52 Week Challenge: Question 16

What foods do you like? What foods do you dislike? Do you have any food or medical allergies?

I haven't done one of these 52 week challenges in forever! It's time for another one.

As far as food goes...I would say that I am an adventurous eater. There is nothing that I won't try once. I grew up eating out at diverse restaurants a lot and at a young age I loved things like sushi and escargot. They are still two of my very favorite foods. My brother Kirk and I are probably the most adventurous eaters in our extended family. We are looking forward to our trip to San Francisco and we are already planning what we will eat. Kirk has a list of all kinds of weird dishes and places for us to hit. Can't wait.

Tyler grew up eating a fairly conservative diet. Very meat and potatoes. Very Utah Mormon food. (Yes, that is a thing.) When we started dating he didn't eat seafood or sushi or even mustard. (What?!) But he has since developed a much more sophisticated palate and there isn't anything he won't try. Now he is often the one pushing me to try weird foods. I love it!

Out of our four kids...Kameron is our most adventurous eater with Bryn right behind him. When we were in Portland they wanted to eat jelly fish and rabbit and all kinds of things that were on the "wild side" of the menu at the Chinese restaurant that we went to. That fills me with great joy! Ailey is our least experimental eater. She likes about four things and that is it. She is the pickiest of picky eaters. Reilly is fairly picky too. For Reilly it is no seafood, no sushi, no mushrooms, no onions. Good grief. Tyler and I never cater to our picky eaters. Reilly is a bit easier because she will just work around her dislikes. She will eat cucumber rolls and things like that when we go out for sushi... which is a lot... and she just quietly deals with her dislikes but Ailey throws a huge fit. Trying to get that kid to eat as a toddler was one of my greatest tests of patience as a parent!! It still is. Sometimes when we go out for dinner she just orders white rice or buttered noodles. Seriously. Where did this kid come from?!

It is hard to say what my favorite foods are because I like so many things! I would say that sushi, seafood, Thai food, Japanese food, and Korean food are at the top of my list!!

There are however certain foods that I dislike:

1.) Fast Food

I cannot think of one fast food place that I like or can even order something from. Gross.

2.) Mayonnaise

This is hated across the board by me and my siblings. Too many school lunch bologna sandwiches with clear mayonnaise. There were no lunch box ice packs back in our day. It's amazing that we didn't all get salmonella.

3.) Milk

Also universally despised by all of the McClellan kids. One day on St. Patrick's Day our mom turned our milk green with food coloring to be festive. The milk must have been going south before that since I *hear* that food coloring won't sour milk (allegedly) but that was all it took. Some green sour milk and now none of us can drink it. *Shivers*

4.) Pears

I hate the gritty texture of pears. My mom also used to make a very disgusting side dish for our dinners back in the 80s which was half a pear, a blob of mayo on top of it, and sprinkled with cheddar cheese. This was beloved by none of us. My Grandma Ellersick used to take a wedge of iceberg lettuce and put a blob of mayo on top of that and call it *salad*. Also not beloved by the McClellan kids... I feel sick just typing that.

5.) Raisins

I used to like them as a kid. I have memories of being little and eating them out of the little red boxes and enjoying them. Perhaps I enjoyed them too much? Now I cannot eat even one. So gross. Do NOT even THINK about putting those in a cookie at our house!!

6.) Apple Sauce

Same reason as Pears. Gritty texture. I like apples...just not in a sauce or in a pie. Because apple pie is just basically applesauce pie.

7.) Melon

I hate all melon. Every.single.one. But cantaloupe is literally the worst food known to man.

8.) Cucumbers

Nope. Disgusting. This is literally the only thing that I have to pick out of food. I can get down most things that I am served but cucumbers are a NO. Although I do like tzakiki sauce a lot. I make it quite often but I always very very finely shred the cucumbers.

9.) Pizza

This is the greatest sorrow of my children's lives. I think we have had the pizza delivery guy come maybe 5 times in their entire lives. Believe me...they let me know how sad this is for them all.the.time. Whenever I go out of town it is pizza for days at our house.

10.) Marinara Sauce

See above. It makes me not enjoy other things like lasagna and certain pastas and of course pizza.

When I think back to the meals that my mom made growing up...

My very favorite meal was my mom's finger steaks dipped in homemade ranch dressing (add bottled ranch dressing to my list of inedible foods) with homemade mashed potatoes (no potato buds...gross). This was only made on special occasions...like birthdays... and was one of my Grandma Ellersick's better recipes. I still request that Tyler make this for me on my birthday and I wash it all down with my Grandma's green punch too. Delicious!!

