dinner, yesterday, in the produce department, I purchased a large, dark green chili and will add this, as well; maybe forget about the carrot, then again...green chilies aren't hot, but they have a taste tone that should perfectly compliment the roasting liquid. As well, I will be browning the roast, pre-simmering, in bacon fat left over from breakfast.
The roasting liquid will be thickened into a tangy gravy.
Although I considered baking a pie from scratch, this year my mother suggested cherry pie. I'm not interested in using canned cherries, so I bought a frozen pie with which we've had mother-success, Marie Callendar's Dutch Crumb Cherry Pie. I also asked her what sort of a la mode she wants and she replied, "Ice cream, of course!" So, I picked up a choice at Baskin Robbins (her favorite): A pint each of Rum Raisin and Eggnog. She'll probably opt for "a taste" of both.
I still have some rosemary bread left from last week. I figure, if she wants bread, I'll grill some garlic/cheese bread out of that.

    Considering the size of the roast (it's the smallest one I could find of it's quality), I'm expecting roasting time to be between three to four hours. Pot roast "works" best when you turn it frequently, as well; every 30 minutes or so. Prep time will probably take about an hour. Since I won't be using the oven, I'll slip the cherry pie in there about halfway through dinner so it will have time to bake and cool to an acceptable, ice-cream-half-melt temperature.
    My mother is very excited by the menu and even more excited about how fragrant our house will smell while the pot roast is sauerly simmering away. My guess is that we'll probably eat only two meals tomorrow, since dessert will probably be preferentially served an hour or two after dinner, so I'll make sure that breakfast is hardy.
    I might take stats in the morning...then again, I might forget about stats for the day. At any rate, if this meal doesn't raise her HA1c a little, I can't imagine what would!

We don't have enough teaspoons.

2006-07-05T13:55:00.002-07:00

    You know what I mean, the dinner table type, the kind with which you stir your hot beverage. We always go through our entire ration everyday. On days when I'm baking or laboring a bit more intensely than usual over the stove, we simply don't have enough. I use teaspoons for measuring "little bits of things", as I did the mace in the Cherry Almond Scone recipe I just baked. When I'm making things like tuna fish, deviled eggs, lots of times when I'm cooking a dinner entre, I use, say, "two heaping teaspoons (of the dinner table variety) mayonnaise", or "three heaping teaspoons dill pickle relish, the extra brine of which should be sopped up on a paper towel or another convenience or your tuna mixture will be too salty".
    Today, for the scones, although I couldn't fit either spoon into the spice jar, I could get more of the dinner table teaspoon in the jar, thus, I was able to get 'exactly' the amount of mace I thought I'd need, a heaping three quarters of a conventional cooking teaspoon. As well, I was daydreaming about how the scones would taste with teaspoons-of-the-dinner-table-variety-full of lemon curd. The reverie was disturbed by the realization that if I wanted to have enough teaspoons left for Mom's inevitable evening coffees, we should use a knife with the curd.
    Today is definitely a cooking/baking day. It's also a soupy day. We'll probably polish off the latest of my HoneyBaked Ham and bean soup today, with scones, again, after having them for breakfast. The scones are out of the oven. They've already odorized the air and opened Mom's eyes. I checked on her just a few minutes ago...she's not interested in arising yet. I'll let her go as late as 1500 today, if she wants, and lay easy on the stats. That should ease her through what I imagine she's expecting to be a low-down day. It's already rained; she knows this. It's the rain that's keeping her in bed, even though the scones smell delicious, wrapped in the baking towels, sitting on the cooling rack on the oven. They are probably, right now, at the peak of their ripe-eating heat.
    Oh, yes. The recipe. It's a modification of a Joy of Cooking recipe, to which I was going to link you for comparison but the official site doesn't have this recipe. I plugged the recipe name, Classic Current Scones, into Google and, in fact, the recipe is known out there but mainly as a basis for modifications. Apparently it is a classic recipe. Well, here's my take on it:*  *  *  *  *Cherry Almond Scones Recipe

Dry Ingredients:
1½ cups High Altitude Hungarian Unbleached Flour
½ cup High Altitude Hungarian Whole Wheat Flour

I always try to get a little whole wheat flour in, if I can. Rye and graham flours make superb shake-it-and-brown-it flours and, late, the residue makes up into a rich gravy. I usually use the seasoned drenching flour for making gravy later.

⅓ cup white granulated sugar
2¼ tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt

Other Dry Ingredients:
½ cup dried tart cherries
½ cup Mariani dried cherries
¾ cup freshly toasted (in a medium skillet, tossing and shoving them around a lot until you begin to smell them and they begin to brown; maybe about 5 minutes) sliced almonds
¾ tsp rounded tsp mace

Dry Ingredients Preparation:
    Whisk together Dry Ingredients and mace. Drop in and dredge fruit and nuts.

Wet Ingredients:
6 tbl cold, unsalted butter, cut into chunks
1 jumbo egg
½ cup heavy cream
¾ generous tsp almond flavoring

Inclusion Preparation:
    Cut butter chunks into dry ingredients/fruit/nut mixture until the flour part is partly the size of peas and partly the size of bread crumbs.
    Add egg, cream and flavoring. Mix together with spatula until all ingredients are moistened and hold together in the bowl. Knead in the bowl a little to cohere all ingredients and create a lump of moist dough.
    Separate dough into two equal parts. Roll each part into a circle then flatten on a lightly floured surface to a height of about ¾" and a diameter of about 6". Do the same to the other piece of dough. Slice through the dough circle with a butter knife, creating parts of the circle, so that when the scones are baked they'll present themselves in perfect little pieces.
    Before baking, I followed the suggestion to brush the tops with heavy cream and lightly sprinkle granulated sugar over the unbaked scones. I've never done that, before. Should be interesting.
    Place dough circles on ungreased cookie sheet.
    Bake in preheated 425° oven for 12-15 minutes until raised and golden brown.
    They baked for 15 minutes. If I'd left them in any longer they'd begin to show burn. In part because I wasn't sure I used enough baking powder (they didn't seem to rise enough" and in part because I may have detected a little bit of unbaked dough ooze in the serrations, I immediately wrapped the scones in baking towels and placed them on a cooling rack on the stove above the cooling oven.
*  *  *  *  *    We haven't yet tried the scones. In fact, it's getting pretty close to 1500, I'd probably better awaken her, get the bacon started, and tempt her to breakfast with the promise of warm Cherry Almond Scones.
    With or without lemon curd.
    I'll report back on how they turned out...
    ...later.
    The following posted at 1826: Well, they tasted very good but were a little dry. They were fully baked but didn't rise enough and I'm sure the reason is not enough liquid. This is one of the primary problems of baking at high altitudes. Flour, out of the bag, is quite a bit dryer in higher altitudes, which is one of the reasons I use high altitude flour, which sometimes helps and sometimes doesn't. I was rather sure there was enough humidity in the air and had been for long enough that I wouldn't need much extra liquid...so, I confined extra liquid to the almond flavoring. I probably should have used two extra large eggs rather than one jumbo egg. They turned out good, though. My mother didn't notice the dryness because of all the butter she put on hers. She liked them well enough, too.
    Their flavor, by the way, is mild almond. I prefer a stronger almond flavor but my mother actually doesn't like almond flavoring, at all, unless it's just from the nuts, so my comprise worked well. The mace wasn't detectable except for a heightened fruity flavor to the bread part.
    I'll be making these again, soon, with a different, really exotic spice; probably in the next few days, as I'll be receiving the spice tomorrow. At that time I'll increase the liquid. I'm sure it's the liquid. It couldn't be the baking powder, which was fine a couple of weeks ago when I made the spice cake. Baking powder doesn't go that bad overnight!

