That’s all, folks!
Well well well, we have decided to throw in the towel on this food blogging malarkey. We’re still eating Nigella Lawson’s recipes pretty often (and I have to confess we are yet to revisit a Rachael Ray meal) but the urge to blog has fizzled out I am afraid.
Whilst I enjoyed blogging, I don’t miss it. With that said, I may reprise the blog at a later date, in some shape or form. If you would like to be notified when that happens, please send me an email.
So there’s nothing left to say except thank you all so much for taking the time out of your day to read our exploits and to leave comments, it is enormously appreciated.
All the best and keep on cooking,
Helen
Endgame?
So it would seem that it’s been a week since I last posted. We have been eating the fruits of Nigella’s labour, most nights, but not necessarily new recipes. We have repeated a few of the recipes that we have already made this year; the mirin salmon, sesame noodles and the quick chilli. And we haven’t been photographing our food, nor blogging about it. We’ve just been eating like normal people do. We went grocery shopping without a list, without any idea of what we might cook. And then we got home and just had cereal for dinner because we hadn’t managed to buy the right ingredients to cook with. In short, in this last week we have reverted back to our old habits of 2006 and all the preceeding years. And it was quite refreshing.
So what’s going on? I’m not sure except to say that we suddenly are finding ourselves out of steam, and something had to give. For 2007 in its entirety we had a mission, a cookbook to get through come hell or high water. And we stuck to it, every single day. Perhaps we should have stopped there, mission accomplished, back to normality. Instead we chose to follow a great new book with food that we actually wanted to eat. And perhaps therein lies the problem. All of the recipes look great, every single photograph is beautiful, chances are most of the food will be fabulous. And so it’s no great hardship to cook your way through the book; in fact this way we’d definitely get to eat more biscuits and cakes and deserts which you can’t really complain about too much. And we have slowly been discovering that we are not the only ones who thought that this plan, the cook your way through Nigella Express plan, would be a good plan.
Which is not to say that it’s any less valid an endeavour, just because plenty of other people are doing it. In some ways that makes it a more interesting pursuit, in a compare and contrast way. But somehow I am finding myself with nothing to say; it’s food, it’s good, we enjoyed it. We never set out to be food bloggers, which is presumably why oneyearproject.com and this blog have increasingly centered around our struggles and pitfalls as parents and homeowners and so on. This time round we haven’t even found the time to work out why we can’t post images as inline attachments.
We have been talking alot about how we can shape and manage our lives without any childcare and what we need to prioritise, and unfortunately this blog is no longer at the top of the list. As a new stay at home parent, I find myself with very little, if any, alone time to get anything done, and I need to find ways to sneak in work to keep the frustration at bay. Aside from family life, first and foremost L and I are artists. This however is no great moneyspinner, so finding ways to supplement L’s income from teaching has to be a priority right now. I am in the process of setting up a design/ art business, but with so few minutes left in the day, this is proving to be an extremely long drawn out process.
We are also battling once again- invites to our latest exhibition that are wrongly printed, a contractor who seems to believe that new windows don’t require frames on the inside… I don’t know. Lots of draining disappointing nonsense going on. So where does that leave us? Or to be more precise, where does that leave this blog? We already decided that there would no longer be any compulsion to post daily. We are certainly not following a specific thought-out plan in terms of what we are eating.
This week I managed to burn the Pineapple Upside-Down Cake to a black hulk by cooking it in our apparently turbo-charged microwave, which is also an oven, oven. We did then finally clean out the regular oven (after the fat-tastic Crispy Duck) and then we made the Breakfast Bars [recipe]. They are oaty seedy dried fruity goodness mixed with condensed milk and oven baked. They are even better smashed to smithereens and eaten with yogurt and fruit as granola. We probably maybe will continue to cook our way through Nigella Express, but maybe only a recipe or two a week. We may well do the whole cook book, or we may pass on some dishes. I’m not sure. I really don’t know whether to continue with maybe a weekly blog round-up, or to quit while we’re behind and just call it a day. It seems ridiculous to fizzle out like this, so early in the new year, but it seems more ridiculous to keep going just for the sake of keeping going. I think all our stubborness was used up last year with the Rachael Ray fiesta. Now we feel the need to be ever so much more laid back. Perhaps to a point of sleeping.
