I'm a PhD student doing full time research on my thesis. Just like every other full-time worker - I want to eat interesting and balanced meals, but don't have enough time to spend planning for them. Lasanga, banana bread, stir frys In my father's family, it is tradition to bake Russian Tea Loaf for the father's birthday. It's only made once a year because the recipe is so long - the flour and the sugar are each shifted seven times! My mother spent many, many years learning to cook this cake. One year, a kid banged the oven door while the cake was cooking and it collapsed. Another year while whipping cream for the frosting, we accidentally made butter instead of whipped cream! I think my mother finally perfected the cake about the time I left home for college. My sisters and I would try to schedule weekends home so we would be there to have a piece of the cake. Sadly, I now live to far away to go home for Russian Tea Loaf. Perhaps it is my turn to learn how to make it. Baking and constructing my first gingerbread house Making my great-grandmother's banana bread without the baking soda. Even the dog wouldn't eat it!