Don't Ever Give Up...

2006-06-12T19:06:00.002-07:00

...on my intentions, even if I lapse for more than a year. Truth is, every time we eat, which is, of course, every day, I think, You know, I should mention something about this in the food portion of my journals. Not necessarily recipes, although those, too; more often, odd facts and observations about my mother's food preferences and persnicketiness as she ages. The actual caring, though, trumps the writing of it and I usually have more than I can handle trying to report as much as possible in the two main journals: Mom & Me Too and The Dailies. If I manage anything more in the way of writing, it's usually the occasional sally over to The Essays.
    Yesterday, though, I devised something so spectacular I had to make an effort to record it here. One of Mom's favorite foods is shrimp. One of her favorite ways of eating shrimp is cocktail style, slathered with sauce. She so loves it that I've often wondered if the shrimp is merely an excuse for the cocktail sauce.
    Almost all cocktail sauces are loaded with sugar in several forms. This, of course, is probably one of the reasons Mom loves cocktail sauce. While they usually don't taste sweet to her (although they do to me), the sugar renders them hearty and flavorful. When she was younger and not diabetic it was not unusual for her to switch back and forth indescriminately between ketchup (probably her favorite food/condiment of all time) and cocktail sauce. Now-a-days we don't eat shrimp very much in any form because, well, from Mom's point of view, shrimp isn't shrimp unless it's drowning in sauce.
    I like shrimp cocktail, too. My preference is to have it as a meal. So is Mom's. I happened to notice some gorgeous shrimp at the grocery last Saturday. Since I was shopping well between meals I couldn't help but salivate. I didn't automatically add the shrimp to my cart, though...I could just imagine what sort of a sugar fest my mother's blood would have if I decided to serve shrimp cocktail for dinner. I steered away toward the location of the items on my list.
    My taste buds, though, wouldn't let up. They continued to remind me of those beautiful fresh shrimp on ice. Okay, I decided, if, while roaming the market, I could come up with an idea for a cocktail sauce I thought my mother would like without all that sugar, I'd buy the ingredients and the shrimp and we'd have a shrimp cocktail dinner on Sunday.
    I was successful. It took some innovation but I'm at my best when trying to figure out how to fix food according to a strict set of taste and nutritional values. The following sauce was so good my mother asked for more, after she finished her shrimp, to use as a dressing for the bed of greens upon which the shrimp had sat:*  *  *  *  *Spectacular Seafood Sauce

Ingredients:
4 4oz cans diced, fire roasted mild green chilies
1 Tbl Huy Fong's Chili Garlic Sauce
1 tsp regular powdered mustard
3 Tbl basil, garlic & oregano tomato paste
2 tsp pure prepared horseradish (NOT horseradish sauce; Morehouse is a reliable brand)
juice of one medium lemon
2 tsp kosher salt
Preparation:
Dump everything in a blender (or food processor) and run the appliance until everything is well blended. At this point it's consistency will be that of bottled cocktail sauce and the color will be that of bean dip.
Let the flavors peak for a couple of hours and serve it at room temperature.*  *  *  *  *    Caution. Although my mother and I consider this sauce mildly spicy, it's got a good bite. The normal tongue might consider it in the lower register of "hot". If I'd made it for myself I'd've added maybe two more tablespoons of the Chili Garlic Sauce (which I eat as salsa with chips), which most people would consider quite hot.
    Most people would probably want to add another teaspoon, maybe even two, of salt. My mother and I aren't salt snobs, we've been known to indulge in all kinds of salty snacks and foods. As well, there's no medical reason for me to restrict my mother's salt. For the most part, though, in food preparation, salt tends to get in our way. Most restaurant food and prepared food, for instance, is too salty for either Mom, or me or both of us. Thus, this sauce is not terribly salty in the above incarnation.
    The main flavor is a strong undercurrent of chilies, so if you don't like chilies you won't like this sauce. The tomato paste is undetectable, except for the bean dip color and a bottom sweet note that compliments all the other flavors. The horseradish, mustard, chilies and chili sauce combine to the place where you can't definitely detect any of them but what comes through is a smoky, spicy sauce that draws seafood into a robust dance on your tongue. While I was making it, refining the amount of ingredients, my mother and I taste-tested it by dipping plain tortilla chips into the mixture. It makes a fine salsa, as well.
    My previous experiments with turning prepared salsa into seafood sauce inform me that the above sauce would work equally well by using your favorite prepared salsa in place of the diced chilies and tomato paste. Most salsas have a lot of salt so, if you decide to do this you might want to eliminate added salt. If your favorite salsa doesn't contain sugar (most of them don't; the main sugar offending salsa company is La Victoria), this substitution would still make for a splendid diabetic friendly seafood sauce. If you're using salsa, you might want to substitute the juice of a lime for that of a lemon.
    Dinner, being delicious but a bit on the light side, was immediately followed by dessert, which I mention because, although it's not my recipe, being unable to ever follow a recipe exactly, I engineered a few substitutions and additions that rendered this dessert even more luscious:*  *  *  *  *Quick and Easy Spice Cake

Changes:
I discovered I was out of brown sugar, so I substituted white sugar
I didn't have pumpkin pie spice so I read the back of an empty pumpkin pie spice bottle and substituted (mind you, these measurements are approximate; in all cases, the amounts were "rounded"):
   1 tsp Cassia cinnamon
   1/4 tsp mace
   1/4 tsp freshly ground nutmeg
   1/4 tsp allspice
   1/4 tsp ground cloves
   1/4 tsp freshly ground ginger
   A couple handfuls of dried sweet cherries
    The cake turned out a bit dry, which is typical of high altitude baking, even though I'd splashed maybe an 8th of a cup more of buttermilk into the batter. I decided to sprinkle it, right out of the oven, with a dark, dark Cruzan rum we've got just for cooking, double wrap it in foil and let it smolder and moisten until dessert time. The ready, willing and able cake was delicious; it tasted like a "quick and easy" incarnation of my version of my mother's famous fruitcake.
    The only mistake I made with the cake is that I got the "bright" idea of flavoring the whipped cream (after sweetening it with powdered sugar) with a teaspoon of the rum instead of the vanilla. My mother liked it, but the alcohol overture was a little too strong for me.*  *  *  *  *    So, as it turned out, my mother got her beloved sugar, anyway, despite the seafood sauce. Which is fine. If I'm going to feed my mother sugar, I'd rather have it standing right out there naked, in the open, than hiding away in something that avoids the dessert category.