Day 17: Sweet
Last night Baby N slept from 8.30pm to 6am, score! And tonight she has been sound asleep for the last hour or so, with very little struggle. The tide, it is hopefully a-turning. Although I certainly don’t want to jinx anything, so I’ll add a “touch wood, fingers crossed” caveat to that statement. I had more hours of uninterrupted sleep last night than I have had since mid-pregnancy, what a treat. I feel like a new person today, long may it continue. Little A started sleeping through the whole night at 5 months, after a little tough love for a couple of days. We had driven ourselves a little crazy prior to that point finding newer! better! faster! ways of trying to get her to sleep. Only to have her wake the moment her head touched the mattress. We are so much hoping that it will be easier this time round. Baby N already seems much more laid back in terms of not screaming herself senseless if put down awake. Hopefully we are not looking at flukes here.
On the stay at home parenting front, today went very well and we had fun. We visited the moving floor aquarium again this morning and this afternoon we braved Target. The being outnumbered by children while grocery shopping is certainly getting easier. So far, so good on the entertainment aspect. Next I have to figure out how to get things done like cleaning and laundry while we’re at home (we’ve incorporated wiping the kitchen counters into our morning routine so far, which is the sum total of what Little A believes constitutes cleaning; in many ways I agree with her). And finally the big one; how to get work done, get a new business off the ground and bring in a decentish second income. Surely that will fall into place any day now… At the moment it’s a good day if I can manage to answer a couple of emails. It does look like we might get a bit of housekeeping practice in the next couple of days; the weather is supposed to get too cold to humanely take little ones outside. let’s see if some high-powered cleaning can keep the stir-craziness at bay.
This evening I made Smoked Trout Pate [recipe] which really did only take a couple of minutes. The biggest exertion was taking the food processor out of the cupboard. In went the smoked fish, cream cheese, lemon juice, olive oil cayenne pepper and horseradish, to be blended together then served. We were too hungry to wait for the pate to chill in the fridge. We had fresh baguette and a little salad to round out the meal. The pate was as good as any fish pate that I’ve ever had. Why we chose to eat it on a sub-zero January evening, I couldn’t tell you. On a spring day this would be a perfect lunch. It is extraordinarily rich, with a substantial warmth and spice from the cayenne and the horseradish. I would certainly make this again, particularly as a very easy appetiser. The fact that it can be whipped together in minutes is just an added bonus to such great tasting food. I would imagine this would be equally good with smoked salmon.
I don’t know yet what we are eating tomorrow (even though I just grocery shopped. My mind, it is blank), but I will be making the kitsch-tastic pineapple upside-down cake at the weekend. I can hardly wait. I am hoping to have the blog pictures sorted out by then. With such a beautifully illustrated recipe book our images look decidedly unstyled in comparison, but surely all upside-down cakes are a thing of beauty.
Days 14, 15 & 16: All the threes
In the last couple of days, I didn’t celebrate my 33rd birthday and Baby N turned 3 months old. Neither event was greeted by balloons and streamers and surprise parties, but both were pleasant enough. Her achievements are far greater of course, she now has most excellent chewy thighs and can barely fit in any of her newborn size clothing (well she can fit in it, but she can’t straighten her arms and legs). (I too have chewy thighs and can barely fit in any of my pre-baby clothing, but that is neither excellent nor an achievement). She loves to look at her big sister and laugh, and she generally is an absolute delight. Which is not to say that it hasn’t been a bit testing every now and then- tonight is the first night in days that I have eaten downstairs, rather than in the dim light of her bedroom, desperately trying to get her off to sleep. Tonight I just left her, drowsy but awake, as all the books say, in her crib, and aside from the odd protest, she seems pretty calm, for now. Haha. I just spoke too soon. Let’s see how that one goes. I am ready to reclaim my evenings.
Today was the first day of our new normal. L finally went back to work after the long academic break, and we have no more visitors planning to visit (probably not until the kids are like five and seven at least). I had a good day with the girls, all things considered, with the exception of a killer headache this afternoon. That was easily solved by a cup of coffee. It’s quite tragic when a nonstop day results in caffeine withdrawal symptoms. Tomorrow I’ll have to factor in a cup of coffee into the hectic crazy non-stop toddler whirlwind which is life with Little A.
