When I opened the freezer door at the Winn-Dixie at first I started laughing, then I looked at the price and gasped but, most of all, my mind went back to March 1967.

I’ve told the whole story and have referred to them many times but it was that month and that year that I joined Weight Watchers and I distinctly remember leaving with the program I was to follow and a couple of recipes to see me through the first week. I would use one of them for ten years. The other recipe, baking mushrooms until they were crunchy like peanuts just didn’t fool me!

The recipe I made a lot of came under the category of ‘free’ vegetables meaning you could eat as much as you wanted of them and I did! You take a head or a box of frozen or even two of either, or more, and boil them until they are soft enough to be mashed up. You then could add imitation butter flavoring, salt, pepper, dehydrated onion flakes (onion themselves were not ‘free’), garlic powder or any other variations with free items, spices, herbs and extracts or flavorings. You then put it in a baking pan and bake until the top is brown.

That my friend is Weight Watcher’s ‘mashed potatoes’ and here, 51 years later, Bird’s Eye is making ‘original mashed cauliflower’ but it cost a lot more than the dish I made two weeks ago. Yes, I still make some of the old WW recipes.

And I still have the original cookbook I bought in 1967!