Jessica made a pan fried ham steak for dinner with a glaze of lime juice and brown sugar. Make a paste glaze of sugar and juice. Spread glaze on ham steak and marinate in fridge for a few hours. Then saute marinated steak with glaze in butter until browned and glaze has caramelized. It was quite yummy. 
We like our potatoes baked in the oven. Above Jessica slices off a thin piece from the top which we just discarded.
Next she uses a spoon to carefully scoop out the inside, starting in the middle and working out to the edges, being careful to try and leave the shell intact with some potato still giving the skin support. Click on a picture to see more detail on the shelled out potatoes in the pan.
Moving on, she beat together the ingredients for the filling and the above picture shows the addition of some of the cheese.
Once the filling is fairly smooth she put a generous dollop in each potato before filling them up completely. This helps to ensure equal amounts in each potato without overfilling some and underfilling others. (At least this is how we fill the potatoes at our house.)
And here we have the stuffed to overflowing potatoes topped with more cheese since we didn't have the cooked and crumbled bacon suggested by the recipe.
The finished potatoes-golden and delicious from the oven. The filling puffed and settled some during the baking so I am glad that she used all the filling even though it looked like it would be too much. These were really yummy and we enjoyed them.
Info on the food co-op can be found at www.foodco-op.net. Here's the Standard Food Co-op order for April at a cost of $23 : 1 4-lb. whole roasting chicken, 1 pkg. lean ground beef, 1 pkg. lean pork cubes, 1 pkg. lean Salisbury steaks, 1 1-lb. box strawberries, 7 bananas, 5 oranges, 1 5-lb bag red potatoes, 1 loaf Stone Ground's Artisan Wheat Loaf, 1 16-oz pkg. rice, 1 head broccoli, 3 cucumbers, 1 head of red leaf lettuce and 4 tomatoes. They ran out of tomatoes since we barely squeaked in to get our order this month-I was moving books and got distracted. (Those of you who like reading will relate and know what I mean as one just starts thumbing through the books. I can't just replace them on the new shelf-I feel like I must get reacquainted with each book first before it can go in the new spot. )
Here's the tamales we bought for $5.
The half share was $14 and consisted of: 1 pkg. lean Salisbury steaks, 1 pkg. lean pork cubes, 1 5-lb. bag red potatoes, 4 oranges, 1 head broccoli, 1 head red leaf lettuce, 6 bananas, 4 tomatoes, 1 l-lb box strawberries, 1 loaf Stone Ground's Artisan Wheat Loaf, and 1 pkg. 16-oz rice.
Jessica combined milk, ice cream, oreos, green food coloring and creme de menthe flavoring oil to make shakes for St. Patrick's day. They were cool and refreshing with a light green color to maintain the color coordination for the holiday. 
Jessica has been pressed for time with all of her practicing and various musical practice sessions so she kept the recipe for this week simple and sweet. Just butter, marshmallows and crisp rice cereal to make traditional Rice Krispy Treats. 
One day it started raining. And a squirrel found a mushroom to sit under. Then a frog hops along and asks, "Is there any more room under the mushroom?" And the squirrel says, "There's Mush Room!". 
Jessica's latest creation for her home cooking assignment: soft and moist chocolate chip pumpkin cookies - what a wonderful way to get some additional Vitamin A!
First the boneless, skinless chicken breasts get a mayonnaise sauce topping.
Next they are coated with an Italian bread crumb/Parmesan cheese coating.
And here's the beautifully browned chicken breasts fresh from the oven. Jessica even checked the temperature to ensure that the chicken was cooked to at least 165 degrees F and it actually checked in at 167 degrees F and yes, the juices ran clear. The chicken was moist and tender with a mild flavor enhanced by the Parmesan cheese.
Blueberry sauce to go with the pound cake.
Dark blue and purple delight.
The cake was soft and moist with a slightly crispy crust and the blueberries were evenly distributed through the cake. The sauce was thick and loaded with blueberries that were plump and not mushy.
The five ingredients needed: flour, milk, oil, baking powder and salt.
The sticky biscuit dough.
Spooning the dumplings onto the boiling soup.
Mmmmm, puffy, fluffy dumplings that almost triple in size as they cook.
The airplane dinner was grapes, pizza, and cookies.
The beautiful sunset I saw out of the airplane window on our way home.
I'm glad I got to go on this amazing trip! Thanks to everyone who made this trip possible!
An authentic Parisian chocolate eclair! Can it get any better than this?
Egg drop soup is fairly simple-at least her recipe seemed to be. It consisted of chicken broth (from bouillon), cornstarch, water, egg and green onion (or chives).