I think that I have to spend some time figuring out what we are going to do to fill our days. On Monday we became members of our local underground aquarium (I liked fish before they were cool, before they went all mainstream and above ground). One of L’s former students works there and told us of the fantastic non-advertised educator’s discount- amazingly we saved $45, and a year’s worth of fishy fun cost us the price of one visit. Little A was mainly infatuated with the moving floor, but she was pretty enthusiastic about the whole thing, particularly the baby alligators. She declined to stroke a shark, but there’s always next time. And the next time, and the time after. We may spend alot of time there I am thinking. On Tuesday we went to storytime at our local children’s bookshop, which Little A really liked. I’m beginning to realise that putting on a good storytime is apparently a great skill. We’ve been to some dull ones and some excruciating ones, so I’ve actually started to really appreciate the one near us as a Quality Event. On the other hand today we went to a Laughable Event. It was a children’s show put on by a woman with a very shrill voice and very little charisma. She was maybe in her late fifties and was wearing a fairy outfit. I would bet money that she also wears it at home. It would have been funny if she had had any hint of a sense of humour, but alas not. I can’t have been the only adult in the room who found the whole thing extremely embarrassing, surely? The kids were given various instruments and such to play with while she scratched her nails down a chalkboard sang sweetly. It almost broke my heart to watch Little A attempt to go to the front to try and get a musical instrument, while really just hanging back looking bewildered. She is so shy sometimes, I felt like Mama Bear; fighting the urge to provide for my beautiful child by grabbing her a set of bells from the crazy fairy lady. I was inwardly delighted when Little A’s American flag broke during some shameless patriotic propaganda an impromptu marching parade (”you’ll remember this on 4th of July”). Every now and then it is strange to be the very non-American parent of Americans. But perhaps the highlight of the show was the high pitched “rap” by a beaver puppet in a trashcan preaching road safety; something like I live in a can, I don’t run in front of a car or a truck or a van…
Other than that, there has been more Playdoh and stuff. Oh and our upstairs attic conversion is almost complete. We have new windows up there and (some of) a plywood floor. Tomorrow we should be getting electricity and lights put in. The space is beautiful and I can’t wait to carve out some time to start working up there. The only thing is it seems much rawer than we’d anticipated. The plywood floor is just that. There is no skirting or trim, which is what we wanted, but it seems a little like it is lacking proper floor and trim. We’ll see how it works out, it is after all a work space; it’s not like we want wall-to-wall carpeting or anything. We also now have a linen closet instead of a gaping hole in the hall wall. One of these days we’ll put in the shelves and unpack our boxes of bathroom stuff that have been in the basement since August. Who knew that I only really need about six items of toiletries and make-up, when I have boxes, plural, of stuff down there. These days I’m pleased if I am showered, make-up be damned.
L has mainly been doing the cooking the last few days, in fact I haven’t been anywhere near the kitchen. Instead I have been trying to get Baby N to sleep. Who knew that she would just fall asleep if tired enough and put down at the right time? What a relief, I’ve been starting to feel a little crazy recently. The upshot being that I really have no idea how any of the meals we’ve been eating were put together. We were going to have something fancy for my birthday tea, but we were too tired to shop, and we had a very grumpy child anyway so it was a moot point. Instead we had Grilled Cheese and Slaw which was a cheddar and tomato sandwhich, brushed on the inside with a mayonnaise/ Worcestershire sauce mixture, and on the outside with garlic oil. It was served with a slaw of apple, carrot, Chinese leaf, mango chutney, mayonnaise, lemon juice, salt and caraway seeds. We had less bread than we anticipated, so we shared one (almost very burnt) sandwhich. L enjoyed it, I was pretty uninterested. Perhaps that was less to do with the food, and more to do with my Birthday induced crisis of self. But whatever, there’s was a reason for not writing a woe is me type post on the day. It was all quite tangy and unusual (the meal, not my self-indulgent drivel), for grilled cheese and slaw. The garlic oil on the outside was a winner, the dressing on the inside was less to our taste. I didn’t like the sweetness of the slaw from the mango chutney, but that’s a personal taste thing. It was good enough, for what it was.
Yesterday L made Spaghettini with Prawns and Chilli. Not knowing, we hazarded a guess that Spaghettini is thin spaghetti, so we used up the angel hair pasta we had kicking around from another meal. We couldn’t find sunblush tomatoes in oil (in fairness we couldn’t recall ever seeing such a thing anywhere), so L used a mixture of sun-dried tomatoes and fresh seasoned ones. Basically the prawns and tomatoes are cooked in garlic oil with chilli flakes and spring onions. White wine is added, as is rocket, and the pasta is mixed in with some cooking liquid. Parsley is added just before serving. This meal is solid and pleasant but a little dull. The spice level was good, the prawns tasty and crisp, but the whole lot tasted a little like something thrown together. Perhaps the correct tomatoes would have elevated it to something more interesting, although the sun dried ones were the best part of our meal.