Other meals that my mom made that I loved growing up:

Tacos
Taco Salad
Enchilada Casserole (Tyler requests this every year as his birthday dinner.)
Meatloaf
Homemade Clam Chowder (My mom's recipe is the best!)
Fried Rice (My Aunt Margaret's recipe)
Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup (My Grandma Ellersick's recipe)
Stroganoff
Pot Roast
Chili
Steak Soup

If I came home and saw that we were having any of the above for dinner I was STOKED!

BUT... if I came home and saw that we were having any of the foods listed below... I would invite myself over to a friend's house for dinner.

My Mom's worst meals:

1.) Salmon Loaf

This is BY FAR the most loathed meal in my house growing up. Liked by NO ONE but my mother. This gem was also a recipe from my Grandma Ellersick and it is straight up the most disgusting thing you will ever eat.

Let me paint you a picture... you open up a can of...yes CAN of pink salmon. It looks like cat food. You mix it with things like celery and crushed up saltines. You mush it into a loaf pan and bake it. Then you slice it and cover it in the most vile sauce of made of milk and boiled eggs. You might as well just vomit now. It is HORRID!!

Right behind Salmon Loaf was....

2.) Liver and Onions

Enough said!

Tyler's favorite meals growing up were:

1.) His Mom's Roast Chicken Sunday Dinner (or Pot Roast)

This was what they had almost every Sunday after church: Roast chicken or beef with potatoes and veggies and homemade rolls and Crystal Light to drink. Tyler still loves himself some Crystal Light! He drinks it every day at work.

2.) Canned Fruit and Peanut Butter Toast

This is a meal that he speaks of with such joy and love. Just ask our kids!! LOL. Whenever it was a busy night and his mom didn't have time to cook dinner; (His dad never cooked...can you imagine???) she would have everyone in the family go into their food storage and pick out whatever homemade jar of canned fruit they wanted to eat...no sharing with anyone else...everyone got their own jar. (Tyler always picked cherries or pears.) This was then accompanied by peanut butter toast. He mentions this meal all.the.time. I told him to learn to can fruit! I am sure that his mother would be SHOCKED by how fondly her *quick* meal is remembered.

3.) Lasagna

Tyler makes this for himself because ...see above...I don't like marinara sauce. I will make him a delicious butternut squash lasagna with a basil cream sauce which he likes but sometimes he just wants his mom's lasagna made with cottage cheese. :)

 4.) Lefse

This was a Norwegian flat bread made from potatoes that Tyler's family would make at Christmas time. It is delicious. Not all lefse is alike. Tyler makes a darn good lefse!

5.) Ground Beef Stuffed Crescent Rolls

Ground beef, Lipton Onion Soup Mix, and cheddar cheese were all combined and baked inside a crescent roll. Tyler's eyes still light up at the mention of this!

6.) Friday Night Pizza and Pop

On Friday nights when Tyler was a kid... his family had the tradition of going to Sounds Easy Pizza in Orem, UT every Friday night and getting a bunch of pizzas and then heading over to the Gas N' Go to fill up their refillable giant mugs with pop. He married the WRONG person. Poor guy.

Foods that Tyler hates:

1.) Oysters

2.) Sardines

3.) Salmon

4.) Liver

5.) Pigs Feet (He had to eat these on his mission in North Carolina.)


If you ask my kids...and I did...what their favorite meals are they include:

Broccoli Divan (This is our typical Sunday Dinner)
Pecan Patties with Mashed Potatoes
Street Tacos
Pad Thai
Stroganoff
Hawaiian Haystacks
Salad Bar
Taco Salad
Granny's Homemade Chicken Noodle Soup
Pasta Alfresca
The Dieter's Plate

The Dieter's Plate was a creation out of desperation one night and totally helps satiate Tyler's cravings for his canned fruit and peanut butter toast. One night we had literally no groceries and no time to go to the store. I rummaged in the fridge and pulled out random items. A little bit of leftover cottage cheese, some olives, carrot sticks, crackers, canned fruit (not homemade), a couple of boiled eggs, some pickles, and some cheese that I sliced. I made everyone plates with cottage cheese in the middle and all of the other stuff radiating out from it. I called it the dieter's plate because it looked just like the meals my Grandma McKinnon used to order at restaurants in the 80s because she was always on a diet. MY FAMILY LOVED IT!! They ask for it all the time!! Ha ha!

As far as food allergies go...we don't have any life threatening ones. Thank goodness. Tyler is allergic to pistachios which is terrible because he loves them and Reilly is allergic to kiwi.

I could do multiple posts on food and family. Maybe I will. It is a much more interesting topic (to me) than some of the other topics on this challenge!! :)