Fun with Hospital Eating

This one is going to be super, extra fast because I am typing this on my phone from a "couch/bed" in my daughter's hospital room.  Food-wise, I've been scrounging it for the past two days.  Yesterday, after our very first ER visit (what a milestone, right?), I realized I had not eaten in over 8 hours.  That's A LOT for me. (I work out a lot, so I usually end up eating every 3 to 4 hours).  I was literally about to fall over from a super fun combination of hypoglycemia and stress, when my sister presented me with the Best Sandwich Ever.  EVER.  It was so good - turkey and mustard with all the fixings, plus jalapeño kettle chips.  Yum.  My husband brought me a burrito for dinner that was probably the size of my head.  Again: awesomely tasty.  

Today's been slightly less yummy and as weird of an eating schedule: I grabbed a latte and pumpkin bread from the hospital cafe mid-morning, then, mid-afternoon, I had a Clif Bar, beef jerky and a Coke Zero. Yeah, that's right...be jealous.  Be very jealous - not of the food, but of my apparently cast iron stomach.  

So, by the time I made it back across town to our house for a shower and some time with my littlest munchkin, I was craving anything real and especially anything green.  I made myself, my son and my mom (who was keeping my son this afternoon) BBQ chicken sandwiches with a salad of romaine hearts and cherry tomatoes.  Good gracious, it tasted good and fresh.  I'm kind of living for tomorrow, when I hope we get to go home for good, mainly because my breakfast is already in my purse, awaiting consumption: a Clif Bar sans beef jerky.  Breakfast of Champions!

To Eat Out or In...That is *Tonight's* Question

As you may have guessed, I cook a lot.  Like all the damn time.  Like breakfast, lunch and dinner for five people.  The only day that I don't cook dinner is usually Sunday, when we have dinner at my mom's house with her and my sister.  Every other night though, whether I am inspired or dragging my feet, you will find me in the kitchen, whipping something edible up for my family to consume as their nighttime meal.  Some nights, however, I am too tired (or too busy, or too frustrated or too... anything) to cook dinner and we end up going out to a local restaurant or grabbing low-brow burgers to fill our bellies.  Some nights (or in this case, days), I call my husband at work and he casually says, "if you want to go out tonight, we could.  You know...instead of cooking."  I am sorely tempted and then spend the next several hours having this conversation in my head:

Me #1 (also known as the Stingy Chef, a character who despises the waste of food and who intrinsically believes that no one can make food as healthy or as cheaply as she can): *sigh*  "We don't need to go out.  You are going to the grocery store tomorrow and can make do until then.  There are at least two different meal options in the fridge at this very moment."

Me #2 (also known as the Lazy, Harried Mom of Three, a character who procrastinates using food up and who enjoys having anyone else cook for her, not to mention bring her alcoholic drinks): "Awww.....come ON!!  You know you don't want to cook tonight!!  You have a blog post to write, a cake to make tomorrow, the three little people to deal with all afternoon.  Who cares if the tomatoes sit another day?!  *sing-song voice* There might be margaritas...."

Me #1: "Quit whining!!  There won't be enough room in the fridge if we don't finish off the tomatoes and the milk and the bread and the lunchmeat.  Do I really have to go on?!  I will get you a treat at the store tomorrow instead!"

Me #2: "Nah.  I'm still going to think about going out tonight.  I mean, it makes sense, right?  We have an errand to run and there might not be time to do it if we DON'T eat out."

I could go on, but now you just think I am crazy.  Regardless of my mental status, it is a struggle for me to decide how to best spend our money and really how to utilize the food I have already purchased.  Yes, it is nice to eat out and yes, we do that every once in a while, but there are lots of difficulties in doing so on a regular basis.  I have to say that I am leaning towards the Stingy Chef on this one - it would be nice, but there is food in the fridge that needs to be eaten and both meal options should appeal to all five of us.  We will see though - right now it is nap time, the big kids are at school and I am happily typing away at a soon to be finished blog post.  When 4 pm rolls around and I have three screaming banshees running loose and wreaking havoc in my house....well, that margarita might just look too damn good to pass up. 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

I just want to start this off by saying first, that my mom is an amazing woman and a fantastic cook and second, that she ordered me (really and truly) to NOT get her anything for Mother's Day.  If that is what she wants, fine, but she didn't order me to NOT write a blog post dedicated to her and to the food legacy that she built for me.  So, Mom: this is for you.  Happy Mother's Day, because I love you!

