Meatloaf And Other Recipes

Sentimentality, ChatGPT, Claude, and Recipe Boxes all help cook.

Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash

Meatloaf recipe given to me by my mom in 1982. Photo by author

When I searched on Unsplash, it gave me over 300 choices of pictures of meatloaf. This picture looks most like the way I make it with my mom’s recipe.

My mom’s recipe, Mark Baquiran, is about as basic as it can get. It does not even include eggs.

I love to bake. I like to cook, too, but not complicated stuff, especially when I was raising a family. When I took care of my parents, who both had dementia, I used this recipe, with mashed potatoes and gravy, and a vegetable.

Like Mark Baquiran’s grandmother, I like to add a few other ingredients to make it mine.

I live in South Texas, now, so sometimes I add a jalapeño or serrano pepper.

I often get recipes by asking Claude or Chat GPT these days, but I am sentimental about my recipe box. Here is another easy recipe that I have not made lately, but it is good for healthy vegetables.

Vegetable dip recipe from 1982 Photo by author

Once in awhile I clean out the recipe box, which overflows with recipes stuffed into it. I finally threw some away, that I never use.

Grocery store lines next to the checkout counter are still filled with paper magazines advertising food.

Side by side are recipes for a zillion-calorie chocolate cake and meal plans guaranteed to make you thin in a few weeks,

if you follow them.

I wonder if anyone has done a survey about how many people buy the magazines and just look at the pictures instead of following a detailed meal plan for a few weeks.

I have never followed a meal plan over several days recommended by those magaizines. I have bought the magazines, though. I liked a recipe for rice and black bean salad, and a lentil salad.

You will have to ask Chat GPT or Claude to recreate those recipes, since I spend more time making chocolate chip cookies these days. That recipe is on the back of the bag of chips!

What is left of the cookies I made today. Photo by author

Thanks for the question, Mark!

I had a wise college professor who had us bring different family recipes to class one time. He said food was a great way to communicate across cultures!

Here is what my husband is making right now while I write this.

Carne guisada prepared by author’s husband Photo by author

Homemade corn tortillas. Photo by author

Perhaps one day in the future, we will be able to eat the food through the internet, not just the words on the screen. Or ask our in house robots to prepare meals from our sentimental recipe boxes.

Here is Mark’s Meatloaf story!

[embed]Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes…and Raisins?! My Lifelong Obsession with This All-American Classicmedium.com

Thanks for reading!