The Devil Makes Work For Idle Saucepans

My New Year's Resolution: DO SOMETHING WITH MY BLOG!

I've inexcusably been away for many moons and I've just seen some rather fab recipes on Babble so I've decided, stuff it, I DO have time to do my blog and I'm going to pick it up again. I have been thinking about posting my knittedages but we'll see.

Henceforth (yes, henceforth, don't laugh!) I promise to do at least 1 thing with the blog every fortnight. That's right. Starting with this:

20 Vegan Meals You Can Make In 20 Minutes Or Less



Scrummy or what? Personally, I like vegetarian and vegan food, not because I am vegan/vegetarian, but because generally it's a bit more creative and healthy than food mass-produced for carnivores.

This month I'm going to make every single one of these recipes and report on the progress. Wish me luck, I might need it ;)

Cupboard Wars

There are 4 cupboards and 1 drawer Vienna can get into in our kitchen. I'm not sure whether it was me or Steve, but one of us managed to rip the child locks off one of the cupboards and neither of us have replaced it. Thankfully, it's the cupboard with all the dishwasher tablets and tins in. Yes, I know what you're all thinking- why not just get a new childlock??

It has crossed my mind as the most sensible solution because I have to use all my powers of persuasion to convince her that she doesn't really want to drop the heavy tins on her toes, or hide dishwasher tablets in her toys. But I've been thinking about it and I'm not sure it's a good idea. It took me so long to choose these childlocks only to have my friend's 3 year old walk straight up to them and open them in a second. ¬¬

I don't want ones that go inside the doors because I can see all of us trapping our fingers in them and I'm not moving the one childlock we do have because that cupboard has Steve's mandrawer and my baking bits in it.   So that leaves us with the childlock as it is, and getting a better version of it for the cupboard with ALL THE BLEACH IN THE HOUSE IN IT. Except that won't last, because the dishwasher is next to the bleach cupboard and I just know I'll never remember to open the childlocks before opening the dishwasher and they'll all get ripped off again. And all the time it hasn't got a childlock on it, she's not interested. I don't think she's even realised it's a cupboard.

So here's my plan of action starting from when she goes to bed tonight:

1. Carry on taking Vienna out to the kitchen with me when I cook so I can get her involved in making the meals.
2. MOVE THE BLEACH.
3. Leave the childlock on the mandrawer/baking cupboard for the time being, because even though Amelia can get into it in a matter of miliseconds, Vienna can't be bothered to. Yet.
4. Leave the childlock off the cupboard with the tins in until I can put some toys in the bleach cupboard and make it 'hers'.

Hopefully that'll work. It does mean I'll have to put up with extra distraction techniques tomorrow until I can sort through her toys and put some in the kitchen.

Today Vienna wants uncooked rice and stale jacket potatoes for tea. Mummy disagrees.

Birthday "Oops" Jelly

I'm not going to make excuses as to why I haven't posted in ages because if I told you all my personal ins and outs I'd be ranting til kingdom come but I just wanted to share Vienna's birthday jelly with you quickly. That I've renamed "Oops Jelly" because I forgot about it :/

Ta-dah!!

I remember being really proud of this... but there was some serious structural integrity loss so I'm going to make another one. And making jelly is actually really satisfying because it's so easy and it looks cool. In case you were wondering though, it's made of (from top to bottom):

• lemon jelly
• 1 whole slice of orange
• orange jelly
• slices of oranges
• strawberry jelly
• slices of strawberries
• grape jelly... I used green food dye which is why it looks odd but it was tasty!
• slices of grapes

The Funny Thing about Babies

I'm not one of these to post personal things on the internet, so I'm not going to make excuses as to why I haven't posted in a while. What I will say is that I've lost my camera so you'll have to wait to see Vienna's birthday jelly (well, jelly might be the wrong word...!).

I start training on Tuesday to become a peer supporter. For those of you who don't know what that is (and I'm not trying to sound patronising but I didn't until I met one), it's a mum who breastfed her children for at least 6 months and then goes on to help other mums with their feeding experiences. I had a meeting about it on Friday and it got me thinking about HOW heated discussions about infant feeding can get. Not that I need reminding of that.

If you breastfeed you spend your time fighting people who think it's for posh people or who say it's "unnatural" and who don't want a baby "hanging off their boob". You spend your time fighting your pain receptors when the latch is poor, the baby has a tongue tie or is teething, you get thrush, you get mastitis or they just plain chew. Then when people say you should stop because of all that. You pretend you can't see that people are trying not to look when you feed in weird places (like on the bus and walking through Wilkinson's... yes, I'm talking from personal experience here) or that little old women trying to look doesn't strike you as just a tiny bit odd.
If you formula feed you spend your time fighting lactivists who will loudly proclaim you are actively harming your child by forcing this cack down their throat. You fight your body which tells you that 4am is NOT a good time to be patiently standing for 6-8 minutes while the bottle is warming. People don't give you as many dirty looks, but if you have a lactivist family you will never hear the end of it.

