Ann, try saving it to your Clippings. Look to the right of your last post (just above this). You will see the word Clippings in green letters. Under that it will say Clip This Post. For each recipe or comment you want to save, click on Clip This Post. Another way to do it is to highlight the entire thread, or the parts you want, right click with your mouse and then click on Copy. Start a new document in Word and paste the thread into that document, then save it to your computer. If you want me to do that for you and then email it to you, let me know.

LOL! Cathy, it's the flowery part that's purple, but it's really Crayola style purple! The stems are still white and the leaves green. It stays purple when cooked, though the shade is affected by caramelization and such like. They also have a dusty yellow color and a leaf green. The purple is from the same antioxidant that colors red cabbage, and has be bred for prominence. The yellow (officially called "orange") is bred from a Canadian mutant. I'm not sure about the green, but just as there's a cabbagy purple, the green is also cabbagy in color (cauliflower is a cabbage cousin). But it just tastes like cauliflower. I roasted it yesterday along with the chicken, and steamed the purple asparagus (just has an outer purple tinge, like any variegated plant, and, like dragon beans, lost the purple in the cooking, so what a waste! It's not like asparagus or big tough beans make for nice eating raw!). Took them with some red jasmine rice to another one who'd had an out patient procedure. Colorful dinner, plain and nutritious, but my house reeked when we opened the door. I don't know how other people don't smell the sulphur! Thank-you for the kind wishes. She's doing well, but it's going to be a long recovery. John, I've heard of the potato trick but haven't eaten it. The main tricks I discovered were to use a smaller diameter pot than you'd think and use the end of your spoon to poke holes in the rice layer. And really truly use the dish wrapped in the towel. Maybe Modernist Cuisine guys or other food scientists can improve on it, but mammas have been doing it this way for at least a century, so just do what they tell you! Most recipes call for it, and I've been warned to steer clear of those that think they can do without it.

No problem finding real grits on line from Anson Mills. I buy a ten pound bag of coarse pencil cob grits and then divide them up into several Foodsaver bags and store them in the freezer. I put them in a Ziplock freezer bag before I put them into the Foodsaver bag so that it will be easier to vacuum seal the Foodsaver bags. The grits from Anson Mills taste like fresh corn, but I add frozen corn to them anyway to get even more corn flavor. Here's another source for South Carolina grits, but I have not tried these yet.

This is Dorie Greenspan’s Mediterranean Shepherd’s Pie. I love it. For your parents, you might want to leave out the harissa and substitute lemon zest and oregano for the more exotic spices. I do. I use sweet potatoes instead of butternut squash and spinach instead of kale. Since they aren’t leafy greens fans, you can use small green peas instead of kale. Amish-Style Oatmeal with Apples and Walnuts. Freezes well. You can easily change out the fruit and nuts to whatever you like. I generally leave out the nuts because I don’t like them. Hamburger and Macaroni A comfort food for me. My grandmother used to make something very similar. Not a casserole, but how about some ready to heat sandwiches? Hot Roast Beef Sandwiches. I made these for DD when she had the twins. She sometimes needed food she could eat with one hand. You can omit the cheese. I also omitted the poppyseeds. Would they enjoy something like tacos? You could prepare and freeze the meat. Send it with taco shells and salsa. If they would get to it soon enough, you could also send diced tomatoes and shredded lettuce. I hope you have better luck with your parents, than I had with my mom. I cooked up a bunch of things that I knew she liked. Froze them in individual portions and took them to her. Everything was labeled along with cooking time and temp. One day when my sister was checking on her, she noticed all of the stuff in the freezer, mostly untouched. When she asked Mom about it, Mom said I had sent a bunch of leftovers and she really didn’t want them. That was the end of my cooking for my mother.