I'm a professional nerd from Redmond WA, feeding myself and my boyfriend as best I can from a crowded, cluttered apartment kitchen while holding down an office job- and trying to improve from the "cook for the weekend, eat packaged junk during the week" pattern I started out with. I'm getting better and better at this, and our diet is getting healthier and better as I cook more nights of the week. Spicy food, Asian food, and spicy Asian food account for a lot, partially because the closest grocery store to me is an Uwajimaya- and I have a bike, not a car. The Spanish Chicken recipe in a Taste of Home Casseroles cookbook is one of my current favorites, but my boyfriend prefers the Beef Chow Mein recipe in Jennie Low's "Chopsticks, Cleaver, and Wok". Illinois Sausage Corn Chowder. That and the related tradition of using sausage from one particular farm in the middle of Indiana, where half of my family hails from. Rather elaborate measures were taken to let me keep that part of the tradition going despite where I've moved to. The "let's use up the leftover flank steak from the beef chow mein" attempt at improvising French Dip, most of which seemed to want me to actually roast the beef when I was most prepared to sautee it. So I did. It was several different kinds of awesome, and I intend to write up the recipe next time I get a chance to make it again- and measure my seasonings this time. General Tso's Crock-Pot, AKA General Slow's Chicken. It didn't work.