    Although I'm making no promises, I'm going to try to get over here more often. There are lots of recipes I've promised over at the main journal that have never been entered here. As well, I'm always thinking about food in connection with my mother's age and am convinced this is an important aspect of living with and caring for An Ancient One, just as it is for everyone else. So, readers, my intentions remain intact. Let's see if I can jump start the action with this particular entry.

Today's been a strange food day.

2005-03-31T00:47:00.001-07:00

    I decided to mention it because I think it had something to do with finally prying the shit loose inside her and sending it on its way, although I have only a vague idea as to why she might have backed up.
    The Bowel Back-up, which lasted four days, may have had something to do with the fact that she ate 11 dried blueberry & mixed berry muffins, while they were from-the-oven warm, within a half hour period early Sunday afternoon, March 27th. I baked just under two dozen muffins for the company we'd just learned we'd be expecting on Monday. I'd taken the last tin of muffins from the oven, placed them evenly on the cooling rack with the contents of the first tin and had gone in to shower, thinking nothing of leaving the muffins out as Mom was in the living room in her rocking chair underneath the dryer. When I returned from showering about 20 minutes later, Mom was lounging over the kitchen counter next to a stack of empty muffin cups stuffing what looked like yet another muffin into her mouth. I counted her waste. 11 cups. Wow.
    "These are sure good muffins, you're a good cook, Gail," was all she had to say.
    To be fair, the muffins weren't those monstrosities popular at delis and coffee houses. They weren't even the jumbo-slightly-less-than-monstrous ones sold in the "gourmet" section of chain groceries, now. Just plain, old, elementary-school-birthday-cupcake-size muffins. And, they were awfully good.
    On the other side, though, she downed the eleven muffins about an hour and a half after breakfast.
    That's a lot of wheat and fiber for one system to efficiently process.
    And, then, lately, she's been noticing advertising on television and decidings she wants to try certain fast food meals. Last week, I think, or maybe a couple of weeks ago it was someone's Sicilian Meat pizza. Tonight it was Arby's Bacon Cheddar Melt and their Limited Promotion: A Peanut Butter Chocolate Shakes with bits of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups in them. A sort of a thin Blizzard. Anyway, lately her diet has been better than superb (expect for those muffins), so I thought, it couldn't hurt. Well, I continue to forget that chocolate in any quantity, now, will loosen her bowels even if there's nothing up there to loosen them. I think that's what caused the final shoot out this evening. Anyway, I think we're safe for a couple of days.
    Planning food, caring for people through the food one cooks, isn't as easy as it looks. There are times when I might, for instance, make sure she gets some chocolate because she's backed up. That's, however, if I know we have no outings planned. There are other times, like today, when I see, ahead, that vegetables are going to lag in meal planning so I get V-8 juice in early and even try to tempt her to drink two cans of it, which isn't too hard; she likes V-8 juice.
    Following are some of the other cooking concerns that flicker through my mind as I plan my mother's food intake (not just meals but snacks, what she might reach for in the refrigerator if she ends up in front of the refrigerator unmonitored):

I always use a combination of whole wheat and white flour, now, regardless of what I'm baking. I often add wheat germ and other grains, like oats or a multi-grain concoction sold, as well, by Quaker.
Because of my mother's anemia, I am careful to keep her meat/dairy/poultry consumption up. There are some green vegetables and dense fruits that deliver iron but, when push comes to shove, nothing delivers more iron of the easiest type to digest than red meat.
On days when her thirst isn't operating up to par, I monitor the liquids she takes in her food as well as pushing drinks. For instance; cottage cheese, yoghurt, if we have lots of vegetables (which are primarily water), etc.
When her sweet tooth is screaming I try to combine both lusciousness and judiciousness. For instance: I know better than to load her down with chocolate, anymore; sometimes she just needs the taste of sweet and a cup of artificially sweetened yoghurt or a couple pieces of sugar free candy will do the trick; sometimes, a can of mandarin orange slices in light syrup takes care of craving for cake or a pie; when all else fails and sugar just isn't a good idea, some sort of pickle will usually stop the craving...for awhile.
I also keep in mind, throughout any one day, approximately how much dairy calcium she's getting versus how much sunshine. She can get plenty of sunshine in here, winter or summer, but I have to make sure she is in its way.
I don't worry, with my mother, too much about cholesterol, how many eggs she's getting, what kinds of fats she's getting, etc. She fits the profile of someone who's always had fairly high cholesterol and no heart disease. I keep an eye one it, when it's taken, but she receives no medication or special dietary precautions for it, regardless of the reading.
I am, as well, very well versed in her likes and dislikes, how her tastes change and why, what loss of appetite might mean and when it's a good idea to medicate for nausea, etc.

I'm lucky, overall, from a dietary standpoint in my mother's life, that I love to cook, enjoy presenting interesting meals and my mother has an adventurous palate. I never would have thought that I'd ever seduce her to eat vegetables in the amounts she does, now, nor that she would look forward to and request our Cobb salad dinners. I never would have thought that she'd give up chocolate candy and other sweets on her own. But both of these things happened, with almost no pressure from anyone, me or the medical profession. Of course, I purposely set a tantalizing example: In our first years together I cooked separate meals, breakfasts, lunches and dinners, for her and me. Mine was always the one with the vegetables. I know how to use color to enhance flavor, I know how to season and steam, I know how to mix meat and vegetables and seasonings, and, little by little she began to opt for my dinners, telling me she was doing this only to "make it easier on" me. At that point, I began to work compromises into our meals: I'd, for instance, make macaroni and cheese but add meat, onion, celery and green pepper, plus extra cheese. At first she'd pick out the vegetables...then, I chopped them smaller and it was too much of a hassle. She used to eat cans of beans. Cold. I started saving bits of ham to spice up the beans, saute onions and celery and peppers, maybe add some tomatoes if I have some, etc. Heat it up an make it into a meal. She used to live on sandwiches, which, when she began to loose her interest in the kitchen, I continued to make for her at her request: Full of meat and Sandwich Spread (Kraft, usually) and/or Miracle Whip and/or butter and some kind of cheese and probably some pickles or pickle relish...whatever she wanted. Then, I'd eat my Italian Stir-fry with chicken and loads of vegetables while she ate her sandwich and she'd wonder out loud about what I was eating and it sure smelled good and could she try just a piece of the chicken or maybe a piece of onion...and now she and I eat almost exactly the same thing.
So, anyway, I think I'm going to start writing about our meals here rather than at the Mom's Daily Tests & Meds site. That'll help distribute some of the space usage around and I will be inclined to write here more often and remain thoughtful about food and my Ancient One.

