Our (Neurodiverse) Family

I love salmon. Growing up, my mom would bake the salmon and serve it with yellow rice and peas, and usually with lemon wedges or some lemon juice to drizzle over it. Yum! It's still one of my favorites My mom and I are the only real salmon lovers in the family, so now she only ever makes it when I come to visit because the male members of my family don't especially love it. Stephan...well, he used to say that salmon was either the fish he liked the most or hated the least, though I introduced him to tilapia a few months ago and now that's his favorite fish. Other than that, he doesn't particularly like fish. Did I mention he served his mission where you could get fresh-caught salmon? Yeah, he didn't care for that either. When we were first married, he gagged whenever I ordered sushi at our favorite Japanese restaurant. He tolerates California rolls, but that's pretty much it. It doesn't bother me; he loves Japanese food otherwise, so we can still be marrie...

From scratch. No frozen pie crusts or canned filling involved.  And it wasn't nearly as horrible as I thought it would be. Before I started this task, I thought I was nuts, especially for being nearly six months pregnant.  The food processor is my best friend now, because making pie crusts with it is so blissfully easy. Why did I try to do it by hand in the past? I was too scared. Wax paper makes rolling the dough out so much easier, and you don't have to worry about using too much flour to make it not so sticky.  I find it terribly ironic that women complain about not having time to cook from scratch, even though we have all these marvelous mechanical contraptions that streamline the process. I think our pioneer grandmothers are rolling in their graves because they would have killed for these contraptions. After all, they milked cows, grew their own food, sewed by hand, did laundry by hand, raised children, AND somehow managed to cook three meals a day.  ...

Yakisoba is a Japanese noodle stir fry. In fact, yakisoba literally translates to "fried noodles". This is probably one of the most versatile, easy dishes you can have in your arsenal. You can customize it to your liking, using pretty much any spice, meat, vegetable, or sauce you like. And did I mention that it's really cheap too? Cheap, nutritious, and tasty...all good words for one dish! This is also a great dish for getting rid of leftovers. You're probably wondering, "Sounds great, but I need a few guidelines to start out." So did I! I'll show you what I did, and you can do what you want afterwards. Here we go! The cast of characters Chop up some celery (if you're using it) Dice up some chicken.... Boil some ramen noodles (I realize this isn't the most authentic, but hey, ramen noodles are cheap, and work great for this) Yep, three at once. Drain the noodles, and set aside. Heat the pan to about medium-high heat,...

I have long been intrigued with the idea of making and keeping a sourdough starter. Weird, huh? One of the reasons I find it intriguing is because the process of making sourdough is supposed to make the grains easier to digest and the nutrients easier to absorb. I'm always up for something easy to digest and nutritious. I just hope the end result (bread, and such) is delicious. So, I've been using the guidance of Laura at  Heavenly Homemakers  and her posting series on making a sourdough starter. I'm on day 3 of mine, but here's a picture of when I fed it yesterday: My cute assistant: Snow Monkey. He likes to help. Today, I put it in an even bigger bowl because that one got too small. And it does kind of smell when you drain the liquid off...phew. But that means the sourdough is doing it's job... Hopefully by this time next week, I'll have made a tasty sourdough bread. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to clean. Linked to "Try New Adventu...