This evening we made Scallops and Chorizo, which looked fantastic in the photograph in the book. This was a bit of a spendy meal- about $16 for the two protein sauces, but it seemed like something special so we justified the cost. I fnally found Hot Spanish Chorizo, for the first time since we moved here, and I bought fresh small scallops. Unfortunately the scallops weren’t just small, they were tiny and wet. The sliced chorizo was fried (Unlike Rachael Ray, Nigella Lawson at least acknowledges that this will generate plenty of oil) then removed from the pan. The scallops were flash fried in the chorizo oil, joined by the chorizo, lemon juice and parsley and served. It was certainly quick, but L ended up with a sort of scallop soup. The scallops were so wet that everything got a little soggy. Also what had seemed like generous portions pre-cooking, ended up like some kind of miniature meal for tiny people. The chorizo was good and the scallops tasty, but we’d like to try it again with large scallops. Our small scallops were obviously too small. Maybe tomorrow we’ll make it again with big’uns. Big food for big people.
Days 11, 12 & 13: If you’re happy and you know it go to sleep
Some days I am just too exhausted to even think about blogging. And then when I do sit down to catch up, I have absolutely no memory whatsoever of how we have filled our days, where we went and what we did. Or even what we ate. I will say that following a book chronologically is far easier to keep track of when you’re tired, but picking and choosing may well be better for the sanity. Of which there is increasingly little, what with the children and all. The last few days may well have been a whirlwind of Playdoh and Target, and more Playdoh. Oh and teaching Little A to use scissors, whilst trying to keep all digits intact. The main thing that I have recently discovered is despite living in a house which currently looks like it has never been cleaned, I really really hate it when the Playdoh colours get mixed together. It bothers me in a way which the cat hair balls under the sofa do not. Also, the frustration of trying to do excellent urban planning when playing with the town building set with roads and trains with a two year old, is mirrored or indeed multiplied when trying to make beautiful Playdoh creations, which are swiftly sat upon. Must sit back and take a deep breath.
The days they are so very long, and every now and then, the nights are too. Last night we finally succeeded in getting Baby N down to sleep by 10.30pm (we have managed to get bed time from 1am to around 10pm which is a major achievement. But when we start the bath, book, bed routine at 7pm, it would be lovely to be done by say 8pm. But no. The last few nights I have eaten dinner above a nursing child, sitting in her bedroom in the dark. Who knew that sight was so important for your appreciation of food? Although having just had some leftover curry for lunch, I realised that light was no great help in determining in advance whether sweet potato, butternut squash or mango was about to be eaten. Those ambiguous orange squares…) Anyway, to get back to the fascinating Sleep Monologues, Baby N woke up at 1am, I fed her then got her in my arms to put her back to bed, then apparently fell asleep before standing up, as I woke up at around 4.30am still in the chair. So I got up, put her to bed, went to check on other child, while the baby decided to have an explosive nappy. So I changed the baby, fed her again, put her down, went to bed (now 5am), got up ten minutes later when the baby cried, got up again at 6.45am to feed her, put her down, went to bed, got up to soothe the baby and then Little A started her morning chorus of MummyDaddy. Hello, good morning, why yes I do feel extremely refreshed, what a wonderful night. But I have to say that was a bit of a rarity generally we’re down to one waking, touch wood, fingers crossed, no standing on cracks in the pavement etc.
Other than that, well fortunately today we had Marshmallow Crispy Squares [recipe] to take for morning coffee at our friends house. They were ridiculously easy to make- melted butter was joined in a pan by marshmallows and stirred until a big goopy mass. The Rice Krispies were stirrd in, and the whole sticky mess turned out into a tray, then decorated. Nigella’s Crispy Squares manage to look both sophisticated and playful, with their tasteful edible glitter. Ours managed to look both ridiculous and tacky with their assorted sprinkles. However, they were a hit with all, particularly the children. Whilst not as classy as the Rocky Road Crunch Bars we took last week, these were an easily accessible sweet treat. And they had cereal in, so surely they weren’t all bad, right? They are of course so ridiculously sweet (ingredients one and two on the marshmallows being sugar and corn syrup, weight wise there is almost double the volume of marshmallows to the Krispies) and we are maybe choosing to blame Little A’s spectacular clingy outburst on a sugar crash of the highest order. Obviously she needs all sugar, all the time to remain at a more consistent level of emotional craziness.
