One moment my Honorable Husband and I were at home alone, the next moment the house was full. DD and her boyfriend arrived from one direction, SS arrived from the other. DD & I were in the kitchen cooking. Laughter bubbled up from the living room.

I had asked both kids to request favorite foods. SS wanted butternut squash soup. DD wanted quiche and salmon croquettes.

I wish I could tell you that I make the butternut squash soup that SS likes from scratch, but I don’t. I can get low sodium butternut squash soup from Pacific Natural Foods at my grocery store. I think the first time I bought it I found one avoid down at the bottom of the ingredient list. It was not significant enough to deter me from buying the soup again. My husband, son and I love it.

DD’s boyfriend is Type O, so one night before SS had to go back to work, I made lamb with stir fried asparagus and sweet potato fries. I seasoned the asparagus with Mrs. Dash’s no salt seasoning and it was delicious.

Quiche is a joke in my family. Back in the 70s there was a book called “Real Men Don’t Eat Quiche." HH took that literally and refuses to eat quiche. DD and I get around the difficulty in semantics by baking egg pie. You may remember that for Easter in 2008, she and I created an egg pie recipe for a brunch at church. I haven’t made it in quite a while, and I was so glad DD thought of it. I had some Buddy’s sausage (made with chicken and no nitrites). It was perfect in the pie.

The simplest and most surprising thing I cooked at Spring Break was okra. We got home one late one afternoon from an excursion and I was scrambling to cook a quick and healthy dinner. I sent DD and her boy friend to the freezer to find a vegetable. They came back with okra. HH likes okra and tomatoes, but he doesn’t really care for plain okra. There was no time to cook the okra properly. For some reason I thought of a jar of marinara sauce that I had in the pantry. Classico Tomato & Basil sauce has no preservatives, no sugar, and no corn syrup. It is made with olive oil. I poured half a jar over the okra and started it cooking. Oh my, it was delicious. I will make okra this way again.

I have made salmon croquettes several times, and have never been completely satisfied with them. This time I read half a dozen recipes. I borrowed a little from one and a little from another. The result was the best salmon croquettes I have ever tasted. Of course I will share the recipe with you.

1 can salmon
2-3 eggs
1 tsp Braggs Amino Acids (you can substitute Tamari sauce and or lemon juice)
chopped onion
½ tsp garlic powder
2-4 Tablespoons rice flour

Sauté onion in ghee or oil. Mix salmon, eggs and Braggs. Add onion. Add seasonings. Add flour 1 Tbsp at a time until salmon mixture is mushy but not watery. Form into patties and fry in light olive oil in a skillet on the stove.

The secret it that the patties be mushy when you start cooking them. If they are firm at the beginning, they will be too dry when they are done.

I have had children in school for 21 years. About half way through Spring Break it dawned on me that this is my last school holiday as a parent. DD is finishing her senior year in May. I am rapidly approaching the end of an era.