Even the Comfortable Need Comfort

2005-02-03T22:04:00.001-07:00

    Every family, I guess, has a macaroni and cheese recipe, just like every family has a specialty potato salad and specialty dessert recipe. These are the recipes that usually end up at buffets. My family's mac & cheese never went to a buffet. It was a meal, not a side dish, and the only one who made it was Mom, so it was served only when Mom cooked and always hailed. It was straighforward: boiled and drained macaroni, cups of grated yellow cheddar (usually longhorn, on the aged side), browned hamburger, mixed together in the Revereware round aluminum pan that Mom and I still have and use, slathered with ketchup and more cheese and baked in a medium-hot oven for about a half hour. That's not something you want to take to a buffet.
    It also wasn't strictly a Comfort Food dish in our household, since we had it maybe once a month, never on a Sunday, which is the only pretty regular day Mom cooked.
    I use adapted versions of a lot of recipes we ate regularly a in my growing-up home, although there are many I loved and never make, like my mother's Universally Famous Chicken Mexicali (yes, I did get her to tell me how to make it, and I've got it on the other computer). The mac & cheese one, though, was inevitable in some version. It's one of those meals containing something Mom will eat some of when she doesn't want to eat. It's also excellent for raising sodium, and a good source of iron. I've completely readapted the recipe to gather in lots of flavor but get rid of the ketchup, which is loaded with sugar. This is one of Mom's, "Mmmm, we should have this more often," dinners.*  *  *  *  *More than Mac & Cheese
Ingredients:
1 7.25 oz box of Kraft "The Cheesiest" Macaroni & Cheese Dinner
8 oz very lean ground beef
6 oz very lean pork sausage
¾ cup chopped yellow onion
¾ cup chopped celery with leaves
½ cup chopped green pepper
1 clove garlic, sliced very thin
1 loosely packed cup grated Vermont White Cheddar
1 Tbl margarine
2 - 3 splashes of Half & Half or whatever milk you use
1½ tsp Old Bay Seasoning
Preparation:
    While boiling water for macaroni, brown ground beef and sausage over medium high heat. Although lean, the meat will produce enough oil in which to saute the chopped vegetables, throwing them in with the meat when you detect only a few pink spots. Lightly saute vegetables and garlic until they are bright, crisp, not yet transluscent. Turn off burner. Continue to stir mixture while sprinkling Old Bay Seasoning over it. Allow to cool while...
    ...boiling and draining macaroni according to package directions. When boiled, drained macaroni has been dumped back in it's cooking pan, add seasoning packet from package, milk, margarine and grated cheese. Stir melted and creamy. Add meat & vegetable mixture. Stir well.
    Serve.*  *  *  *  *    I served Mom less tonight than I usually do. She ate all she was served and was satisfied. She arose late today, lagged around, wasn't really even interested in TV, took a long nap, hung out this evening...her urine remains cloudy. I have enough pills to double up on the dosage for the next three days. I think I'll do that. That means I'll have to think of meals to tempt her to stay up long enough not to clash antibiotics with iron. Maybe we'll do a Cobb salad and garlic bread tomorrow...

Again, tonight, she didn't finish her meal, although she ate a good deal...

2005-01-31T22:16:00.002-07:00

...about ¾'s of what she was served. I don't think, this time, it's illness affecting her appetite. I think her body is refusing carbs, especially grain types. So, for a few days, we'll have meals that don't include a lot of refined carbs. Potatoes, for instance, are okay, so potato soup would be good...but nothing with pasta. Cobb salad would be good. Maybe we'll have that tomorrow night. Hers will be on the small side, and if she eats it all we'll be doing good.
    You may think my 'meal planning' is pretty random, but it's not. It has been helpful for me to record the nutritional contents of my mother's days. I can look backward and forward as I plan what she will be eating from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour...what her body will need, what it won't need. I keep a little bit of something handy in our cupboards for every contingency, including nausea (the metaclopramide certainly helps), as her appetite and her nutritional needs, especially minerals, can change on a dime.
    It helps to have a lot of experience with semi-convenience foods: I.e., using something like Classico Tomato & Basil as a base for a marinara; using Schilling's Brown Gravy Mix as a base for stews and thick soups.
    Just a few days ago I figured out how to thicken and "potato up" a delicious but creamy to a fault potato salad. To 2¾ cups of potato salad I mixed in 3 Tbl mashed potato flakes. These particular flakes happened to be flavored with "garlic and herb". I let that gel in the refrigerator overnight, added some dill relish and lots of minced onion and we were set.
    In case you're wondering about the funny colored phrases that pop up every once in awhile, those are targets from the Table of Contents for Recipes over to the right at the bottom of the floating menu.
    It looks as though some of my writing about Mom's appetite will be transferred over here, as I think of it. I'll mention it over at Mom & Me Too, but keep this in mind.
    I like the idea of sectioning of various aspects of my mother's and my life together. It helps me think more clearly about these aspects in detail, thus it's easier for me to regrasp the bigger picture when necessary. I hope this is the last apologia I write, for awhile.

The companies mentioned in this and all my journals...

2005-01-31T17:13:00.000-07:00

...are not paying for advertising space in my journal. They probably don't know I've linked to them. If you click on company links, you will not be somehow registered, with any esteem, as having come from my site. So feel free to click away.

This cornbread...

