Ten things I cannot do without

Try watching the Cooking Channel for 10 minutes without seeing repeated references to butter, cream, sugar or bacon. Forget Paula Deen. And her sons. Ditto the Neelys.
Since moving in with my mother, I have had to alter what I cook and bake to fit her dietary requirements. Everything needs to be not only sugar-free, it can be no more than around 3% fat. She has had pancreatitis five times, and we have almost lost her twice.
Mom can't have Nutrasweet and neither can I --- She went to a neurologist who thought she had a brain tumor until she stopped using so much aspartame. If someone slips me a diet drink with Nutrasweet, it makes my ears ring and I feel like I'm coming onto a hit of acid. I have been making do with agave syrup, Splenda, erythritol and xylitol.
Then there are the butter alternatives. I can't stand "I Can't Believe It's Not Butter." I reluctantly use Smart Squeeze. I used to buy chocolate, Nutella, brie and sour cream, plus croissants, kielbasa and pork spare ribs. No more.
Going shopping is now an exercise in label-reading. My mother was quite irked this week while at Trader Joe's to discover that the can of sardines she craved are verboten, even those packed in tomato sauce or spring water. We made do with two cans of smoked trout packed in oil and brine, which are 6%, okay for an occasional treat.
Today, I made pasta for Sunday dinner using Trader Joe's organic whole wheat rotini with tomato sauce, fresh basil and zucchini from our garden, sweet red pepper and rounds of Beeman's Old World Gourmet Sausage with smoked mozzarella, artichoke and garlic, which is only 5% fat. Topped with the 2% grated parmesan from Grocery Outlet, which is also where I found the sausage, it was a respectable dish of pasta.
For dessert, I made mixed fruit cobbler. Into a deep Pyrex baking dish, I sliced big black plums that were sweet but a bit hard, mixing them with an already cooked apple compote, a couple of spoons of no-sugar huckleberry preserves, cinnamon, nutmeg, agave syrup and a little of the commercial brown sugar/Splenda mixture, plus a sprinkle of tiny tapioca beads as thickener. I topped the fruit with a batter made with buttermilk, Eggbeaters, flour, agave syrup, Splenda, vanilla, baking soda and 1/2 tsp. non-aluminum baking powder, sprinkling the top with cinnamon and nutmeg.
Because the plums were a bit hard, I cooked the fruit mixture in the covered casserole dish in the microwave about 4 minutes, with 2 or 3 T. of juice to give it a start. Then I topped it with the batter and baked it at 325 degrees for about 40 minutes. It tastes satisyingly of summer.

I get tired of my own cooking sometimes, and I have the guilty pleasures of Chinese buffets or sushi bars to resort to when away from home for a few hours by myself.
Today, I vacillated over whether to drive into Vancouver for an oil change (and sushi!), but did the dutiful thing and stayed home to make Sunday dinner while Mom was at church.
Instead of Jiffy Lube, I climbed on the folding ladder, and added a little radiator fluid and a quart of high-mileage oil to my delapidated F-150, which is no doubt Clunker-worthy and really does need an oil change. It will have to wait until my next paycheck. Today is the last day for that controversial Clunker incentive program, but I am too proud, and I don't need another monthly payment. I think junking a working vehicle to make another car is just as damaging to the environment, if not more so.
I am doing my part by being less dependent on junk/convenience foods and buying or growing a much healthier diet. Two cylindrical purple eggplant are about three inches long now, with loads of beautiful purple blooms. I picked another zucchini and two tomatoes today. We will soon have quite a crop of heirloom and paste tomatoes in the planter boxes next to the house. There are about eight jars of sugar-free elderberry jelly and peach/pineapple, raspberry and blackberry jam on the shelf. With corn, peaches, plums and other produce from the local farmers market and fruit stands, we are living quite high on the (lowfat) hog this summer. Now if I could just slip away long enough to pick a few huckleberries...

The list of 10 things I cannot do without:
* low sodium chicken broth in cartons
* canola cooking spray
* La Baleine des salins du midi (coarse sea salt from France)
* organic blue agave syrup from Trader Joe's
* Laughing Cow light garlic & herb cheese wedges (for crackers and cheese midnight snacks)
* Fresh Finds chopped dehydrated garlic ($1 a jar at Big Lots)
* Chiquilin pimenton ahumado (smoked paprika from Spain)
* Orowheat multi-grain sandwich thins
* Dreyer's Slow-Churned No-Sugar vanilla ice cream with Splenda (5%)
* Trader Joe's Mixed Wild Mushroom Medley, an imported dried mix with porcini, shiitake, black and oyster mushrooms. The packets are quite reasonable at under $2 for 25 grams and the wild flavors are great in soup, in risotto, etc. There were none in the aisles for a couple of months because of a shipping snafu. I was persistent in my inquiries until they were at last in stock again. I also like packages of dried shiitake sliced mushrooms from Uwajimaya.