How can you have any pudding if you don't eat yer meat?!?!?!!

Often for me, it is the opposite.
I am practically force-fed pudding and can't have much meat because a lot of the time I can't chew it (damn you, mouth!)

Oh, the simple joys of frequent mouth surgery / complications!
People think it must be nice, being doped up on Lortab constantly, eating Jell-O and ice cream and soft and/or liquefied treats. It's not. It's boring and gross and no, I don't want my steak in a blender!
Over the Easter holiday everybody was eating steaks. First my Dad threw some huge mothers on the grill for my Mom's birthday, and then the Father-in-Law served up filet mignon in a teriyaki bath on Sunday.
I was dying. After my surgery on Goof Friday I was all stitched up and sore and struggling to open my mouth more than half an inch. I'm just not good at this.
After my big surgery last year, I was on a liquid diet for 6 weeks and it was torture!! Even now I feel like I'm making up for lost time, so I said SCREW IT!! and cut those steaks into minuscule little nibbles, enveloped them in mashed potatoes, and shoveled the whole thing in.
I realized I was taking even bigger portions than I do when my mouth is happy and pain free--
there is just something about being told "you can't eat anything delicious and in the realm of chewy" that makes you famished.

I could eat these babies without a struggle (besides getting pink frosting all over my nose and staining my hands red with the food coloring I used to make the frosting pink!).

I made them for my Madre.

Here we are enjoying the unseasonably warm day (I actually got a slight sunburn!)

Ignore my swollen jaw.

And I got an Easter massage!

Nothing quite like it.
It was more of a tickle, but don't tell Emma!

All this writing of masticating food reminds me of the lovely yellow booklet my oral surgeon gave me following my major operation last year, when I did the liquid diet for 6 weeks.

It was called "Dinner Through a Straw" (I'm not kidding)\

and had recipes like the one you see above (Chicken A La Leftover, yum yum).

And one for a liquid pizza, which consisted of marinara sauce, Cheeze Whiz, and crumbled oregano.

If that doesn’t get your appetite revved up, then..well, you’re like me. And completely disgusted with abnormal food textures. Steak was never intended for a food processor.

Food Chewers UNITE!