2005-01-31T15:44:00.002-07:00

...makes an excellent base for lots of stewy southwestern flavored dishes like chili, bean and ham soup, mmm, like we had last night. If you noticed my mention of her meal at Mom's Daily Tests and Meds, yesterday, you'll remember that I served the Easy Bean & Ham Soup over a slice of cornbread. The following recipe is the cornbread:* * * * *Southwest Corn Corn Bread
Ingredients:

¾ cup white or whole wheat baking flour
1¼ cups yellow or white corn meal
1¾ tsps baking powder
scant ½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 - 2 Tbl Southwestern Fire spice mix
one fresh medium green chili, washed, sliced, chopped, seeds and membranes removed if you want to cut hotness

1⅓ cups buttermilk
2 large eggs

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 400°.
Grease 8 or 9 inch round or square baking pan
Whisk together all dry ingredients
Pour all liquids into the crater
mix together all ingredients until just moistened
Pour batter into greased baking pan
Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until golden brown and a toothpick inserted into center comes out clean.

Variations on Recipe:

If you want the green chilis even less hot than leaving out the membranes and seeds, soaked the chopped green chili in water for an hour or so. Mind you, you'll end up with green chili's that taste like green peppers, in which case, may as well spend less on green peppers and use them in the corn bread.
I have used masa harina, a silky corn flour popular in Mexican cooking, particularly in tortillas and tamales, instead of wheat flour. Using this increases the corn over-flavor, which I like but my mother does not.
Sometimes I'll include maybe ¾ cup grated cheese, usually a sharp, strong cheddar. This time I did not because I knew I would be using the cornbread and ground cover for beany recipes; chili, ham and bean soup and such.
This recipe has been adapted to be used at 6,000' altitude. If you are baking at lower elevations, increase baking powder to 2 tsps; the baking soda to full, not scant measure; reduce buttermilk to 1¼ or even 1⅛ cups.
An excellent way to serve a piece of this is to cover it with shredded cheese, sprinkle some kind of southwestern seasoning over it and grill it until the cheese is bubble-melting. Makes a great late evening snack with cocoa.

* * * * * So, I'm going to be going in and out of here, today, modifying how I present recipes, maybe hooking up a Table of Contents over on the right.

The Raspberry-Maple Sauce. Yes.

2005-01-30T19:31:00.001-07:00

    It's not that it's delectable, although it is. Maple syrup, as it turns out, is the perfect sweetener for raspberries. No lemon juice needed or wanted, in fact.
    I'm not sure how this recipe occurred. I know I've made sauces by recipe, before. I guess it started by just looking at all these raspberries and thinking, hmmm...why not maple syrup instead of sugar? And happening to have in a lower cupboard a bottle of Chambord.
    I made a similar seat-of-the-pants-in-the-blueberry-patch sauce a couple of years ago, without the benefit of blueberry liqueur (if there is such a thing, although I'm sure there is). Blueberries are significantly higher in pectin, so I was very sparing with the cornstarch milk. And, I used granulated sugar, about half of what is typically called for.
    Anyway, to the recipe; I used frozen raspberries lightly packed in sugar, a 12 oz bag, which is why the directions were written down in the first place:*  *  *  *  *Raspberry-Maple Sauce
Ingredients:
1 12 oz bag frozen raspberries pack in light sugar, thawed but cold
1/3 cup maple syrup
1/4 cup Chambord or other appropriate liqueur
2 Tbl cold or ice water
3 tsp cornstarch
Preparation:
    Combine the cornstarch and water, which will infuse into a milk. Set aside. You will probably want to remix it before pouring into the fruit concoction below.
    Dump the raspberries in a saucepan. Dump in the maple syrup and liqueur. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently with a whisk to break up most of the raspberries, until the fruit softens and the mixture turns into a paste; a slow simmer is fine.
    Quickly remix and stir the cornstarch milk into the raspberry sauce. The sauce will thicken as it cooks.
    Cook to desired thickness and warmth.
    The sauce will lose a little of it's thickness during refrigerator or freezer storage, but only barely noticeable. It will also thicken a bit less when reheated, so reheat carefully. Its flavor is much sharpened (to my mind, improved) through storage.*  *  *  *  *    I used this, two batches, in fact, over the Costco allegedly pumpkin cheesecake. It was superb, tangy, highlighting the tang of the cake. We've had it over Baskin Robbins French Vanilla Ice Cream, as well.

