Recipe of the Month – July

Traditional English Trifle

Ingredients:
Serves 1
20g crumbled sponge cake
2 tsp sweet sherry
40g fresh strawberries or raspberries or frozen (defrosted)
1.5 cubes jelly block dissolved in 75ml boiling water.
60ml thick homemade or tinned custard
60ml whipping cream or squirty cream

Method
1. Line the bottom of dish or glass with the crumbled or sliced cake.
2. Sprinkle with sherry; soak for 5 mins.
3. If you are using fresh strawberries, slice thickly (save a few for decoration);
if you are using thawed fruit, leave them whole. Lay the fruit evenly over
the cake. Press lightly with fork to release the juices.
4. Pour the liquid jelly over the sponge. Place in the fridge and leave until jelly is set (approx. 2 hours). Once set, spoon over a thick layer of custard.
Finish with a layer of whipped or squirty cream.
Decorate with strawberry slices or raspberries and toasted flaked almonds, if using.
Omit the sherry if serving to children.

Cooking for One – a collection of recipes and stories written by the bereaved offering wisdom, insight, love and hope.

Cooking for One contains no platitudes about what a great healer time can be, it is a candid account of the raw pain and utter loneliness that grief can bring about. Those who have opened up about their grief have told it as it really is, not what they think people want to hear. They tell you what has helped and the lessons that they have learned along the way.

So, as well as containing delicious recipes, Cooking for One aims to serve as a personal handbook designed to help the bereaved navigate their personal pathway of grief. Despite people telling them that they ‘really ought to be getting over the worst of it by now’ – and however much they appear to be outwardly coping – perhaps the pain will never fully fade and nor would they wish it to.

Arthur’s Story

My dad, Arthur, was a kind, gentle man who never asked for much but loved being with his family. He also enjoyed the outdoors, having spent most of his working life on farms. After he retired, he was always busy and helped people with gardening and odd jobs, never keeping still for very long and also caring for my mum.

In June 2017, Dad said he was struggling to eat his food and swallow; he had recently had some teeth removed so we put it down to this, but when it became worse we went
to see his GP. He was referred for all sorts of tests, and after initially fearing the worst, we were reassured when the tests didn’t show anything nasty.

As the weeks went on, Dad still wasn’t improving and his general health started to deteriorate. After some tests for what we thought was a water infection, he was admitted to hospital as his kidney function had dropped dramatically; even at this point, the GP reassured us this could be treated.

After two weeks in hospital, Dad was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and because of his poor kidney function was unable to have treatment. He was given a high dose of steroids to try to improve this, but the following Monday, we were told that his cancer was terminal and aggressive and he had a ‘few months’ to live. He was only able to have palliative care. As you can imagine, this was a shock to the whole family. Dad came home the same day and as a family, we said we had to make the most of the time we still had with him and to make some more happy memories. Dad was very brave through all of this, and we tried hard to help him cope with everything.

Unfortunately, after his first week at home, Dad started to deteriorate quickly and the next four weeks were the hardest we have all had to live through. Dad sadly passed away
on 3 August 2017, just five short weeks after his diagnosis. As hard as it was for us, we knew we couldn’t have wished him to stay with us and suffer anymore.

At all the family dinners we had over the years, a trifle became a must for dessert. No matter how full Dad was, he always had room for a ‘little bit’ of trifle, as this was one of his favourites.

I haven’t been able to make a trifle since we lost Dad, but I hope in the future I will and remember all the happy times with Dad when this was our dessert.

For information on Rosedale’s bereavement support group, please click here.