Aubergine parmigiana and cheesy garlic flatbread, apple crumble and strawberry cheesecake ice cream

Apologies for the lack of post yesterday: I was having a Sad Day. Sad Days are never easy, but are particularly difficult to handle when living with mum and being functionally housebound so I can’t go anywhere private to feel my feelings.

Instead I played a tower defence game on my phone, over and over for hours, restarting every time I lost, to drown out my thoughts on mum’s repeated rhetorical questions of “what’s wrong with me today?” each time she misplaced a word and her plans for all the things she’s going to do “when she’s better”. In truth, what’s wrong with her is dementia, and it’s going to get worse not better. There’s no point in reminding her of this multiple times a day, though, and breaking her heart each time; instead I smile and nod or shake my head, change the subject, and feel my heart shattering a little more each time.

Why, when I was in this frame of mind, I decided to watch the animated version of Julia Donaldson’s Tabby McTat I do not know. Despite its ostensibly happy ending, the tale of a cat with a very loud voice separated from his owner made me miss my own singing cat so much my eyes repeatedly filled with tears I hid from mum, because I didn’t want to admit I was crying over a kids’ tv show.

(And I didn’t just make myself cry again writing that out, honest. 😥)

Anyway (sniff), dinner was one of my long-time favourites that I wanted to share with mum: aubergine parmigiana with cheesy garlic flatbread, both from Iceland’s Piccolino Italian range.

The aubergine parmigiana is generous with the aubergine, which is cooked to the falling apart stage (although not enough to actually fall apart, leaving me struggling with increasing frustration to extract it from its cooking container while staying standing on my wobbly legs; eventually mum came to my rescue while the carer sat and watched YouTube videos on her phone. Which is fair enough, I guess, as she’s mum’s carer not mine, but would it have killed her to give me a hand?).

The tomato sauce is also generously portioned and, despite the generous amount of cheese on top, means it’s a healthier ready meal option. (I think, anyway. If the nutrition info on the box proves me wrong, I don’t want to know.)

The cheese and garlic flatbread is actually quite fat and fluffy, crunchy around the edges and soft in the middle and with a flavour good enough to eat on its own. Topped with lots of creamy garlic sauce and melty cheese, I could eat the whole thing in one sitting. I would greatly regret it if I did, of course, but I could.

Dessert was mum’s idea not mine. (I feel the need to state that for the record, so you don’t all think my sweet tooth is getting out of hand. (The two mince pies I just had for a very late breakfast don’t count as I had to have them so I could take my tablets. (I could have had something else, but why would I when mince pies were an option? (I think my parentheses are getting a touch out of hand here. 😬)))).

I have previously reviewed the apple crumble, which was an Aunt Bessie’s one and still very good, but the strawberry cheesecake ice cream is new. It’s not particularly cheesecake-y, with only a scattering of biscuit pieces on the top and the ice cream tasting more of creamy vanilla than of the supposed cheesecake flavour, but it was very nice with the sweet-sour, crunchy-topped apple crumble.

And now it’s somehow already gone 11am, I haven’t yet had my morning meds, and mum has discovered that she has run out of hers without any of the carers noticing despite them giving the tablets to her every day. I have also run out of some of mine (with no-one to blame for that but myself) and have to work out how to get them to me when I can’t leave the house.

Nothing is ever simple, is it? And here I was hoping 2025 would be better. 😐