A New Cooking Experience

Last night we had some friends over for dinner.  Usually I look forward to making some super delicious food for get-togethers such as last night's.  When we invite company over we indulge a bit with the foods that we offer.  The meal I make for company coming over is never the type of meal I serve up during the week.  I don't worry about it being a healthy meal per say, because it's a special time to come together and simply enjoy good company and yummy food.  We typically eat quite healthy in our household.  Not as healthy as we probably could but still I am mindful of healthy versus unhealthy.  For myself I try hard to make healthy meals during the week and then eat whatever I want on the weekend.  That seems to be a good balance for me.  So as health conscience as I am there are other people in this world that are much more health conscience than myself.  Our dinner guests last night fall into the latter category.

The wife in the couple has to be concerned about the foods she eats because she has a super serious digestive disease.  This was my first time ever cooking for someone with a digestive disease.  I happily accepted the challenge for cooking for the 4 of us early in the week.  I did research on my own.  Planned out a meal for Saturday night.  As I was grocery shopping yesterday we finally got the actual "food list" from our friend.  That's when I got more nervous.  Seeing the food list of things she can eat was so limited.  One of my planned dishes had to be scrapped.   We soon made a repeat trip to the grocery store to make sure we had enough to offer her for dinner.

I'll admit when it came time to start the meal I was a little, shall I say, uninspired.  It was quite different than how I would usually cook for company.  I would usually do so much more than what I was actually having to do.  So in a way it was kind of nice.  In another way it was completely worrisome because I didn't want to mess up and do something that was going to make her sick for the evening. 

Everything I used had to organic.  That part wasn't hard for me.  The hardest part was seasoning.  She can't have any type of seasonings or marinades.  Everything I made had to be "naked".  I'm so used to marinades and seasonings.  I'm quite big on marinated meat!  I had to use my brain a lot to figure out ways to infuse some flavor in these dishes without using my go-to seasonings or marinades. I was pleasantly surprised the meal turned out great.  Whew! 

It was a wonderful experience to cook in that manner too.  It was different from what we normally do.  We do things healthy.  Whereas this was doing things in an "ultra healthy" manner. I roasted a naked organic chicken and baked some salmon.  Because I wanted her to have an option of meat.  Both Brad and I agree we need a marinade on salmon to truly enjoy it.  As for the chicken, I will roast another chicken exactly like that in the future for us.  It turned out well enough to repeat on a regular basis.  I did find ways to infuse flavor in the chicken because I stuffed it with organic products plus I cooked those same organic products nestled around it. We also had 3 side dishes to offer.  Two of which she could enjoy and one that would please my husband! 

All in all the evening meal went very well! I must say though it is a different type of pressure cooking for someone that has a digestive disease.  Cooking for people that can enjoy any foods has a small amount of pressure.  Simply because you want people to like what you cooked. Plus you want everything to get done correctly and at the correct time.  That's the usual pressure I feel when making a big meal for company.  This was the first time I've had added concerns based on someone's dietary requirements.  It was quite an experience and one that I will gladly repeat next time we invite these friends over.