Last night L made Red Prawn and Mango Curry whilst I engaged in a battle of wills with an almost 3 month old (Me: You will sleep, now, you are very tired. Baby N: I don’t think so. Me: Yes, you would like to, sleep is nice, sleep is good. Baby N: Er no thanks. Me: Please? Baby N: No. Me: Are you sure? Baby N: Quite sure thanks. Oh well, at least she is more polite than her big sister, telepathically at least) Anyway the curry was apparently very easy. The spring onions were fried in wok oil, then joined by the Thai red curry paste. Coconut milk, chicken stock and fish sauce were whisked in and the liquid brought to the boil. The butternut squash and sweet potato cubes were added and simmered for 15 minutes, then the prawns, mango and lime juice were added. L made rice in the shiny new rice cooker and served the curry on top. We didn’t buy the called-for pre-prepared vegetables, as they were $4 a bag, but I can see that the lack of chopping would be a fantastic luxury. Preparing butternut squash always strikes me as a fantastic pain in the butt, but then I wasn’t the one wielding the knife (see learning jedi mind tricks, earlier). The curry was rich and satisfying; it had a tremendous depth of flavour given the ingredients and effort involved. We deemed it restaurant-worthy, the mixture of ingredients was well-balanced and unusual after a year of chicken. The mango offered sweet relief in with the root vegetables, and the prawns were crispy and delicious, just cooked to perfection. L added some mango chutney to his for a little extra aing, I was very happy with the spice levels. We both also appreciated that the amount of called-for lime juice was merely a teaspoonful so it contributed to the overall meal without overpowering. A most excellent supper.
The night before that we made Sesame Peanut Noodles [recipe] which were again a quick and easy meal to throw together. This recipe features in the lunchbox category of the book, and they were as good cold as they were hot. I was again eating these upstairs in a darkened room, which takes away from the visual delight, but they certainly tasted good. Fortunately they could be cooked in a matter of minutes with minimum thought (we didn’t buy ready-cooked noodles, but the dried ones took all of three minutes and some boiling water to cook) after handling a few tornado-style toddler strops before bed, after taking the kids to an art opening and keeping them up a bit later than usual. The food was solid and good, nothing wildly flashy, but certainly a decent evening meal and lunch the next day. We used to make something very like this in the pre-cookbook for a year days, using crunchy peanut butter rather than smooth. I like the extra crunch, but there is not too much to choose.
Well, I think that just about gets us up to date on the food front. For the record, multiple postings mess up our star rating system, but we have to be a little more laidback this year, so so be it. We would give the curry five stars and the other two four stars. Little A is just waking from her afternoon nap, and miraculously Baby N slept through it too. Quality quiet time, how very refreshing. We have to go to the airport post office now, our one task for the week was to get a Very Important Document in the post. It was ready to go by Monday night, and it has sat in the car all week. Sometimes I marvel at our efficiency. Sometimes it scares me.
Day 10: Maybe we have been put off macaroni cheese for life
This evening we made Macaroni Cheese in the Nigella Express Stylee. Rather than make a roux (something which I actually became quite adept at last year after much practice) eggs, evaporated milk, sharp cheddar, nutmeg and salt and pepper were mixed together with the cooked pasta and baked in the oven.
I gather that this meal was supposed to be evocative of British comfort food, and thus be stodgy and bland, but we didn’t bank on the egginess of the dish. Really, I didn’t find this to be a good roux substitute; as it cooled down it tasted like cheesey scrambled eggs. OK baby awake again.
Day 9: Simply perfect
This evening we made the most magnificent meal, Mirin-Glazed Salmon. As Nigella says,
“This must be the fastest possible way to create a culinary sensation. You do scarcely a thing — just dip some salmon steaks in a dark glossy potion, most of which you get out of jars — and what you make tastes as if you had been dedicating half your life to achieving the perfect combination of sweet, savory, tender, and crisp.”
That is so very, very true. With a marinade of mirin, soy sauce and brown sugar, the salmon is then cooked on a hot pan (no oil) for a couple of minutes each side, then removed to the plate. The remaining marinade is then warmed in the pan with rice vinegar and poured over the salmon. Served with rice and sliced spring onions, this meal is almost culinary perfection. I was extremely close to licking the plate after this one. This would be perfect no-stress food to serve to other people. The only thing to note was that the actual heat for the pan isn’t specified. I think I had the gas blazing too high as the salmon was almost overcooked and the remaining marinade almost disappeared on contact with the pan. But while I raced back upstairs to attend to Baby N, L threw some more marinade together and saved the day.
