COOKING ADVENTURE # 33: Turkey Avacado Sandwich and Pear Tapioca Graham Cracker Dessert
Having an ulcer complicates things. And it makes things a tad redundant as well. There are only so many times I can have rice, chicken, tapioca pudding, and bananas before I start to freak out a little. So, I decided that this week I’d mix it up a little. I combined a few different things that I could eat together in order to (hopefully) create some fantastic combinations. My efforts were a tad forced, I’ll admit. The sandwich turned out wonderful. It wasn’t too complicated, tasted pretty bland, but was still different enough from what I’d been eating. The dessert? Probably would have been fine if I’d restricted it to only a combination of two items instead of three… Oh well. That’s how you learn, I suppose.
Last week, I was struggling to come up with something that I could make that I could also eat. Tough decision. And because it was such a last minute decision, my brain settled on the idea of a sandwich. Seeing as how it can either be turkey or chicken and I’ve had enough chicken to last me a lifetime, I’d decided to do turkey. As for avacado, well… I absolutely adore avacado. I especially love guacamole. But seeing as how I can’t have copious amounts of sour cream, garlic, and lemon with my avacado, I had to do something with it in its purest form. Hence the idea for the sandwich.
I bought some really good Anadama bread last week from a local farm stand and froze it. I took two slices of that and toasted it up. Anadama has molasses in it and at first, I wondered if my stomach would handle it. Turns out, it was just fine. Normally, I would have added mayonnaise to my sandwich and probably could have gotten away with a little, but I didn’t want to try it. I actually managed to eat a chicken pot pie last night for dinner so I’m still feeling pretty triumphant from that but also cautious. I don’t want to do too much to fast. So I left the bread bare.
Next: avacado. Much like the way to cut a mango, I took a paring knife and cut the avacado in half around the pit. Then, I cut into the flesh of the avacado until I hit the skin, and made several lines in it. Then, with a spoon, I scooped out the wonderful green fruit onto one side of the sandwich, eating a few slices here and there. Ordinarily, you want to avoid fresh fruits and vegetables if you have an ulcer. However, banana and avacado are the only two that are bland enough not to upset the stomach and of course, you can have certain cooked fruits and vegetables as well as canned. I paired the avacado with a few slices of turkey, sliced it diagonally and voila! If you aren’t on a bland diet, you could certainly add a couple slices of bacon to this treat or even some tomato to kick it up a bit.
I moved onto the pear dessert. Now, I have to ask myself this question now before I go any further: what on earth were you thinking?! That had to be the strangest combination of foods ever to put together and it certainly didn’t make my stomach feel very happy after eating only a few bits of it… I took some canned pears and sliced them up in a small bowl. Then, I crumbled some graham crackers in and stirred to coat the pear pieces. I decided to splash in a little more pear juice to soften everything up. That did the trick… maybe a little too much though. The graham cracker looked like soggy cardboard. I sprinkled a little sugar in, hoping it would melt and add a sort of caramelized tinge to the dish. Of course, I’m not supposed to have caramel either…
I put the dish in the oven under 350 for about five or ten minutes just to melt everything together a bit better. If I’d left the dessert like that, it might have actually been good. But I was stupid enough to try and add tapioca pudding to it. Now, I have never had tapioca pudding prior to this ulcer episode. I was always a little wary of it and didn’t think it would taste very good so I avoided it. Now that I’ve had so much of it, I really enjoy it quite a bit more than the other types of pudding I usually get. Rice pudding is also quite good, surprisingly. However, it isn’t good when you dump some cold Tapioca pudding onto a hot fruit dish. The pudding warmed instantly and the texture of the dish became goopy and hard to look at. I didn’t even finish eating it before chucking it. It just wasn’t worth it.
I know… not very exciting, was it? Well, there’s hope on the horizon, readers. If I was able to eat part of a store bought chicken pot pie last night, I’ll hopefully be able to tolerate more things very soon. In light of this, I’ve decided to make next week’s dish a little more challenging than just a sandwich. But, seeing as how it’s also my birthday next Wednesday, I want to do a kind of cake that I can actually eat, too. So… Angel Food Cake is next week! Stay tuned!
~KSilva
The Kat At Night 