COOKING AND BAKING

I did a lot of cooking and baking while out of the hospital this time. I think that my mom thinks that I am her new personal chef! :) Sometimes I cooked alone and sometimes mom and I cooked together and when baking, dad took care of oven duties and some of the heavy mixing. The kitchen that we use is tiny, so the three of us in the same kitchen was bit of an ordeal. Early in the month, we made the most delicious Chicken and Artichoke in Lemon dish. Dad pounded the chicken into thin strips and mom and I did the rest. It was really good. We also made a chicken dish in a red, chunky tomato, mushroom sauce. I made up the red sauce recipe as I went along. It was very good as well. Since I was away from chemo for a longer time, I splurged a couple of times and ate red sauce and a couple of spicer dishes (even some salad dressing). I guess that I will go back to bland eating starting today! Mom and I also made over 100 stuffed shells for Easter dinner. We made three cheese stuffing, meat stuffing and cheese and spinach stuffing. They are stored away in the freezer and mom will make the sauce and bake them for Easter. I also baked some mini apple cakes and a couple of carrott cakes. The apple cake and carrott cake are sort of my signature cakes - they are the ones thaat I always like to make and are usually crowd pleasers. We froze the carrott cakes and will have them on Easter as well. It was pretty tough to keep my mom and dad from eating the carrott cake when it first came out of the oven. It smelled so good! All I will have to do is make the icing and put it on the cakes Easter weekend. With any luck, I will be out of the hospital on Friday and feeling okay by Sunday, but you never know. Anyway, it was theraputic cooking and baking - not only physical exercise, but mentally challenging the memory and relaxing at the same time.