    The point of this particular recipe, though, is to meditate on how my mother's tastes have changed since I came to live with her, and why. It would have never occurred to her on her own, for instance, to consider making raspberry sauce, let alone eating it on something, let alone on cheesecake. My mother has always been a "Head 'em up, get 'em fed, with as little muss and fuss as possible" type of cooking Mom. So, convenience was in, rote was in, taste was more or less out, unless it came from one of us daughters' interest in food preparation, or my father, who was very interested in spices.
    Her miserable short term memory ushered in the first change in her eating habits, at least a few years after I came to live with her. She began to forget that she didn't like vegetables. It was a subtle process. I've always been attracted to garden produce, it's so seductive and generally tastes marvelous. But, I completely understand my mother's disdain of vegetables. Although she was raised on a farm, vegetables were seasonal, very rare and best put up and stored against winter. The problem is, everything tasted like the brine or, well, frozen or canned vegetables. I don't know about you but I can't stand canned peas. I can handle pea soup and salivate over frozen or fresh peas, very lightly steamed or uncooked, but don't expect me to like vegetables if they include the likes of canned peas! Some of the others, carrots, for instance, beets and sauerkraut, sometimes green beans, aren't too bad canned. At least they have distinctive preservative flavors. I didn't discover vegetables until I left home and was in The States. I shouldn't be surprised that my mother never wandered through Produce when it had never been worth it.
    When I took on cooking for myself, since I didn't want to eat what she prepared for herself and she didn't want to eat what I prepared for myself, it was hard for her not to notice that my meals actually looked like meals (rather than sandwiches), usually took the same amount of time to prepare and were full of aroma and color. Clearly more interesting than some kind of refrigerated, processed food between two pieces of white bread; with Kraft (had to be Kraft) Sandwich Spread.
    Often, while she was making yet another sandwich or downing a bag of Hershey's Almond Kisses, I was eating a soup loaded with vegetables and added meat, sometimes with 'egg flower'. Or, I'd quickly steam a whole mess of vegetables while nuking a chicken breast, throw both together, season with Italian or Greek dressing and eat, maybe over rice of noodles, maybe not. Or, I'd fry up a small amount of bulk sausage, chop up some broccoli, stir fry it with the sausage, make about a cup of brown gravy, add some ginger, garlic and a little sugar, pour it over the meat and broccoli and eat it plain over rice. Or noodles. Regardless of what I was eating, she'd eye it studiously while she stuffed her sandwich in her mouth. Finally, I'd ask, before she'd headed for the refrigerator, "I'm going to make thus and so for myself tonight, would you like some?" or, "...should I make that for two?" This is how we began.
    She gave up the sugar on her own. When the doctor continued to mention that, even with the heavy duty medication he'd chosen to control her diabetes, her blood sugar level wasn't low enough to keep her sugar haze from taking over, she began eschewing the candy aisle of her own accord. The cutting back on desserts began in the same way. In the way of a confirmed "cold turkey" quitter, she never finished her last bag of Hershey's Almond Kisses. She never finished her last piece of lemon meringue pie.
    Somewhere, between eating for energy (thus, eating sugar) and eating the way I eat, she managed to bring her diet around to probably one of the healthiest diets in our family. Although we don't "do" dessert often, now, when we do we don't often eat it the same day it's offered. Usually, my mother's appetite, now, when it is satisfied, no longer finds sugar interesting.
    Once I was cooking for both of us, I upped the spice stakes considerably because I knew, in order to get through to her nicotine numbed tongue, I'd need sharp, flavorful surprises. This is when I learned that her appetite can be seduced and controlled with aroma.
    Now, she considers a Cobb salad (with everything) a sinful delight, and eats every bit, even when she's not eating every bit of other meals. I have become so attuned to flavor and aroma, in fact, that I am going to haunt the Farmer's market downtown this coming season. I'm beginning to notice that even our local 'natural foods' store, which is a wonderful store, doesn't present the best of organic and local produce.
    I am inordinately proud of the way she's turned her eating habits around. Food, I think, is especially important as an adventure for those whose lives are winding down. I am pleased, in fact, that she does not recall, throughout her life, ever being particularly interested in food, eating it or knowing about it. Thus, she gets a real kick out of doing this now, when someone who enjoys cooking oversees her nutrition.
    My mother is a delight to cook for, too. She exclaims, "Oh, doesn't that look good!" with genuine delight at every plate I place before her. Since I am an honest cook and tell her what to look out for, if there should be any problems (like the marinara I burnt last week but which still tasted good, if unusually smoky), her feedback is always honest; but, her palate is easy to please.
    Up until about a year ago, she remembered "left overs" and remembered, from bad experiences of which I can only guess, that "left overs" are "no nos". During that period we stocked up on a lot of frozen entrees and dinners. She ate most of them. They were middling nutritious. During her severe bouts with anemia when her appetite was in hiding, these entrees saved her life and kept her electrolytes up. If she didn't feel like eating, she could always nibble at macaroni and cheese. During this period, too, we ate fast food or at neighborhood restaurants at least 3 times a week, not necessarily always dinner.
    Our eating habits rarely include fast food, anymore, or restaurant food. I can't remember the last time I bought a frozen entree. I threw away a 2 year old DiGorno personal pizza a couple of months ago when looking for freezer room. That was the last of the frozen entree era. Truthfully, I think Mom is getting to the place, again, where she can imagine "eating out", so I think that practice will revive, to which I say, good.
    She is, since her health has evened out and her appetite has returned, easily lured into eating well, again, and her body is handling it.
    The roast ham, for instance: When I mixed up the packaged maple-sugar glaze for the latter stages of roasting, I added 2 tsps. of plain old off-the-shelf curry powder to it. Delicious. Mom noticed, and approved of, the difference. "Coulda used 3 tsps," she suggested.
    Tonight, the bean and ham soup is a cheater's paradise, and full of good-good stuff. Essentially, simmering in a pot on the stove as I write is 8 oz roast ham, 1/3 yellow onion chopped, 1/2 green pepper chopped, 1 cup chopped celery with leaves, all sauteed in about a Tbl bacon grease with two large, minced cloves of garlic, and maybe a Tbl of MPBIL's Southwestern Fire seasoning, oh, with 3 15 oz cans of Ranch Style Beans.

    I cut and stored the rest of the ham, today, in the freezer. Realized, as well, another trip to Costco is necessary. We're down to one egg and could use another box of Large Depends.
    Anyway, I'm thinking, I should probably establish some sort of place to compile a floating Recipes Contents on the template of this journal for easy recipe access, in case you're interested.
    I don't, by the way, mean this to be a journal of how to feed an Ancient One. It is, though, a journal about how I feed my Ancient One and the dynamic place food has in our lives.
    We are, now, more than ever, naturally eating low carb with lots of meat and vegetables. High to very high in fiber and natural oil. This is good for us in so many ways, not the least of which is that it keeps her interest in food up. Nourishment means life, at any age, and pleasure anticipated is always a reason to cherish life, even and especially if the result is nourishment.

Home Made Buttermilk Ranch Dressing

2005-01-29T16:43:00.001-07:00

    I'm picky about the mix. I load up on Hidden Valley mix when it's on sale. I also hoard it. I'm, now, using packets I stowed back when the company also made a Thousand Island and an Italian Ranch dressing mix.
    I mix mine a bit differently, though. I'm not sure whether it's 'healthier', although I figured out the caloric content and it is "lighter", if that means something to you [My recipe = 35.6 calories/Tbl; Recipe on back of packet = 48.43 calories/Tbl] It doesn't to us. I made all my changes based on taste and an internal "ick" factor when it comes to using mayonnaise. Don't ask.
    You have to like sour to like this. Not lip puckering sour but sour. I have made this recipe with all sour cream, but that's just a bit too sour for me.
*  *  *  *  *My Homemade Ranch Dressing
Ingredients:
1 packet Hidden Valley Original Buttermilk Ranch seasoning
1/3 cup mayonnaise
2/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup buttermilk (more buttermilk for a thinner dressing)

Preparation:
Whisk together the mayonnaise and sour cream with the contents of the seasoning packet.
Add buttermilk, continuing to whisk ingredients until well mixed.
Pour into jar. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before using.
Yields: 24 oz.
*  *  *  *  *    Very easy little recipe. I buy a quart of buttermilk and we have usually gone through it before the "SELL BY" date. Needless to say, I also buy mayonnaise and buttermilk in bulk.
    I'm not sure if it's any cheaper than store bought dressing. It has significantly less sugar, which is something for which I always appreciate. Since it is this dressing often makes the difference between my mother eating vegetables or not, we use it liberally.
    My habit of liberally adding vegetables to whatever simmered concoction I'm making: Mac & Cheese; marinara; any soups, any stews, the Strogansauer I make; as well as making lots of stir fries, etc., has not changed since I began doing the cooking. What's changed is, first, that she deigns to eat these high fiber concoctions and, second, that she no longer fastidiously picks out the vegetables and consigns them to the disposal. She even gets excited about vegetables. She is super sensitive to and appreciative of the smell of onions and garlic sauteeing, so I try to accomplish this as often as possible.

