August 19, 2020

Some of the hard-to-deal-with heat has indeed broken here in our neck of the words. Around nine this morning, David was out on the porch with a light jacket on. It’s really nice to turn the a/c off at night and have a window cracked open, just a bit, allowing the scent and feel of fresh air to blow in. I generally hit the bed first, and in the spring, autumn, and winter when the nights are indeed cool, 1 will open the window that crack before I go to bed and then David will shut it when he comes to bed.

That, my friends, is teamwork and cooperation in action.

Even though last week was hot and mid-August, David was craving a home-made soup. Since my daughter was doing up a veggie tray to drop of at a friend’s, she contributed half a cauliflower. I added that with some broccoli I had and a few hours later, we had broccoli-cauliflower cheese soup.

He made happy tummy sounds all through that and reiterated that I made the best soups.

I’ve always considered cooking my “other” talent, and I’ve been grateful, through my life, for the early lessons in cooking and food frugality that my mother instilled in me. After the death of my father, she became a single mom. She worked as a nurse—she was in fact an RN—at a time when nurses didn’t get paid very much at all.

In those days, of course, the cuts of meat available were of a much better quality. How do I know this? My mother could make the best hamburger gravy, as well as pork chop gravy, and that was something we all appreciated, and it’s something that is not easily made these days. We had a name for it. Pan gravy. The meat portions might have been small, but there was always bread and pan gravy to be had as a “second helping.”

To this day, bread and gravy is one of my favorite comfort foods.

We’ve experimented this year, as we did just last year, in “foil” meals on the grill. Our daughter now does the outdoor cooking, and that’s just one more thing off my plate—no pun intended. One of our new favorites this season is whole carrot, with butter and a touch of honey, wrapped in foil and cooked outside on the grill.

Jenny also put a new twist on boneless, skinless chicken breasts on the grill. She marinates them in olive oil and garlic for a few hours, then adds a bit of salt as she wraps them in the foil. Tasty fare, indeed.

Have I mentioned that since she moved in, there is usually at least 1 supper a week I don’t have to cook? I truly enjoy and appreciate when someone else is taking the time and effort to feed me—even though I love cooking myself.

On some of our hotter days, I’ll start early in the morning before it’s too hot, and make salads intended to be nibbled upon for meals or just whenever they’re craved. There’s pasta and tuna, as well as pasta and salmon. Rice is combined with ham, pineapple and mayo; a potato salad can often be found in my fridge, and once in a while, I add canned corned beef to it—at David’s request. My favorite salad, after a green salad, is Rotini pasta and chicken that also contains steamed broccoli, carrots, and mushrooms. I combine ranch dressing and mayo for that one. I do have to leave the fresh onions out of all the salads these days, because our daughter doesn’t like them. That’s not a hardship, as I can just as easily cut some onion up and put it in my own and David’s portions.

We don’t have a sit-down supper every day, because we’d gotten out of that habit when David retired. He complained that it was too much food, and he had a point. Coupled with the fact that neither he nor I eat much anymore, pre-made and available salads and easily “nuked” entrees and other assorted dishes are the way to go for us. We do eat fresh food rather than packaged most of the time.

I’ll tell you truly, especially in these times, we are grateful for every bite.

 

Love,

Morgan

http://www.morganashbury.com

http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury