Helen’s Soul Food Fridays Meal #14

This was a very nice meal. We had pork tenderloin, whole kernel corn, green beans, brussels’s sprouts, and cornbread. The pork tenderloin would just melt in your mouth is was so tender and it wasn’t the peppercorn kind much to my relief.

Helen Meals Gone Wrong Meal #13…

I took the foil off the top of this meal and everything had run down into the creamed corn making a mess. Those chicken tenders are going to throw up some canvas and set sail. The creamed corn should have been put in a bowl. Pictured are green beans, baked chicken fingers, sweet potato patties, fried okra, and biscuits.

Helen’s Soul Food Fridays Meal #12

I was so disappointed to get meatloaf this meal (sarcasm). We also had green beans, summer squash, creamed potatoes, and cornbread. Do you think Helen put enough creamed potatoes on my plate?

Helen’s Soul Food Fridays Meal #11

Helen could cook the most tender pot roast. I was like eating your most delicious ribeye. This meal also had crowder peas and summer squash with Vidalia onions.

Helen’s Soul Food Friday’s Meal #10

Here we have a rare vegetable only plate. There are rutabagas, steamed cabbage, creamed potatoes, turnip greens, and cornbread. I remember Helen putting lots of vinegary and spicy hot sauce on my cabbage, turnip greens, and rutabagas. It was really spicy, but delicious.

Helen’s Soul Food Friday’s Meal #9

Here we have colored butterbeans, summer squash with Vidalia onions, creamed potatoes, fried cubed steak, and some very crumbly cornbread.

Helen’s Soul Food Friday’s Meal #8

Yes! Meat Loaf! The meal was rounded out with creamed potatoes, cornbread, mushrooms, English peas and carrots, and butterbeans. I severely miss these kinds of vegetables in my diet.

Helen’s Soul Food Friday’s Meal #7

Here we have a fried veal cutlet, creamed potatoes, cornbread, spinach and boiled eggs, and rutabagas. Helen’s veal cutlet would just melt in your mouth and she always put lots of hot and vinegary cayenne pepper sauce on my spinach and rutabagas. I can remember Helen always complaining when we had rutabagas as she had a touch of arthritis in her hands and it hurt to cut them up and dice them.

Helen’s Soul Food Fridays Meal #6

Not only did Helen excel at soul food, she could grill a mean ribeye as well.

Helen’s Soul Food Friday Meal #5

Helen could make the best mac and cheese. Couldn't you tell how much she loved me by how much she gave me on this plate? Here we have mac and cheese, a fried pork chop, brussels’s sprouts, and colored butterbeans. There is a story behind colored butterbeans emanating from the Deep South I will have to tell sometime.

Helen’s Soul Food Friday Meal #3

This was a whopper of a meal that took a man sized plate. We had cubed steak with gravy, colored butterbeans, steamed broccoli, white rice and gravy, biscuits, and fried okra.

Helen’s Soul Food Fridays Meal #2

Here was a tasty meal. We had a fried chicken breast, brussels's sprouts, creamed potatoes, chowder peas, and corn bread.

Helen’s Soul Food Friday Meal #1

I have hundreds of these photos of Helen’s Friday meal. I am going to start posting one a day so we can all reminisce back to the good old days. Here was my favorite Helen meal. Meatloaf, mac and cheese, cornbread, colored butterbeans, and steamed cabbage.

I Miss Helen Deeply...

I really could use some of Helen's meatloaf about right now. 

Remember Helen?

Man, I miss these kinds of meals every Friday. Helen called my father recently wanting her job back, but my father says he doesn't need extra help anymore now that my mother has passed away.

"She'd just be under my feet all the time," my father told me.

Last Chance Lost...

Ah, dinner rolls, mashed tators, English peas, and meatloaf

Dad told me last night that Helen called him late yesterday afternoon and asked for her old job back.

"She didn't even know your mother had passed away," he said.