THEN after all that we get onto 'weaning' (because it's feeding now):
Is my baby hungry or is she just sucking her fists?
Do I wait til 6 months?
Do I use BLW or spoonfeed?
What do I feed him?
Should I worry about raw eggs, and salt content, and fat, and red meat, and chicken, and sugar?
Do they need 5 a day?

It's just ENDLESS. God I hope training goes ok. Feeding is SO stressful and I want to do something to ease someone else's stress, I really do. I'm quite a liberal breastfeeder. I think saying "breast is best" like some crazy mantra without explaining why does more harm than good, I think if you want to feed your baby formula then it doesn't make you an evil mother and I think babies would be a lot happier if their mums didn't judge each other.

Prop-feeders aside. I do judge you. Sorry.


By the way, a lactivist is a lactating activist- someone that's very pro-breastfeeding.

My Genius New Plan!

Today I went to the cinema with Steve (have I mentioned him? I probably have, but if not, he's my Slightly Neater Half and Vienna's daddy) and i had.. An Epiphany. Well, I guess it was more of an LED nightlight than a full blown lightbulb moment but I still think it's a very good idea. I'm going to give food critic...ing...(?) a go!

It was kind of Steve's treat today so while we were killing time we went to Tapas Revolution and there were honestly a million and 24 babies in Bluewater today. Hordes of them. Baby queues. I was just wondering where all the mums and dads were going (because there didn't seem to be any in the nearby restaurants) when Steve said in between snaffles of chicken, "that must be the best job in the world... you know, food critics."

See where I'm going with this? I can't start with Tapas Revolution today because I forgot what we had to eat but every time we go out now I'm going to write a review of the restaurant from the perspective of someone who wants to actually eat in public with their children. It is, I think, a Very Good Idea. I'm going to call the food critic posts Empty Plates.

Think we may have to go back to Bluewater... several times...!

Freaky Friday Curry

I'll be honest, this one was a bit Oh Mama, hot hot. You can all blame Dinesh for that. He's my friend Hapi's friend and once made a comment on my deseeding a chilli for a recipe so I thought I'd try it with the seeds this time. Vienna didn't really appreciate it. I could see why.

I've since made it and adjusted the curry thermostat and she gave me a look as if to say "do you think I'm daft, mummy?" but she did eat it. I've kept the original pictures though because the updated one looked the same.

Ingredients

• 1 can coconut milk
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1 tsp coriander, ground
• 1 tsp turmeric
• 1 tbsp tomato puree
• 1 chilli (seeds in if you're mad, deseeded otherwise)
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• 1 large potato (as in, a normal potato)
• 1 large sweet potato (as in, a knobbly mutant potato)
• half a suede
• 3 salad tomatoes, chopped
• 1 parsnip
• 1 carrot

Method

1. Parboil the parsnip, carrot, potatoes and suede (a posh technical term I learnt from my mum which means partly boil... or for about 10-15 mins).
2. While that's doing, fry the spices, then the onion, garlic, chilli and mix in the tomato puree.
3. Gradually stir in the coconut milk and simmer for a few minutes until the root veg is done parboiling away.
4. Add the parsnip, potatoes, suede, carrot and tomatoes, and leave to simmer for about 20 mins.

I gave Vienna an orange with hers and the juices did help ease the spice of the original version a bit (tip there!). Also, teaspoon of cheese spread. Works wonders.

Spiced Fruit Wedges

This recipe makes me wish I'd started my blog at Christmas! I've been saying for a while now I might branch into desserts and this is a really nice, quick recipe that would be really good with custard (not that I would advocate giving a baby normal custard!) and tastes really festive.

Ingredients

• 1 apple, sliced
• 1 spoon unsalted butter (about 50g)
• 1 handful sultanas/raisins (about 75g)
• 1tsp nutmeg
• 2 tsps vanilla essence

Method

1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the vanilla and nutmeg until it starts to smell lovely.
2. Add the dried fruit, stir, then add the apple.
3. Keep stirring until the apple is nice and soft. You don't have to stir constantly, but don't let it stick to the bottom of the pan.

I really like giving this to Vienna as a treat because she loves raisins/sultanas and it makes the apples nice and soft for her to chew through.