My kitchen reeks

Pregnancy and cooking don't mix. At least not for me. I vaguely remember it being this way last time but specific incidents were so painful that I've permanently blocked them from recollection. Since January my poor family has witnessed (and sometimes eaten) a parade of bland soups, charbroiled rubbery meat, and assorted dinners with missing ingredients. Thank goodness for Quizno's.

Last night for dinner I decided to make a delicious sesame shrimp salad. It's light, savory and best of all, a fairly easy recipe; the only potentially tricky part calls for toasting noodles, sesame seeds and sliced almonds. Under normal circumstances, this would be so simple that I could do it without a thought. Under pregnant circumstances, I lost track of time while chopping green onions and tearing lettuce, and thereby incinerated one batch of sesame-almond-noodles, which had to be quickly evacuated from the oven and out the back door amid clouds of acrid smoke. I ruined all my almonds, but determined to get it right, I made a second attempt with just noodles and sesame seeds. Sadly, that got singed around the edges, but enough of the middle was edible that I gave up and used it. In the end the salad tasted fine, and by that point I was just relieved to be done with it.

Scorched sesame isn't my idea of aromatherapy.