Life of Joy

Can Geo eat spinach, pesto and chevre lasagna with home made spinach noodles? Everything is soft and mushy, but very flavorful. I think I might be able to reproduce some of the vegitarian lasagna recipes I cooked at the trendy, Soho restaurant 20 years ago. One of them was made with mushrooms and bechemel sauce. Very yummy, and densly caloric, which I suspect will be good for Geo as he progresses through chemo. I'm too far away to drop off food but I can contribute recipes.

How about pureed butternut squash soup as we more into Autumn?

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Yes! Spinach, pesto and chevre lasagna would fit perfectly, as long as it has none of the following ingredients, is not highly spicy/hot, and any onions are cooked through:

Artificial flavors (including vanillin, the artificial vanilla)
Artificial colors
BHA, BHT, or TBHQ (preservatives)
Tomatoes
Plums
Peaches
Peppers
Cherries
Apricots
Almonds
Blueberries
Undercooked meats
Sushi or any other raw fish or shellfish
Unpasteurized milk or cheeses

These dishes sound very good for George, actually, and may cheer him up because they are creative and yummy. Pureed butternut squash soup sounds wonderful---it's one of my favorites.

Recipes of this nature would be highly valued here---figuring out what to make is over half of the battle. Also, if I come down over a weekend, we could possibly spend some time in the kitchen, and I could bring a cooler with me, transporting food back to Turtle Hill on my way home.

It might not work, but we could keep it in mind. Cooking from your recipes would *certainly* work! Thank you. Thinking creatively is kind of hard right now. : )

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evilbunny.livejournal.com

I'll have two dishes for you on Thursday, a bechamel lasagne (If anyone wanted to make lasagne, but was put-off because of the no-tomatoes clause, drop me a line, and I'll discuss bechamel lasagnes with you), and one other. I was going to do a chicken enchilada casserole, but will put that one off, I'm leaning toward a seafood pie, now. Send whichever one over you like this week, though the lasagne will likely have some mild italian sausage, so it may do better early in Geo's treatment. The seafood pie will be very mild.

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Lolaraincoat is in the throes of this as a member of the caregiving team for a friend with cancer. There is copious discussion of recipes a few months back in her journal. It wouldn't be a bad idea for you to poke around in there and see some of the the things she has tried and some of the suggestions others have made.

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faedaughter.livejournal.com

Well I posted some recipes in my journal, but it sounds like all of the wonderful foodie like people in your area are well versed in Lasagne without red sauce! I'll keep looking though!

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skyefyr.livejournal.com

Anything with mushrooms actually. Geo loves mushrooms.

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OOOOOO! What an excellent excuse to pull puff pastry into the mix! A dozen different kinds of mushrooms in puff pastry = yum! (in a mushy kind of way)

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OK then. We will cook. I'll get the dry ice packs and the disposable cooler ready to go.

What about nut butters? Does he like those? And cheesecake?

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Nut butters...whoah. This is so far ahead of my cooking skills that I don't even know... But what a fantastic idea! Packed with protein and fat!

I will check and see what his position on nut butters appears to be. Eileen, do you know anything about his preferences here? Cat?

I think he likes cheesecake, but I'm not sure. I'll ask.

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I can't stop salivating now.

Diverse and plentiful mushrooms in puff pastry...big sigh.

I have alot to learn here. It will probably be fun. : )

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Wow! This is fantastic! I'll drop off any dish that you bring on Friday, if I can. If you feel strongly about the seafood pie, do that now, although you may be right about the sausage.

We can work out the pick up and drop off for next week on Thursday. I will be in Summit on Sunday evening/Monday morning, I think.

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Thank you for the heads-up on this.

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Where does one get dry ice?

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I'm too far away to cook. This is a good soup recipe that can be used with virtually any vegetable. I'll do mushroom here since I noticed that Skyfyr says he likes shrooms. It calls for carmelized onions which means the onions would be cooked thoroughly. If one doesn't want to do a cream of, simply don't add the cream and leave it as a broth soup. One can buy chicken (or vegetable broth) but I'll include a recipe for both if it needs to be home made.