A couple of years ago, I wrote a post about the impact my mother's pancakes made on me as a child and as an adult (Fall Way Back).  I was thinking about that post and about how food memories are made when I decided to write this one.  I started thinking about it because we all often have some special person in our lives that cooks something in particular that seems impossible to replicate for one reason or another.  For me, it is not my mom's pancakes (I feel that I have actually mastered that one - I can make some variant of pancakes almost in my sleep now), though, as the other post explains, those particular breakfasts made an indelible impression upon me, even as a small child.  It is not even my grandmother's brownie recipe, which my mom and my aunt have each altered in their own ways and good-naturedly discuss as to which is the "original" recipe and, more specifically, which makes the better brownie.  (I have made my own variations on that one, as well, so I think I've got it down).  No, the one thing that my mother makes that I have tried and tried and tried and tried to cook on my own, but fail miserably every single time: chicken spaghetti, my past, present and future favorite food, its permanency in my life evidenced by my own Mother's Day card this morning, made by my oldest daughter, in which she correctly identified that as my favorite dinner. 

Chicken spaghetti, in my mom's excellent hands, is a very odd combination of chicken (of course), onions, cream of mushroom soup, V-8 juice, Worcestershire sauce and garlic powder, often with a green bell pepper or a package of fresh mushrooms thrown in for good measure, and, traditionally, served over plain spaghetti noodles.  I know the recipe by heart and though I consider myself quite adept at actually following a written recipe, I have never NEVER been able to fix this meal that in any way compares to my mom's version.  Honestly, I have completely stopped trying, even though my oldest daughter also adores the meal.  Is it the little changes that I tried to make over the years - subbing out a lower fat version of the soup or possibly adding extra, fresh garlic? Maybe it was the introduction of whole wheat pasta into my repertoire?   Hell if I know.  What I do know is that, when I make it, it doesn't taste right.  My mom has made successful changes in the recipe, though.  When my son was diagnosed with food allergies, she dutifully switched to a vegan Worcestershire sauce (the original version contains anchovies) as well as to a different brand of pasta (100% whole wheat and not processed with eggs).  Even with those changes, hers still tastes vastly better than anything I have ever made.

My mom and I have often discussed my inability to adequately cook chicken spaghetti.  To a certain extent, she thinks it is all in my head - my perception that I suck at chicken spaghetti has become my reality.  She does, however, admit that she too has a recipe of my grandmother's that she won't attempt: fried pork chops.  I am not sure that this particular recipe was ever written down, but, as I was thinking about writing this post this morning, I convinced myself that pork chops were not a common menu item in my house when I was growing up.  I actually remember my grandmother cooking pork chops during a summer we spent with them in their old house in Las Vegas, but, for the life of me, I cannot come up with a time that my mom tried to recreate that particular meal.  (She does cook pork by the way - roasts and other cuts - just not chops.)  She has a pork chop block, just like I have a chicken spaghetti block. 

My mother may think that my chicken spaghetti ineptitude may be mostly mental, but, God love her, she triples every batch of chicken spaghetti she makes now - enough to feed her, my sister and my entire family, plus enough sauce for me to take home, freeze and use to feed my family for another night.  (Chicken spaghetti is almost better when frozen, defrosted and reheated another day.  It is the weirdest recipe.  For reals.)  Oddly enough, I am also conscripted, every single time, to taste the sauce before it is deemed worthy to dress the pasta and serve.  Sometimes, more often than not, it is perfectly seasoned, but very occasionally, I suggest adding more Worcestershire sauce or garlic powder.  She will adjust the seasoning, I will taste and together we will make sure the chicken spaghetti is right. 

Happy Mother's Day, Mom!  I love you for so many reasons, all beyond your unique ability to cook chicken spaghetti!  You have made me the person I am today and I can only hope that I am creating the same kind of food legacy for my kids as you have created for me.  I wonder what their "chicken spaghetti block" will be....