    Something I want to make clear. This isn't primarily a food column for those caring for an Ancient One. It is, primarily, a meditation about food as it comes to bear on my life, the life of my Ancient one, and our life together. I like sharing recipes so I know I'll be doing this, especially within the next few days. But, expect, more often, that I'll be musing about food. I am of the experiential opinion that food, its selection and preparation, goes a long way toward enlivening the spirit and prodding one to alertness. Appetite is also the first to go when something goes wrong.
    I remember mentioning in my main journal that this weekend might lend itself to lots of cooking. So far, this hasn't been true, but the sudden drop in temperature has given me a handy place to store the ham before dividing it up for freezing: The front porch. Ahh, rural life.

I'm still getting the hang of switching over to this journal...

2004-09-18T23:09:00.000-07:00

...when I write about food. Several times since I began this I've found myself writing about Mom & Me & Food in other places and thought, "Okay, I'm going to have to remember, next time, to write stuff like this in the other journal." Tonight, the same thing happened; I began writing somewhere else about food, then stopped, cut what I'd just written and hauled it over here.
    Mom came home from Costco with a sweet thing, today; an orange cranberry something-er-other, looks kind of like a very rich pound cake with shiny dried cranberries and pieces of orange on the top, really delicious looking. I okayed that purchase (I don't always okay the sweet things, in fact, I rarely okay them). When we arrived home I placed it on a high shelf in the laundry closet, a shelf so high that I have to stand on a chair to reach it. However, because her stats looked so good, tonight, before dinner, and she'd had an exercise session, when we finished eating I asked her if she was ready for dessert.
    "No," she said, "not tonight. I just don't feel like something sweet."
    I mentioned it, later, too, but she still wasn't interested. Many times now, I've noticed, it isn't the eating of the sweet that's important to her, it's the buying of it, the knowing, I think, that if she had a craving that simply wouldn't let up, she has the personal freedom to purchase something sweet and eat it. This is why I continue, on occasion, to either let her buy something sweet or I select something that I know she loves and surprise her with it.
    The four year evolution of her craving for sweets into a controlled interest has had nothing to do with me, nor with doctors. In fact, when her treatment for diabetes began her PCP gave her a choice regarding whether to be treated, mainly because the evidence suggested that even if left untreated, she would not live long enough to suffer the ravages of the disease, nor die from its complications. She opted for medicated treatment and was clear that if it could be controlled with medication, fine, but she wasn't planning on controlling it with diet. I respected her wishes.
    I honestly don't know why she started eschewing, first, her daily bag of Hershey's Almond Chocolates, then her weekly syrup coated, carb loaded amalgam (usually in the form of a cake or pie or brownies) of sugar, then, finally, her taste for high fructose condiments. During this cut-back period she and I would regularly go shopping together, she pushing the basket and helping to fill it with the stuff she liked, me filling it with the stuff she and I both ate. I truly had nothing to do with her beginning to pass through the candy aisle without divesting the shelves of bags of candy; passing through the snack aisle without throwing exotic bags of chips in our cart; passing through the frozen food section without selecting a flavor of ice cream; walking through the bread department without inhaling all the sweet rolls out of their cabinets.
    For six years prior to and a year and a half after her being diagnosed as diabetic and deciding to opt for drug treatment, she and I lived together, ate together, but ate completely different foods. I regularly prepared two meals for lunch and dinner (we essentially have always eaten the same breakfast), and continued to do so up until around 2001, when I noticed that she was eating more like me and allowing an occasional vegetable to corrupt her plate. Thus, I began preparing the same meal for both of us, just leaving most of the vegetables that I ate off her plate. Often, at that time, what I prepared would end up, on her plate, between two slices of white bread, one slathered with sandwich spread, the other with butter. But, she and I were, fundamentally, eating the same meal. The only aspect of our life together, at that time, that may have influenced her decision to cut back on sugared food was that I recall making remarks, all the time, about how much more alert she was when her blood sugar was under control. I never mentioned this as an object lesson; just, as life continued and she'd suddenly perform at a level higher than I'd come to expect through the last few years of her sugar hunger, I'd mention my surprise and say something like, "Wow, that's very cool, what a difference it makes when your blood sugar is under control." Some of her voluntary change of diet may have been triggered by these spontaneous reactions of mine. Then again, maybe not.
    Now, of course, as you know, she and I are eating pretty much the same foods. On the mornings we have bacon I don't eat an egg but will have either an extra piece of toast or an extra piece of bacon. When I eat toast I usually put some sort of preserves on mine. The bread I eat is so heavy with grains that, if I don't go through a loaf in a timely manner, it begins to sprout; although she's eating a whole grain bread, it isn't quite as hearty in grain as mine. As well, she eats at least twice as much bread as I do, perhaps three times as much. Typically I eat slightly larger portions than she of whatever we eat, although not always. And, when it comes to dessert, I am satisfied long before she is. There are certain products I buy for her, or we acquire from relatives and friends, that I simply don't like: bread and butter pickles (although I like MCS's home made bread and butter pickles) or any sweet pickled thing; sweet and sour anything; any sweet condiment, including ketchup; my preference is for large curd, drier cottage cheese rather than small curd; the only white bread I like is sourdough, which she doesn't care for unless it's smothered with garlic butter and Parmesan cheese; crackers...she loves crackers and I've never seen much of a point to them; pancakes and waffles - not my favorite food and certainly not for breakfast. I've always made it a habit, though, to buy for her and me and satisfy both of us in regards to food preferences. Which is why her voluntary and completely independent changing of her eating habits has really surprised me.
    During her recovery from her back injury she was pretty much at my disposal when it came to food. This, however, is when only the final changes in her diet occurred. All the rest, including her passion for Cobb salads (which I used to prepare and eat alone, usually while she was eating some very strange combination of refrigerator food between two slices of white bread), developed before her back injury.
    I don't think the food she ate was a huge liability to her, healthwise, despite what nutritional science claims. She ate a particular way her entire life and has made it here due, mainly, to her own food choices, not mine. I like that she's eating "healthier", and can certainly see some felicitous differences "in her aspect and her eyes" when her blood sugar is under control. But, the truth is, if she decided, tomorrow, that she'd had it with what is considered to be a healthy diet and she wanted to go back to eating the way she used to eat, after a protracted argument, if I lost, I'd do as she asked, because, although there is some difference in certain aspects of her behavior that stem from what she eats, there is no difference in her joie de vivre. I would not take this position with her cigarette smoking. The evidence is much too pronounced for me to allow her to become an habitual cigarette smoker, again, unless I knew she was, literally, on her deathbed. But, food? Well, I feel lucky that she's accepted the changes suggested in her diet to keep her blood sugar under control and has managed those changes on her own. I feel lucky that she's come to enjoy the way I cook and eat and absolutely loves certain things that I never thought she'd recognize as food, like most of the ingredients in a Cobb salad.
    Most of all, though, I feel lucky that we share our meals with one another, whether we're both eating out of the same serving implement or different ones.