Dad told her he could manage on his own now seeing he's the only person living there and let's not forget the cat.

"I was also tired of her having to borrow money all the time," my father added to the conversation.

I sure do miss Helen's meals, though. I mainly miss the Southern-style vegetables. Helen would cook 2 and sometimes 3 vegetables with her meals. The vegetables, though dad touts them as healthy, are laughable on the Marie Callendar meals.

Missing Helen Today...

You Could've Let Us Down Gently...

What we could have had...

I looked at the clock above my bed and it read 4 pm.

"I've got to stop doing this!" I said to myself scoldingly. "Regular people don't sleep to 4 pm every day."

Unless you are my mother and it is the norm. At least, I am getting twelve hours of peaceful and much-needed sleep every day. I think it helps me mentally. The Magster just loves and adores this schedule we are on.

The first thing I did upon waking was to call mom to see what Helen cooked this afternoon.

"Helen didn't cook today," mom sleepily said. "She called in and said she was sick."

I had awoken The Secretary and she sounded perturbed. I was so looking forward to Helen's meals this weekend.

"Your daddy's going to cook supper tonight," mom continued. "He will bring you a plate when he comes with your medications."

Maggie and I were going to have breakfast for supper before my mom said that.

I had to do a little coercing to get my mother to put out my drinks. She didn't want to leave the bed. Dad was in his bedroom taking a nap as well.

You Know? You Could Have Read the Manual...

But the manual to that Z97 deluxe motherboard is thick as a book! I figured out my computer ram problem. There is a tiny dip switch on my motherboard that you can set to "extreme memory profile" and a green LED will light up.  It was switched to on causing my ram to be highly overclocked and unresponsive. I turned it off and everyone is playing nice now. Long live the "ghetto" computer! It really is a mongrel and Mötley Crüe of parts.

This is Where the Fun Begins...

In addition to the mac and cheese and meatloaf yesterday, we had buttery creamed potatoes, turnip greens, and earthy mashed rutabagas.  A total soul food extravaganza!

I just ate my savory lunch and was overjoyed when Helen liberally sprinkled hot pepper sauce all over my turnip greens and the rutabagas. Vinegary and spicy! Just the way I like them.

"I hope you like deviled eggs," dad told me a little while ago over our phones. "Your mother is sending you six of them. I am also sending you some of Charlie's chocolate pie he cooked for your brother's birthday last night. It is divine!"

"Bring it on!" I said excitedly as my father laughed.

"It is amazing we are all not 300 pounds the way we eat," my father replied as his tone turned to seriousness.

Maggie knew something was up as soon as I locked the front door after arriving home from my parent's house and headed to the kitchen with two big Tupperware containers of food and another sack of assorted goodies. Maggie was right behind me. She started to beg like crazy so I gave her a big slice of meatloaf which she relished and almost literally inhaled in hungry dog fashion.

"Maggie, you didn't even give the food time to taste it!"

image credit:  http://www.tasteofsouthern.com/mashed-rutabagas/

Weep Not For Helen Is Here...

Mom let the cat out of the bag when I called her last hour. Hot dog!

"Helen is cooking your favorite meal," my mother told me. "We are having creamed potatoes, meatloaf, and macaroni and cheese."

I told my mother to call me as soon as Helen had prepared my plate. Helen always puts an extra heaping portion of mac and cheese on my plate as she knows I adore it so much. My stomach is grumbling something fierce at the moment. It is going to be a long wait until 3 pm when Helen usually finishes cooking. I can hear her say now, "Hope you enjoy it, baby."

"Yes Ma'am. I certainly will," I would reply. "Thank you!"

My father will not eat leftovers.  He only eats freshly cooked meals.  That means the leftovers come and live with me.  I should have three supper plates to eat this weekend.  I couldn't come at a more opportune time as I wasn't very thrifty with my eating habits and food consumption this week.

A grand meal from Helen's past.