In the archives of this blog you can find posts which testify to the crazy experiences we've had with our little starter fish tank.  Here's the latest.  We have been down to one fish for a while now - Twitchy, by name.  The tank was turning green and gross again so I needed to clean it and proceeded to do so with care.  I was very gentle with the fish and careful about timing and the water, following the directions of pet-store guy, but nonetheless about 10 minutes after returning Twitchy to his cleaner home, I found him motionless and floating belly up at the top of the water.

I relayed the bad news to the girls who took it pretty well.  They decided that they really wanted to bury the fish in the yard and I gave in.  So we headed upstairs with some tissue paper to wrap the little fish in. But, when I placed Twitchy on the paper he began to..well...twitch.  So, I put the flapping little fish back into the tank (after a little effort to unstick his body from the tissue paper) - where he sank to the bottom. A short while later we decided to check on him again and found him laying completely on his side on the bottom of the tank.  But, as Maddie so kindly pointed out, his mouth was moving ever so slightly.  So, we decided to wait a little longer until he would finally and irreversibly kick the bucket.  

Another short while later I hear Maddie calling from the top of the stairs "He's swimming around mom! Twitchy is swimming around!"  Sure enough, like nothing ever happened.  Wha?????

When I told Matt, he said to me - "don't you remember? don't you remember how Twitchy got his name?" Actually this is the second resurrection of Twitchy.  This all happened the same once before, only that time he came back to us with a slight tilt to his swim and a tiny twitchiness - hence name.  

My guess is that I've got the temperature in the tank still off or something and have now sent this poor creature into total shock twice - from which he has twice revived and survived to swim on among his glow-in-the-dark plastic plants.  

Unfortunately, I have to say I was kind of looking forward to that fishy funeral.  But he's a fighter, that Twitchy!

(by the way, if you are interested, I think Twitchy is some kind of Gourami fish)

I've finally got a whole-wheat corn bread/muffin recipe in my files that I am happy with.  Hope loves cornbread (I do too) so I decided to make use of it in my search for good, hearty/healthy, warm breakfast recipes.  This is a sweet/savory recipe that uses a good amount of typical breakfast foods - eggs, sausage, honey, milk... I think it is pretty kid friendly as well as having whole grains, protein, no refined sugars and reduced fats.  Refrigerate the leftovers for two days or freeze and defrost as needed.  

SAUSAGE-CHEDDAR CORN MUFFINS

what you need:

1 C yellow cornmeal

1 C whole-wheat flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

2 eggs

1/2 C honey

2/3 milk (1% or 2%)

1 C chopped/crumbled cooked breakfast sausage (I like Jones All-Natural lite sausage links - no funny stuff, no nitrates/nitrites, precooked.  The lite is made with the addition of brown rice. Find it in the freezer section. If you use the lite, just be forewarned that the sausage flavor will be pretty mild in the muffin. I actually like it better with the regular stuff, duh - more fat!)

1/2 C  2% reduced-fat cheddar cheese (I like to use small dices because you taste the cheese more, although you can just use shredded)

what to do:

preheat oven to 400 degrees.  grease a muffin tin (don't use paper, these don't come out of the wrapper well) In one bowl, mix together the eggs, honey and milk.  In a separate bowl, mix together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder and salt.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix until just blended. Add the sausage and the cheese, mix again.  Evenly distribute between cups of muffin tin.  Bake until just beginning to turn golden and toothpick comes out clean (10-12 minutes?)