Chicken broth:

Remove organ meats from chicken and do whatever you do with them but I normally don't use them for the broth.
Wash chicken thoroughly
Put chicken in large soup pot
Add one cut onion (cut large -- you'll be removing the onion pieces)
Add two or three large carrots (cut in half prolly to fit in pan -- you'll be removing them later)
Add two or three stalks of celery (to be removed later)
Cover with water and bring to boil
Lower heat, add water because some will have evaporated.
Continue until chicken has fallen completely apart and bones are meatless
Strain broth from other stuff
Wahlah! Tis broth!

Vegetable broth
Same schtick as chicken broth only no chicken and more carrots onions and celery and any other type of vegetable you want
Cook until vegetables are mushy and icky and no one in their right mind would want to eat them
Strain broth from icky mushy veggies
Wahlah! Tis broth!

(Cream of) Mushroom Soup
Ingredients:
One large onion, chopped fine
One cup of small mushroom buttons
Two cups of chopped mushrooms
Three cups of broth (chicken or veggie)
1/4 cup of very heavy cream
salt and pepper to taste
Enough olive oil to carmelize the onion

Saute onion in olive oil until carmelized. Add one cup of chicken broth and chopped mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms are also carmelized. Set aside and allow to cool. After this has cooled some, liquify in a blender or food processor.

Saute button mushrooms in a little more olive oil and some of the chicken stock. Add liquified onions and shrooms from above. Add rest of chicken broth to taste. Add cream (or not if you don't like cream) to taste. Add salt and pepper to taste.

To make any other type of veggie soup, (say, cream of asparagus) add or substitute said veggie in place of shrooms.

p.s. I made up all the amounts because I don't measure anything -- I cook to taste. If it looks like too much broth it probably is.

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Thank you!

Yum...

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oh btw, if you save out some of the meat from making the chicken stock and put it in a blender and liquify it -- it makes very good cream of chicken soup. Add mushrooms to get cream of chicken and mushroom soup. Pour over chicken chunks, rice and add peas to get a weird kind of chicken ala king. You get the idea...

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The jicama is a root vegetable. It is kind of like a cross between an apple and a potato and is good both cooked and raw. In this salad it is eaten raw.

This is an easy salad to throw together but slicing everything can be a bit of a pain.

Ingredients:
1 small Jicama (jicamas are kind of on the large size -- see if you can find one thats about the size of a grapefruit -- if you can find one smaller, reduce everything else by however much smaller it is -- i.e. if its half as large as a grapefruit, reduce below by half)
2 Oranges
2 Apples (any kind you like -- I like Gala the best)
1 Grapefruit

Peel everything including apples and jicama. Core everything (except jicama which has no core). Seed everything (except jicama which has no seeds). Cut everything into very thin strips -- the strips should be about as long as one of your fingers and almost shaved. Preserve juice from oranges and grapefruit while you slice (difficult but try). Put it into a big bowl, mix, cover, put in fridge for an hour or two. This is a really nice treat when its very hot outside.

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I do...yum yum...now I'm really hungry.

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Thank you, my dear. I think I might try one of these recipes myself.

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I know a good chicken stew recipe. Is ginger and leafy greens ok?

Also I know a good sausage and lentil stew recipe. Is sausage ok? You can use mild sausage and it won't hurt the recipe a bit. Also, the pan is deglazed with dark beer (like guiness). Is that ok?

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I'm thinking one could do something like shrimp and bay scallops (broiled until cooked thoroughly of course) and then sauted with exotic mushrooms. Take the seafood and mushrooms from the pan, deglaze with a little white wine. Add some cream to make a creamy gravy and serve the whole kit and kaboodle over a puff pastry with cream sauce.

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As far as I know, all of these are OK. Feel free to go on these!

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