This meal was as good as any we’ve had in restaurants. Between pregnancies and young children and moving away from our condo with a great Japanese restaurant literally thirty seconds walk away, we haven’t eaten food like this for a long time. Not to mention the year of Rachael Ray which had very few Asian inspired meals. I would happily eat this every week, it was that good. We also splashed out on a cheap rice cooker, on the recommendation of Nigella Lawson. We figured that $15 wasn’t going to break the bank, and it could be a very handy thing to have. After one false start when the light came on to say the rice had cooked when it obviously hadn’t (and yet I still tasted it to see if it was done, despite the fact that it was sitting in an inch of lukewarm water and looked decidedly grainy- it tasted remarkably crunchy) we made some nice rice. I can see that rice making may actually happen more regularly these days, which is no bad thing.
Speaking of cheap small appliances, we bought a beautiful little waffle maker on sale today for $5. Hello Kitty waffles, you can’t go wrong, surely. I’ve never made waffles before, but we get through quite a lot of frozen ones in the morning- it’s a good way to get Little A eating. These seem to be the perfect size for her little hands, and I think she’ll love to eat cat waffles. She has no idea yet that waffles come in anything but wholegrain, or that people eat syrup and such on them. She has so much to learn. As do I, I have no idea how to make waffles, but it can’t be that hard, surely.
Today our rampant consumerism bit us on the butt. We were picking up some groceries and Little A was sitting in the cart shouting “I need something. I want something pink. I need it.” This then turned into an “I want ice cream” toddler meltdown which hit about 9 on the Richter Scale. No one would believe us if we told them that she’s only ever eaten ice cream at home twice, and only a handful of times in her whole life. We suddenly had that kid on our hands. And I know we shouldn’t care what people think, but I sort of do. We need to find many more non-shopping orientated activities. Educational ones only, where she only eats organic things with a high fiber content. And we should stop saying “I need coffee” every day, all day.
In light of curbing our rampant shop shop shopping, for both moral and financial reasons, I think I need to get the breadmaker out again. It has been banished to the basement because I can’t really find a space for it in the kitchen. Given that we’re spending $4 on each loaf of nice bread, now would be a good time to start making our own again. And we need to use our coffee machine much more, we’ve fallen back into the Starbucks habit in a big way. It’s difficult when the days are so long and childcare demands so relentless (please start taking daytime naps Baby N, you are doing so great at night. Even just an hour while Little A sleeps would be tremendous. And Little A, please let the shorter naps be a blip and not a pattern). Our only vice/ entertainment/ pick-me-up/ partial break comes in the form of coffee and cake. I remember the same thing happening when Little A was just a baby, coffee and a cake was the only thing that kept me going through the day. No wonder I ended up at Weight Watchers. Now of course we have to be careful on the cake front because Little A has come to expect it. And going for coffee no longer involves copious amounts of newspaper reading and peace and quiet. Maybe in a few years it will be relaxing again.
Not sure what we’re eating tomorrow, we bought groceries for Macaroni Cheese, Sesame Peanut Noodles and some other stuff which escapes me now. It’s fantastic to have the freedom to choose meals again, although presumably our choices will be much more limited as the year progresses. Can I just say for the record that I am so happy with our cookery book choice.
Day 8: Tastes so green
This evening we made Pea and Pesto Soup, which was very easy, and extraordinarily green. I loved that there was no chopping or frying- the frozen peas were simmered in water with salt, lime juice and 2 whole spring onions. After seven minutes, the onions were removed and the soup was blended with the pesto and poured into bowls. About as easy as food comes.
The soup was quite delicate; it had an air of onion with a whiff of lime and a taste of pesto and peas. This is recommended as a lunch time warmer but you could probably also eat it cold on a summer’s day. As we ate it for dinner we discussed what would be a good addition; maybe some bacon crumbled on top with some Parmesan would be nice. Some crunchy cheesy toasty croutons would be delicious. All in all though, a souptastic success.
