true dedication

And THIS post is dedicated to my dedicated Mommy:
After dedicating previous posts to all my other wonderful parents, I now pause to give praise where praise is certainly due. To my Mommy.

If we're going to talk about cooking, Rachael Ray holds nothing to my Mom, who made our family three square meals, with variety, every day for 30-something years. She breast-fed her three children, cooked and ground up (in those '70s white hand grinders) our baby food, and worked hard to give us wholesome meals before Whole Foods and organic markets where around. And she kept us from making bad food choices, like Fruit Loops (oh how good they tasted at camp though!), and enforced the "one sweet a day" rule, which I intend to carry on.

Every once in a while she would let on how hard it was to come up with a new meal every night. But she did it anyway. And in trying to teach Kerry and me to cook, she asked us to make one meal a week when we were in our 20's and living at home...but I don't think we did it that often. Sorry, Mom.

Now, 38 years into her marriage and industrious cooking career, she is more committed than ever to healthful eating and living. I have heard much of a certain Vegetable Soup that she makes in huge vats and eats every day for lunch. It's so good that Daddy eats it to, and raves about it. Somehow they don't get tired of it (now that's good soup!).

She even typed up many of our family's favorite recipes, printed them on big index cards, and made recipe boxes for me and Kerry, for Christmas recently. What a gift! In fact, I just used one of those little cards yesterday in making her Zucchini Casserole, which actually gets yummier the longer it's "leftover." Even picky eaters (not just Steve this time) said "mmm" to the zucchini.

Thank you for your legacy, Mommy. Your happy and healthy grandchildren will rise up to call you blessed, when their friends are flipped out on junk food and sick all the time. "Better is a meal of vegetables where love is, than a fattened calf and hatred therewith." But we got the vegetables, the fattened calf, AND lots and lots o' love. Thank you, Mommy.

Zucchini Casserole
1 lb. lean ground beef (or I tried ground bison this time and it was fabulous! less grisly and more flavorful, not to mention better for you than beef)
2 onions, chopped
2 T. oil
1 16 oz. can diced tomatoes
1 8 oz can tomato sauce
1 green pepper, chopped
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1 t. minced garlic
1/2 t. oregano
4 medium zucchini, sliced into bite-sized pieces
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese

Brown meat in large Dutch oven. Drain and remove from pot. Saute onion in oil. (Or reverse those and cook together.) Return browned beef to pot. Add tomatoes, sauce, and green pepper. Simmer 10 min. Stir in cheddar cheese, salt, oregano. When cheese is melted, stire and then fold in zucchini. Simmer 5 min. Turn into shallow baking dish (9x13). Sprinkle parmesan cheese over casserole. Bake about 30 min (until bubbly) on 325 degrees.