My baby girl is 10

She was born 3 1/2 years after my first born son. In those 3 1/2 years, I would have 2 miscarriages. I remember sitting in the living room of our 100 year old farm house crying and asking Elliott if this was it. What if I can't have anymore? He just held me and told me everything would be all right and we'd cross that bridge if we get to it. Then she came along. A ray of sunshine in the early morning. She was born at 6:45 am and Elliott has called her his sunshine ever since. She's a lot like Elliott's great aunt 'Iwie' who was a spitfire until the day she died at 92. She's developing quite the sense of humor and loves a good practical joke. Yep, she's a tween now, I guess. I asked her if she knew what that word meant and she couldn't really tell me. Just that she was proud to be one.

She mentioned that her favorite food was 'Chinese' and I just happened to have made it last night so I thought I'd share the recipe, if you can call it that. I first learned of this dish when I married into my husband's family. At that time, it was just hamburger meat, green beans, celery and spaghetti topped with soy sauce and it was called 'Chinese' food. I'll always refer to it with quotes because the only thing Chinese about it is the soy sauce. I've added more veggies over the years and it's become a favorite of the kids.

 Brown a pound or two of ground beef in a skillet. Set aside.

Next, you're going to take whatever vegetables you like or that your family will eat or anything that looks like it's going bad in your icebox, and chop it up. You might need to saute it in batches, depending on how big your skillet is and how much stuff you end up with. I started with onions, celery and bell peppers.  Then I continued with cabbage and broccoli. I let them brown a little in some spots and then I added some soy sauce because the broccoli and cabbage don't really sweat that much when you saute them and the extra moisture helps soften them.

 Then I added some shredded carrots and let them cook until semi-soft.

Here it is. All mixed together in a bowl. Oh, yeah, don't forget to boil some spaghetti while you're doing all that other stuff. It's served over spaghetti. Sounds really oriental, doesn't it? Believe me, I've tried to convert my family to rice, quinoa,  soba noodles, anything but spaghetti. They never go for it. They always complain and ask where the spaghetti is. I give up.

So there you have it. Anna's favorite meal. 'Chinese' food. And there's mine without all those silly, unnecessary carbs. ;)