Food To Cry Over

Yesterday I slaved over the stove to create a meal that J would love but had never had before, well at least not cooked by me.  J has had plenty of manicotti, the frozen cheese type, in his lifetime and has enjoyed none of it.  With a bit of cajoling I made him agree to give mine a try. 

See I make mine from scratch.  Mine is not just cheese but beef and onion are added in as well.  I took my time making it yesterday and spent 1.5 hours on just the prep work and another 30 minutes on baking it in the oven.  Yes I even grated by hand my cheeses.  It was worth it.

J said that this was the best manicotti he has ever had and was sorry that he didn't have me make it sooner.  He said he had tears in his eyes from the joy of the flavors in his mouth.  That brought tears to my eyes as well because I knew the pain of standing so long to make this dish was worth it, finally!

Unfortunately I won't be going back for seconds on this dish.  I have a tomato allergy.  I love trying to ignore it but the reverse peristalsis always reminds me that I'm not supposed to be eating tomatoes or tomato products.  Will I ever learn?  Probably not.

J took several of the manicotti with him this morning in his dog bowl, think Jacob Black, to have for his lunch at work.  He loves his dog bowl and he loves my manicotti.  All is well in the world.

Today I plan on baking a batch of oatmeal scotchies for him and his co-workers at the COF.  I've made the cookies for other people and his old civilian engineering office years ago.  The cookies were always a favorite of his grandmother too.  She couldn't wait for me to get them out of the oven.

My pain level is still about the same.  I'm not sleeping much and am up about every 30 minutes during the night.  Not much to be done about that.

OCS application update.  J went to sick call this morning to get the new medical paperwork done. Turns out S1 isn't so smart and the paperwork is good for two years.  Ugh!  So the only thing that actually expired in his packet were the references of which he started collecting during his deployment.  With any luck he'll have most of them in hand by the end of next week so that he can re-submit his packet.  Wish him luck.