Week Two: Family Favourites

We’re into the second week of the experiment. Last week leaned heavily into the 1950s–1970s roast-dinner tradition — closer to a strict Palaeolithic approach with whole cuts of meat and simple vegetables. This week we’ve stepped back from that and gone straight to the family favourites: the meals everyone actually asks for, the recipes that live in my head rather than a cookbook, the dinners that reliably get eaten without complaint.

The mix this week is interesting from a Parkinson’s medication perspective. We have some higher-protein nights (the bolognese, the hamburgers) and some where protein is much lower or spread differently (hot dogs, curried sausages on toast). The taco night and pizza night also give us something to watch: processed carbs versus homemade bases, and whether the combination of protein and carbohydrate timing makes a visible difference.

We’re not following a strict protocol. We’re just paying attention — which is probably what good cooking has always required.

This Week’s Menu at a Glance

	Dinner	Notes for Parkinson’s Observation
🍝	Spaghetti Bolognese	Higher protein night. Homemade pasta is slower-digesting than dried — interesting to watch.
🌮	Tacos	Moderate protein. Taco seasoning is homemade so no hidden additives.
🍕	Pizza	Ham, bacon and egg on top — higher protein than a plain pizza. The egg broken on top before baking is a nice old-school touch and worth watching alongside the tablet timing.
🍔	Hamburgers	Straightforward protein with bun. Good comparison to last week’s steak night.
🍞	Curried Sausages on Toast	Old-fashioned comfort food. Protein spread across a starchy base.
🥔	Bangers and Mash	Classic sausage and mash. Gravy adds flavour without extra protein load.
🌭	Hot Dogs	Light and quick. Lower protein load than a full meat dinner.

The Recipes

🍝 Spaghetti Bolognese

Ingredients

500g mince
Garlic
Spaghetti (homemade)
1 onion, diced
Any other vegetables you want
1 can crushed or diced tomato
1 can tomato soup
Mixed herbs or Italian herbs
Worcestershire sauce
Salt and pepper

Method

Start boiling salted water for pasta; add pasta once boiling and cook per instructions.
Add mince, onion, salt and garlic to a frypan and brown the mince (depending on the mince you may not need to add oil).
Once mince is browned, add any other vegetables, both tomato cans, herbs, and Worcestershire sauce. Bring to a simmer.
Season to taste. Add tomato sauce if you want more tomato flavour.
Optional: stir pasta through the mince before serving, or plate pasta then top with sauce.
Once plated, add cheese of your choice.

🌮 Tacos

Ingredients

Tacos — hard or soft shells (or homemade if you’re feeling adventurous)
500g mince
Taco seasoning (recipe below)
1 onion, diced
Salsa
Fillings of your choice — we usually use sour cream and cheese

Method

Brown the mince and diced garlic with a little salt.
Add taco seasoning and 2–3 teaspoons of salsa.
Cook through, heat taco shells, and serve.

Note: If using a taco kit, simply follow the box instructions.

Note: Alternative serving idea: bowl with mince, salsa and cheese, with quartered tortillas as edible cutlery.

Homemade Taco Seasoning

1 tsp paprika
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp garlic powder
½ tsp chilli powder (or chilli flakes)
½ tsp salt

🍕 Pizza

Ingredients

Pizza dough (store-bought or homemade)
Pizza sauce (store-bought or homemade)

His pizza (egg on top)

Ham, sliced
Bacon pieces
Cheese (generous handful)
1 egg (broken on top before baking)

Everyone else’s pizza (BBQ swirl)

Ham, sliced
Bacon pieces
Pepperoni or salami
Cheese (generous handful)
BBQ sauce (for swirling on after cooking)

Method

Spread pizza sauce over the dough.
Layer ham, bacon, and pepperoni/salami (or ham and bacon only for his pizza) over the sauce.
Add a generous handful of cheese.
For his pizza: make a small well in the centre of the cheese and break an egg into it.
Bake per dough instructions until the cheese is golden (and the egg white is just set, for his).
For everyone else’s pizza: swirl BBQ sauce over the top straight out of the oven.

