Cookies

Time to make sugar cookies.    We decided to just use a mix, but this is really the first time we’ve made regular sugar cookies.  My little one wanted to cut them with cookie cutters.  We did learn that they really needed to be thinner!

Afterwards we decorated them with icing, but my special little boy preferred them without icing.  I’ll be making another set just like this for little one with no icing.

I like them with the icing, so I make slip in a few for me with icing! They aren’t beautiful, but they tasted great.

Cajun Oysters

Fried Oysters made with Crispy Cajun…. I actually grabbed the wrong package, but these were simple to make with our air fryer.  We ended up eating them though as sandwiches.  This crispy Cajun breading is spicy for sure!  I simply put the breading in a bag and threw my oysters in to the bag.  I then shook the bag with the oysters to coat them.

I put the oysters into my air fryer, spraying with a little oil and using the fish setting let them cook until the machine turned off.  I should have sprayed my air fryer basket first.  After a bite, we proceeded to eat them with lots of white bread and milk!  With the breading I intended to grab, these would have been perfect (or if you like spicy food!)

Crispy Cajun

Crispy Cajun from Zatarains

Oyesters Zatarain at store

Home Chef

We are still getting Home Chef for our meals.  So far it seems to be the healthiest for the money.  The meals now have been coming in a separate bag for each meal minus the meat.  The meat is in a second bag that is under all the ice to help keep it cooler.  The meals themselves haven’t been as fancy as some of the other meals we’ve gotten from the other services.  The meals all work out to about $10 per person per meal – meaning it would definitely be cheaper to just go to the store with a menu ahead of time, but I love being able to just pull out the cards and pick a meal for the night.

The meals usually are just enough for two, but we have stretched them to three a couple times.   Several of the meals are baked instead of fried and don’t have as much salt and vinegar in them.  The meals we have gotten recently though have had a lot of sauces that seem to be high in salt content.  This week we also have a pork meatball still to fix, and we had a chicken with bleu cheese sweet potato’s for dinner tonight.

 

The Camper Solution

My youngest is afraid of dogs – and my mother has lots of dogs. We had dogs growing up and they were everywhere.  Having them in the house wasn’t perfect, but it was something we put up with to see my mother. The dogs would come in and have to follow my mother everywhere, then they would try to escape every time she left and if she wasn’t in the house they would try to escape anytime we tried to go in and out.  Not making it easy for any of us.  The final straw came when the dogs brought some fleas in the house and we couldn’t get them out.  The dogs were treated, but the fleas seemed to be super fleas.  They were on everything and everywhere. We tried everything from lighted flea traps to borax acid.  We even started a contract with Terminix to try to clear the house of the fleas.  (Terminix was probably the least helpful of all)  I’m allergic to the smell of bug spray too, so it went very poorly.  We didn’t want to go through that every time my mother visited, but we wanted my mom to be able to visit… so my mother bought a camper.

My mother wanted a C Class Camper, but couldn’t find one, so she settled for a 17 foot 2017 Jayco.  The dogs seemed happy, my youngest was happy that they were staying outside, and mom had her own place.  The camper had a full bathroom with a tub and shower, kitchen, and separate bed and table.  The AC worked so well it had to be turned down each time.

My mother ended up finding a Class C a couple months after getting the Jayco, so we are now in the process of selling the Jayco and replacing it with the RV.  (Anyone know someone that wants a 2017 Jayco 17′ Camper? )

 

 

 

     

 

Sold Out – Favorite Meal

When you have a person that will only eat certain foods, it’s tough when they sell out. We have a tough time also when the company changes their packaging (that’s actually worse since the food is off the menu permanently)….  Some kids (and adults) with special needs have difficulty eating different foods. They have very sensitive tastes and are sensitive to texture. Asking them to eat something different is the equivalent to asking someone without their sensitivity to eat food that has been rolled around in the mud.

They look at the food and can’t handle the thought of how bad it will taste to them.  The thought that the food might great in their mouth like sandpaper in some cases.  Once in a while, in the right place, at the right time, they will work up to trying something…. but like getting you to eat something that you know was swooshed around in a toilet they will hold out forever if you try to just wait them out for dinner.  Looking at the offending food, what they actually see is the equivalent of food that has been swooshed in the toilet.

I’m frequently faced with people just saying, just make him eat.  It’s hard to explain to people why that’s not realistic.  In our house we have a few foods that are popular, but these Pop N Chicken are the most popular for dinner.  Someone else seems to really like them too and clears them out pretty frequently at our Kroger.  I buy even more when they are on sale and keep our freezer stocked with them.  My youngest knows how to cook them himself even!

The picture is from Kroger and I wasn’t the one that cleared the shelf. It was empty when I arrived.  We have three Kroger stores in town and I’ve had some desperate days where I’ve run a little too low and had to run to all three.  I’ve also had people make snide comments when there have only been three or four left and I’ve taken them, and they have been looking…. the grandfather who apparently was looking for the same thing made comments when I offered to let him have a couple from the coveted few that I had managed to find. Comments about how he grew up on a farm (yo, so did I) and if I starve my child he will be forced to eat anything offered. My word for that is child abuse.  Starving a child with special needs in the desire to force them to eat food that they have issues with…..

 

I’m amazed with how many people make comments that are insensitive and intrusive.  I also remember as a child my father refusing to take us out to eat because he felt that I was too difficult to manage.  We will never do that to our own children and personally I won’t let anyone make them feel bad about having a brain that is wired differently.  Our solution going out to eat usually just involves bringing a meal for our youngest.  I’ve even gotten washable containers that I can put his meal in and fill a compartment with ketchup.  Nothing like walking into a pizza place carrying McDonalds for your son, and always taking a meal from home to a Mexican restaurant.

My favorite containers have compartments and are washable.  We don’t eat out often, but when we do it’s a perfect solution.   BTW: my youngest calls these smiley fries, because the popn chicken comes with French fries in the shape of smileys.