Last night Baby N fell asleep at 10pm, and only woke up once at 5am, which was fantastic. All hail the power of the swaddle. We were rudely awoken by the doorbell just before 7.30am. I answered the door to the drywallers in my pajamas; I was so tired and confused I had no idea what I was saying, and to whom. Still, how nice to not be woken by the kids. I took the girls to the family room of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts while L went to our meeting. It was very refreshing to find a good clean play space with books and toys and educational computer set-ups. There is a cafe opposite; I can see this place could feature quite regularly in our non-daycare life. I’ll have to work on my creative explanation of Noah’s Ark a little, there is a beautiful wooden playset of the ark and the animals. I have to say I was a little uncomfortable with the Biblical aspect, particularly in a secular institution. We came home for naptime but the drywallers put a stop to that idea. So we found ourselves back in the Mall of America for the millionth time this year. This calendar year that is, 2008. Little A is no longer interested in the train set, but she can be entertained for long stretches of time finding pink books. “Look Mummy, another pink one. Look Daddy, this book’s pink” is our general conversation these days. Somehow things seemed less predictable when she liked trains and orange was her favourite colour. Is is inevitable that she’ll be into pink princesses? At least we have a little more control of that, for the forseeable future at least, on account of the homeschooling and all. But maybe these things are innate. They’re certainly inane. While Baby N napped all day (in the sling, as my aching shoulders will attest), we were dangerously close to some serious sleep deprivation fueled meltdowns, but we all survived intact. And the pink objects in the mall breathed a collective sigh of relief as we left the premises.
Day 7: The minutes are slow, the months are turbo-charged
Linguine with lemon, thyme and garlic mushrooms [recipe] was an exceptionally easy and extremely tasty meal, which was just what the doctor ordered for two tired and frazzled parents. Basically the pasta was cooked, and thinly sliced mushrooms were put in a bowl with thyme, lemon zest and juice, salt, olive oil and crushed garlic. The pasta was tossed with the mushrooms, seasoned with pepper and fortified with some Parmesan cheese and parsley. Excellent. This dish was subtle yet packed a massive flavour punch. I thought it would be overwhelmingly lemony, but that was just one of the flavours at play. There seemed to be a lot of olive oil and salt in the recipe- I may have cut the amounts down a bit (after a year of “eyeballing” it, in the Rachael Ray stylee, it is hard to go back to measuring cups and such) but the end result was neither too salty nor too oily. It seemed remarkably light and is a great easy vegetarian meal. As Nigella suggests, the mushrooms would be good by themselves as a side dish.
I worry that I am in danger of sounding like a raving Nigella Lawson fan, but actually so far all these recipes have been consistently excellent. One of the things I really like is that there has been hardly any chopping. Our usual division of labour has been for L to do the chopping and myself to do the cooking, but these meals require so little preparation, so far, that it has been easier for one of us to pretty much do everything. I think I like am in love with this style of cooking; simple easy preparation and high-end results. The time factor itself is becoming irrelevent when everything is this easy- the Crispy Duck cooked for almost five hours, but the whole meal probably took ten minutes of effort on our part, maximum. Last year we made the vast majority of our meals within the thirty minute dictate, but quite often that half an hour was pretty intense in a hectic preparation with many stages of cooking sense.
I am concerned that we might get a bit fat this year. I don’t think that the food is more fattening, but it inspires me to be more greedy. Making deserts is also problematic. I am the sort of person who can’t concentrate if I have a packed lunch in my bag until it is eaten. Despite leaving most of the The Rocky Road Crunch Bars at our friends house, the ones we have here are burning a whole in my psyche. They are fantastic just out of the fridge, and L isn’t eating them…
Today was a prime example of how important it is to lower your expectations of what you can achieve in a day when you have young kids. We had three tasks today and got two of them done. Not so bad, all things considered. Little A took a short nap, Baby N no nap. I am dedicating my evenings to getting Baby N to sleep before 1am. It’s taking some time, but she has been down by 10pm the last couple of nights. I am hoping to get her bedtime routine up and running soon, culminating in a bedtime nearer 8pm. I can’t believe she’ll be three months old next week, where on earth did the time go? Really I have to confess that today has been Dully McDull, and I am devoid of thought. Tomorrow I am giving L power of attorney to make decisions for us at a meeting we are both supposed to attend. Last week we took both kids and we didn’t have the easiest time, what with the shouting and running, so I think this time it would be more productive if just one of us went and could have an adult conversation. This not having childcare thing certainly has it’s moments, what with still trying to work and all. Not sure what delights we’ll be cooking up tomorrow, we have everything for Pesto Pea Soup as a standby. It’s not easy being green.
