Pudding Thing That Was Yummy

Baking

We play card games with another couple that lives nearby every Sunday evening.  It is a fantastic way to end the weekend.  If we are planning and grading, we stop and go have a little more fun.  We laugh a lot and hang out with really good people for a few hours.  They have become good friends that are the kindest people you could ever meet.

This past Sunday, I felt inspired to bring a dessert, and the cupboards were largely bare.  I wanted to keep it on the low calorie end because we have been indulging a bit more than usual lately.  In my digging around, I find these organic, vegan pudding mixes, one chocolate and one vanilla.  I decide I will make one and pour them into little ramekins to chill.  These things are like wicked low in calorie per serving (less than 100 calories) and I used skim milk.  I started with just making chocolate but then the brain starts.  Why not also make vanilla and layer these things?  Why not make a quick cookie bottom and then layer them in that?  And so it goes with haphazard baking.

I find it so funny that so many of my friends think I am this baking for the perfection, but the crazy on the spot disasters and successes are just as interesting.   It's creativity without bounds or consequences.  Did I feel attached to the outcome of this thing?  Not in the slightest.  They are good friends.  Good friends are those who will tell you that your dessert sucks and break out the cookie bin.  Friends who nod politely at my concoctions are not going to receive my first tries.

So what was it?

Here's a super vague recipe but I encourage you to step outside the weird rule that baking has to be right, or perfect or measured exactly.  It's just cooking.  Don't start with souffle and don't be afraid to mess up.  It's sugar, how bad is it really going to be?

Pudding
Make 1 vanilla and 1 chocolate pudding (each served 4).  The brand I used was Dr. Oetker.  It was very tasty on its own.  Next time I would add more vanilla or lemon zest to the vanilla one.  And I would add a touch vanilla to the chocolate too.  When they say stir constantly, they mean it, so don't get yourself to multi-tasking.  Set to chill.  Put plastic wrap right down on the pudding to avoid getting skin.

Cookie bottom (all amounts approximate - LOL)
1 C of flour
1/2 C sugar
1/4 C cocoa powder
Coconut oil liquid - add until mixture is moist
Add an egg (why?  because it helps mystery desserts take form)

Press into a 9X9 glass baking dish, until there are no cracks.  Bake at 350 until not mushy anymore.

Let bottoms cool.  Once cool, add a layer of each pudding being careful in how you dollop and spread the upper layer.  Now if you were prepared for this, I would pile some berries on top.  But I wasn't.

Below is the worst food blog food picture in anyone's blog.  But this recipe is about sharing an idea that deliciousness can be random and loosely measured and playful.  Also, find some nice folks who will play cards with you.

Healing

Healing wise there is nothing new to report in terms of my stuff except that I had an epidural steroid injection, hoping that this will help my quality of life for a while.  My goal is a pain free meal out in a restaurant.  I realized today how much I understand managing with steroids.  Don't bother reading on unless you really care about dealing with this or helping a loved one with it.  All steroid medications are not the same.  The oral ones you take for poison ivy or a bad cough are not the same as an infusion through your vein of solumedrol and not the same as an epidural. The steroid medication in this is designed to dissolve slowly over time so that the medicine stays local and does not got all over your body.  Epidurals in an aggravated nerve root are excruciating.  It is 20-30 seconds of pain that you are sure will kill you.  But it doesn't.  Then they put you in a room where someone gives you lorna doons (score!) and ginger ale.  

The coping part is the next two weeks.  I vacillate between teariness and anger and peace and fear.  It is a weird time because the emotions feel so empty because they are emotions without a lot of weight or depth.  I get tired, swollen knees, and minor urges to clean my house.  Of course, this is not healing, this is pain management.  I am still not supposed to do much and may not get much relief.  We'll see.  

Nutritionally it is difficult.  My esophageal spasms are set off by the acid stomach feeling of steroid side-effects.  I really only want fruit and a little yogurt.  It is essential to replenish potassium because the steroids deplete that.  I take pills and drink carrot juice.  Carrot juice is just loaded with the stuff and goes down easy and smooth.  I don't know how bananas got all the credit for potassium.  Avocados and carrot juice are the way to go.  

I also get intense night sweats so I use benedryl and towels to deal with that.  This process is not for the faint of heart.  I'm certainly not at my strongest right now, but I sure have this down enough to have a plan.