Day 78 "Another Pretty Good Day, I Actually Cooked"

Early this morning I tried to view the Perseid Meteor Shower because this morning was the peak.  Two meteorologists and a number of web sites predicted that if the sky was clear and dark it would be possible to see between 50 and 100 per hour in the pre dawn hours.  Well, at 3 in the morning I drove about thirty miles south of my house into the country and found a really dark place, pulled off along side of the road, got out of the car, and looked up in the northeast sky for two hours.  I saw one really good shooting star that had a long tale and four or five others that were faint.  Needless to say I was a bit disappointed.

 

Today has been a pretty good day for me.  I don’t feel on top of the world and I’m still really worried about my Mom but I’ve been able to function pretty good.  I cleaned the kitchen without any help and did a good job.  My Mom actually told me how nice it looked.  She’s pretty critical about cleaning and especially her kitchen.  I also did some banking and grocery shopping for her this afternoon and didn’t have any anxiety over being with the general public.  It’s odd, I seem to do better when I’m in control.  When someone else is in control whether it be work or just any old task such as sweeping the sidewalk I tend to have a lot of anxiety and end up doing something wrong or just not doing it at all.  I never really thought about this until now but does this mean that I can’t take authority?  No, I think that I just function better when I manage myself.  Maybe this is the reason I’ve always wanted to own my own business.

 

I have decided that to control my bipolar I need to do something that I enjoy doing each day. I enjoy cooking and since my Mom can’t really do it I thought that today I would cook something.  I’m of Romanian descent and thought I would make a Romanian dish especially since my Mom is full blooded Romanian.  As a child and teenager my Grandmother taught me how to make some of the dishes she grew up on as well as my Mom.  My Grandmother and Mom both came from poor families but always had food on the table.  One of the dishes that my Grandmother taught me how to make was Mamaliga and Cheese (brick cheese is the best) which is basically Mush.  It was cheap to make and very hearty.  Here is the recipe that I made.

 

Mamaliga And Cheese

 

Ingrediants:

• 2 cups yellow cormeal
• 5 cups water
• 2 teaspoons salt
• ½ stick butter
• 1 pound brick cheese

Directions:

• Let the water boil, then cut the fire to low.
• Put corn meal in the center of the pan to form a peak like a pyramid.
• Put in salt and let it cook gently for 20 minutes.
• After 20 minutes take off the heat.
• Pour some of the water into another pan without letting any of the cornmeal out of the pan.
• Use a wooden spoon and start mixing the cornmeal, If it needs more water you can use some of the   water you poured out earlier.
• Add the butter in to the mixture as your stirring it.
• Get a casserole dish and spread a layer of the mixture on the bottom.
• Grate the brick cheese and place a large amount over the cornmeal mixture.
• Place another layer of the cornmeal mixture in the casserole dish.
• Top that layer with a large amount of the brick cheese.
• Depending on the size of the casserole you may have more layers but the last layer should be cheese.
• Bake in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes.

Here is an old Romanian recipe I found that my recipe is a variation of.

 

Click the picture to enlarge.