Where to start? How about with the cup of cocoa I just made...

2004-09-13T01:29:00.001-07:00

...to relax me out of the day and into contemplating why I'm starting this journalized section of The Mom & Me Journals dot Net? This cup of cocoa isn't an Ancient One recipe. It is a Caregiver to the Ancient One recipe. It's my way of winding down in the evening, after my Ancient One has gone to bed. This cup of cocoa is also the smoothest homemade instant (I know, an oxymoron, but hold onto your britches) by-the-cup cocoa you'll ever make. Guaranteed. I've refined this recipe through years of fooling around, and this is the best version, yet.*  *  *  *  *Easy On The Evening Cocoa
Ingredients:
1.  1 really heaping tablespoon of powdered cocoa
2.  a little less than the equivalent of honey
3.  a pinch (just a few grains) kosher salt
3.  splashes to taste of your favorite flavoring (I used orange extract and almond extract, tonight)
4.  about a teaspoon of instant decaf coffee for a little mocha richness
5.  about 6 oz heavy whipping cream to an 18 oz cup

Preparation:
    While you are heating water to a boil:
    Mix the first four ingredients around in the bottom of an 18 oz cup until they've moistened themselves, forming a smooth, thick, dark paste.
    Begin adding the cream to the cup and stirring it into the cocoa paste. As you stir the cream in, the paste will become lighter, smoother, and a touch whipped, as well, as heavy cream doesn't need much encouragement to incorporate air in a pleasing manner. Continue adding and stirring in heavy cream until the paste reaches the color you'd like your cocoa to be. That's right. It's that simple.
    Now, your water's boiling, or very, very hot. Fill the cup slowly with hot/boiling water and stir the water through the smooth, light mousse-like cocoa paste you made in the cup, just as though you were stirring hot water into a cup with instant powdered cocoa mix. But, the cocoa's soooo much better! There's a nice foam on top, perfect for floating marshmallows, if that's your preference. The liquid is smooth and devilishly creamy. You can control the amount, sweetness, richness and flavor overtones of the final product from the beginning.
    This recipe is particularly good when using liqueur as flavorings, as alcohol evaporates at 120F. Always cut back on the honey if you use liqueurs.*  *  *  *  *    It isn't that I keep this cocoa purposely. It's that the only time I make it is deep into the evening, maybe an hour before I'm planning on going to bed. Mom is almost always in bed by this time. If she's not, she usually prefers a generic mint chocolate mix that I can't stand. As well, although she loves chocolate, she's never been much of a cocoa fan. So, I have this recipe all to myself. Almost every evening when I am writing a last journal entry of the day I am usually polishing off a cup of this cocoa as I polish up a post.
    Mom doesn't have personal, never been shared recipes like this, anymore. I'm sure she did. I think I peeked in on some of them during the first years of our life together. Some of her unshared foods, usually sandwich concoctions, were horrendous. But, then, I think she'd consider my evening cocoa scandalous. But, she doesn't do much food preparation, anymore. I'm surprised she made herself toast, yesterday.
    She never really was much of a cook. Not bad, but not good. I think some of that was her smoking habit, which was overwhelming when I was a kid. However, she loved that her daughters enjoyed cooking and put us to the task. So, she has a long history of knowing how I cook and trusting me as I cook.
    She doesn't always remember what she likes (sometimes involving day-to-day lapses), and, advantageously, what she doesn't like. This is how I was able to introduce her to flavorful vegetables over the last two years. It went slowly but surely. Now she lingers over sumptuously vegetabled Cobb salads, the only dinner, when she's not feeling good and her appetite is iffy, of which she'll eat the whole thing, even if it takes her an hour. Of course, a lot of her turn of taste buds has to do with heavily flavoring vegetables, but I've managed to stay away from cream sauce, thank the gods. She never was much for that.
    So, anyway, what I'm doing here over in this Mom & Me journal is recording interesting things about my mother's and my relationship/s to food and how this translates to our relationship with each other. She's come a long way since mid 2000, around the time I stopped writing columns for Playing with Food. So, I haven't written about her eating habits and food preferences since then, although, toward the end of writing the columns I remember beginning to mention my mother's diagnosed type 2 diabetes, some of the changes I was beginning to introduce to her diet and how I was attempting to introduce them.
    Maybe the best formal way to introduce My Mother and Food is to cite some places where you can access her history. If you'll take a look to the upper right in the menu bar, you'll notice, toward the end, two lists of Playing With Food columns in which she is mentioned, or heralded, or both. Her food proclivities played frequent roles in many of my columns. In some, they were the subject. I don't expect you to read the following list, but use it as a reference.

    Informally, though, well, where should I start? My mother's diet, is, now superb, as I've mentioned in other areas here. It has not always been superb, and, frankly, I didn't push for changes until, bit by bit, certain issues had to be addressed or Mom and I had to decide to give up on her health. We, together, struggling, sometimes, chose the high road. So, that's what I'll talk about, as I post. Things like, oh, ruminations on how Mom came to love vegetables. How she broke herself of her chocolate habit, and a few others, like peanut butter and nuts (although she still likes a few now and then). And, sometimes, maybe more than sometimes, I'll publish recipes; things that Mom and I regularly eat.
    I'll talk about my own habits, as well. For instance, I'll bet you've wondered if I continue to eat a different diet than Mom. Short answer: Nope. She's eating my diet, now, except for a few differences. She eats lots more cottage cheese than I. I rarely drink V-8 juice. I eat fewer eggs than she. My portions are usually a tiny bit larger, but not much, and sometimes, depending on the food (like ham and split pea soup), my portion is decidedly smaller. I eat somewhat more fruit and sugar than she does, but invisibly, in my coffee, for instance. If you think her diet is high in fiber, mine is even higher; I use a much heartier bread than hers; I eat lots more vegetables, lots fewer fats. I take the same supplements she does, except for iron and only in the morning, plus a few more for menopause management, but no medications, no aspirin, no aloe vera, no calcium/vitamin D (although I don't suppose that one would hurt me).
    Well, anyway, there'll be lots more, I'm sure, now that I've got this started. I can just pop in and publish at will. This is also being advertised, by the way, over at Playing with Food. And, it is included in the search at that site. I may split them, later, but, right now, I don't think it's necessary.
    So, now I'm up and running on at least four wheels. How strange this journey has been for me. How strange, I think, it will continue to be.