🍔 Hamburgers

Ingredients

500g mince
1 onion, sliced
Salt and pepper
Burger buns (or 2 large lettuce leaves per person as an alternative)
Lettuce
Tomato
Cheese
Sauce of your choice

Method

Add mince, salt and pepper to a bowl. Mix gently and form into patties.
Cook patties 4–5 minutes each side.
Cook sliced onion in the same pan until soft.
Toast buns if desired. Alternatively, use two large lettuce leaves in place of the bun for a lighter option.
Assemble with lettuce, tomato, cheese, onion and sauce.
Serve.

🍞 Curried Sausages on Toast

Ingredients

500g sausages
1 onion, diced
1 carrot, diced
Optional: apple (diced) or potato (diced)
Curry powder, to taste
2 cups stock — chicken or beef
Salt and pepper
Jam

Method

Cook sausages and chop into pieces.
Brown onion and carrot (and potato if using).
Add stock, curry powder, and apple if using.
Simmer 3–5 minutes. Add flour if you want a thicker sauce.
Season to taste.
Serve on toast, rice, or mashed potato.
Add a spoonful of jam on top — according to J, curried sausages without jam are simply not legal. Trust us on this one: try it before you judge it.

🥔 Bangers and Mash

Ingredients

Sausages
Onion
Potato
Gravy (store-bought or homemade)

Method

Put chopped potatoes on to boil.
Cook sausages and onion.
Drain and mash potatoes.
Serve with gravy.

Note: There are good homemade gravy recipes online if you want to make it from scratch.

🌭 Hot Dogs

Ingredients

Frankfurts
Hot dog buns
Toppings of your choice
Sauces of your choice

Method

Boil frankfurts until cooked through.
Serve in a hot dog bun — use scissors to open the bun cleanly.
Add toppings and sauces.

Note: To reduce bread, serve one frankfurt in a roll and one on the side with dipping sauce.

🧡 Optional — Carrot Muffins

Not a dinner, but worth baking for the week. A good lunchbox addition and a way to use up carrots from the vegetable box.

Ingredients

2 cups grated carrot
2 eggs
¾ cup sugar
½ cup oil
1½ cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon (optional)
½ cup milk

Method

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Mix wet ingredients, then stir in grated carrot.
Add dry ingredients and combine.
Spoon into a muffin tray.
Bake 20–25 minutes.

Part of an ongoing series tracking diet and Parkinson’s medication response.

Observations — Week of 30 April

I went quite back to basics this week, and it seemed to pay off. As well as the dinners on the menu, there was a lot happening in the kitchen throughout the week.
I made our own bread — using the bread maker for the dough, then transferring to a new bread tin. Still working out the right size, and I think the yeast was past its best. New yeast purchased, so we’ll see how that goes. I also made jelly throughout the week, which doesn’t seem to affect the tablets. Custard was made too, which we already know is medication safe. Butter was made twice during the week, and some of the buttermilk was turned into pancakes for one brunch. The ice cream maker also got a workout — vanilla ice cream and raspberry sorbet. The sorbet doesn’t seem to affect medication, and homemade ice cream appears to be much safer than the store-bought variety. And with the jam running out, I made a mixed berry jam to restock. Needless to say, the carrot muffins got pushed to the side this week.

As for the meals, everything worked as expected — they are family favourites after all, so we already knew we would be on safe ground. The spaghetti was homemade, and J enjoyed learning how to roll it out with the help of the KitchenAid. The pizza dough and pizza sauce were also made from scratch. No issues across the week, which comes as no surprise. We have already learnt from experience that homemade is better when it comes to keeping the tablets working well.

I might be getting a little too into suburban homesteading — but when the results mean his tablets work, who am I to argue?

Links

Back to Week 1
Forward to Week 2

Part of an ongoing series tracking diet and Parkinson’s medication response.