Day 6: You can take a horse to water
This morning we took Rocky Road Crunch Bars [recipe] round to our Sunday coffee and playdate pals. The bars were pretty successful with the adults, and surprisingly with the toddlers. I say surprisingly not because Little A doesn’t like sweet things, but because the very dark chocolate is extremely rich and a little bitter. These bars are much more sophisticated than the ingredients would suggest. The mini marshmallows and Rich Tea biscuits (which I substituted with shortbread cookies, not being near a British import store. Or being near an Irish theme shop which sells the things, but not being willing to shell out $7 for the pleasure. Had they been Digestive biscuits, that would have been a whole other matter. (Can I just say for the record how weird is it that there is a site that reviews biscuits weekly? Although maybe not weirder than people cooking their way through cookery books and blogging about it)) suggested to me that this would be a more lighthearted confection than it actually is. Nigella suggests that these would be good in lunchboxes, I have to say I disagree a little with that. For starters this is so rich and dense and sophisticated that it speaks more of an accompaniment to after-dinner coffee than as a follow-up to a sandwich. Secondly, they absolutely melt on contact, so they are pretty messy finger food. Having said that, they are very good, just a little more grown-up and less brownie-like than I initially imagined.
They are also extremely easy to make, which was good given that we made them mid-screaming-fest with Baby N an unwilling participant in the sling. The butter, chocolate and golden syrup (I did splash out for that, fabulous stuff as it is) are melted together and some of it put to one side. The mini marshmallows and crushed biscuits are stirred in to the chocolate mixture, then poured into a foil tin. As the copy of the book we have was a Christmas present from my mum, obviously all the weights and measures are metric, So the foil tin I had was the wrong size, but the mixture was thick enough that it didn’t matter that the whole lot wasn’t filled. After spreading out the chocolatey goop with a spatula, the remaining chocolatey liquid was poured on top. After spending some hours in the fridge, icing sugar was sprinkled over the top with a sieve, then the slab was cut into pieces. Note to self: don’t try and use a pizza slice to cut the hard, thick bar, you may actually succeed in cutting your finger off next time. I was somewhat concerned that the biscuits were utterly pulverised rather than broken into pieces and crumbs. I asked L to do the job as I didn’t want to disturb Baby N in the sling, and he did an extraordinarily efficient manly job of crushing every single piece of biscuit, bar one. Still, it didn’t seem to matter, it was all good.
Our friends our experimenting with dropping their toddler’s afternoon nap. Having spent over a week living with a toddler who doesn’t take an afternoon nap, and knowing full well how grumpy and fractious our toddler gets without (and even with) adequate sleep, we were saying how we would never drop the afternoon nap. How Little A would still be having an enforced nap when she is seven. Lo and behold when we got her home we put her to bed, and we put Baby N to bed. Bliss. For about three seconds. Then they both started crying. Then screaming. And as if by magic, nobody took a nap today. So we abandoned the house and decided to go to the mall to buy big girl knickers for Little A, because hey! Why not start toilet training soon? I mean we’re going to be home a lot anyway, and she’s interested. Let’s all go absolutely crazy.
So off we went with Baby N screaming all the way, because although she is a very happy smiley baby most of the time, she loathes being in the car with the fuel of one thousand suns. Poor minivan. When we got there, the police had just cordoned off one of the access points. We could not cross the road to get into the mall. Instead, we had to go up in the lift and walk across the glass walkway. From the walkway everyone had a sickeningly clear view of the aftermath of someone who had just committed suicide by jumping from the parking lot. It was simply hideous and tragic and horrible. After a couple of hours of shopping, everything was completely cleared up by the time we left, you would never know what had happened.
On a lighter note, I had no idea how hard it was to find underwear for toddlers. A huge amount of shops only start selling knickers for five year olds. What’s that all about? Conspiracy theory dictates that the shops are in cahoots with the manufacturers of pull-ups. We did find some in the sale at Gap. Little A wanted to hold them and ended up being pushed through the mall in her stroller with her new pants on her head. She would not remove them, her eyes peeked out through one of the legholes and suddenly everyone and their dog took notice of her and pointed and smirked. When we stopped to feed Baby N, I asked Little A if she wanted to start wearing her big girl knickers soon. She told me yes, she would. On her head. But she would still be wearing nappies.
Still no pictures, no naptime to sort it out. But, for now at least Baby N is sleeping, which is 2 hours earlier than her usual 1am resting time. Maybe tomorrow, with the rainbows and unicorns, there will be naps and flowers and technical support. A girl can dream.