I love going to visit my mom and dad in WV. I don’t go just for the food, but it is a very nice bonus. I always eat some of my favorite foods (and my mom makes them better than anyone!)

Here are some of the foods I’m looking forward to enjoying on my visit later this week. We may not make it through all of them, but we will give it a “Good Eater” try.

Blueberries. Plump, juicy and warm off the bush. Blueberry Hill is a pick-your-own blueberry farm near my folks and blueberries are in season. Mom and Dad pick and freeze berries to use all year and I’ll get to eat LOTS of berries while I’m home. We plan to pick on Thursday and I will try to put more in my bucket than my belly, but there is no guarantee! And, come to think of it, I did have a photo of blueberries on my Vision Board I made at the beginning of the year.

Tomato Dumplings. Maybe this is a WV thing. I haven’t met many people who have eaten tomato dumplings. They are perfectly yummy little bread dumplings in a slightly sweet tomato soup/sauce that includes chunks of tomato. My mom’s goal is to have a pot full of “happy” dumplings (light and fluffy inside). There are usually a few “sad” ones that are more doughy in the middle, but still quite tasty. Crowding seems to make them sad. (It does the same thing for me, so I can relate!)

Cabbage Rolls. Just a perfect blend of cooked cabbage leaves stuffed with spiced ground beef along with some tomatoes and onions. There are always leftovers that just get better as the ingredients marinate together. Lean Cuisine has a frozen cabbage roll that Ben and I like for a quick dinner, but nothing holds a candle to my mom’s made from scratch version!

Fried Green Tomatoes. Some restaurants around Atlanta offer fried green tomatoes on their menu, but they usually have waaay too much breading on them. They just can’t compare to Mom’s! Her version is lightly breaded with cornmeal and fried until golden brown. And, at her house, I eat them just as they come out of the skillet. She will have green tomatoes in her garden, but their local produce stand often has green ones so there isn’t the dilemma of picking tomatoes before Mom has ripe ones. It shows how much she loves me that she will sacrifice a few green ones when I’m home! (It isn’t an issue later in the summer, but mid July is when the first ripe ones come in.)

Chocolate Chip Cookies. These come from my Aunt Doris and they truly are spectacular. The last few times I’ve been to WV, she has come to my mom’s with the cookie dough and baked them while we visit. Then I get to eat some of the raw cookie dough (yummmm) and hot cookies right from the oven. I have a hard time hitting my “I’ve had enough” button when it comes to Doris Ann’s chocolate chip cookies! Bring on the stretchy pants!

I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, I do enjoy a wide variety of food and LOVE it when someone else cooks it!

What are some of the foods you love?

Tags: blueberries, Blueberry Hill, cabbage rolls, chocolate chip cookies, dad, fried green tomatoes, mom, WV

This entry was posted on July 19, 2009 at 10:34 pm and is filed under food, random thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.