baby food is gross

My poor baby, I'm making her eat such gross things!  There's so much advice out there about what to feed your baby and when, and somehow it got all muddled up and really she's just stuck eating things that don't taste good!

We started with sweet potatoes, since they're super healthy and a carb, but not a grain.  I cooked them myself, and they were pretty gross.  I don't like sweet potatoes all that much, and it appears that neither does my baby.  Then she didn't go to the bathroom for over a week!  So that was the end of sweet potatoes, and the beginning of prunes, haha.

Prunes, she seems to like, hooray!  But you can't just eat prunes all day every day... so we added in some green beans.  I like green beans, but not steamed and pureed, blech!  She likes them mixed with prunes... i guess perspective is everything - i think it's gross, but she's got nothing but milk and sweet potatoes for comparison!

Now she's eating some avocado (or as i like to say, aguacate!  It's spanish but sounds japonese!), which she seems to love, hooray!  I like it too, so when she doesn't finish it, i do, haha.  Today we're going to start eating pears, which I'm excited about because then i think i'll finally stop feeling guilty about making her eat gross things... pears are nice!

But the best part of all about my baby girl eating some real food, is that I've been given the ok to add some questionable foods back into my diet - like goat milk!  Sounds strange, but when you haven't had any cheese or yogurt since december, goat milk is FABULOUS!!!  And the fancy grocery stores have all kind of goodies, like goat milk cheddar and feta!  I'm so happy, and it opens up a whole new world in the kitchen!  Soon I'm going to add back in eggs as well, and all will be right with the world.  It will still be gluten free, but baby steps.  Also, king arthur's chocolate cake is so incredible all the men (and women) in my family loved it and couldn't tell it was gluten free - my mom even made it with fake eggs!  Hooray chocolate cake!

I did it!

I finally found the time to make a baby blanket for my OWN baby!  It started out as a way to use up some silly yarn my mom gave me, but it turned out really nice, in fact I'm really proud of it!  I made up the crochet pattern using a stitch I saw gain popularity recently on Pinterest (the bobble stitch), and I think it will be a great texture for the baby to explore.

My baby's new blanket!

 I used a combination of single crochet and bobble stitches in gray and rainbow, and I finished the project by working around the edges once with the rainbow yarn in single crochet.  If it weren't so fluffy I would have done used half-double crochet stitches, but with this boucle yarn I didn't need to.  I used Lion Brand Boucle yarn (which has apparently been discontinued) and Red Heart Grey (not sure which shade exactly).

Pattern I made up (roughly, I've never tried to write a pattern before)

Grey stripe:

• foundation single crochet in multiples of 4+2, chain 1, 
• single crochet 6 (?) rows
• skip first stitch, *bobble stitch, single crochet in next 3 stitches* until end, chain 1
• single crochet 7 (?) rows
• change colors, chain 1

Color Stripe:

• skip first stitch, single crochet in next 2 stitches, *bobble stitch, single crochet in next 3* until end, chain 1
• single crochet 1 row
• skip first stitch, *bobble stitch, single crochet 3* until end, 
• single crochet 1 row
• change colors, chain 1

Repeat until desired length. 

To finish:
Working with colored yarn, single crochet all the way around the blanket.  Work in ends, wash & dry as allowed by yarn type (I put in washing machine and dryer), voila!  No blocking necessary.

Paella!

I made Paella last night, mmmm!!!!

Paella used to scare me.  It looks like it's hard to make, and I don't like shellfish.  But then one year for Christmas, my mom said she wanted a Paella pan (inspired by my recent trip to Spain), so I got her one.  And she got me one!  So ready or not, I felt obliged to at least try cooking Paella. Our first attempt was New Years Dinner 2012, a mix of chicken, seafood, and vegetable paellas.  We tried cooking two at once, which was a little overwhelming to say the least!  They were decent, but I was a little worn out from trying and decided to just stick to my crockpot risotto for a while.

Paella New Years Eve 2011-2012

Then one day a few months ago, my sister came to visit and we felt adventurous!  After browsing through my Paella cookbooks, we selected a recipe for Chorizo and Olive Paella from this cookbook.  I love chorizo!  And it turns out I love this Paella!  I made it again last night, though I skipped the addition of fancy (or any) ham, because all I had were some slices of maple ham from the deli, and I wasn't sure they'd go well with chorizo and olives!

Last night's Chorizo Paella!

Making Paella is actually very simple, and it's ok if you don't have a fancy pan.  Any wide shallow pan that is oven safe would work, and this enormous specialty pan I have makes enough for 6 or 7 people - you don't need that much!  It's similar to making risotto, but less labor intensive, almost as easy as my rice cooker risotto but much more delicious!

I don't feel it would be appropriate to post the recipe I used since I didn't write it, however, I feel that Paella recipes are likely to be very forgiving, as long as you get the rice/liquid recipe right.   This recipe that made a looooot of food used 3 cups of Arroz Bomba (fancy spanish version of arborio rice, arborio rice is fine to use for this) and 6-7 cups of broth (I say 6-7 is because the recipe calls for 6, but I put 7 cups on to boil since I knew some would evaporate).

The basic methodology is: 

• chop all your ingredients (garlic and lots of parsley are key),
• saute the meat and flavors (garlic, etc) in lots of oil, 
• stir in the rice to coat it all in flavor, 
• pour in hot broth (bring to a boil separately), 
• cook over one or two burners rotating pan and stirring occasionally until the liquid is mostly absorbed (in other words, until the risk of spilling while transferring to the oven is minimal), 
• add in any soft vegetables (snow peas in this case)
• cook in a hot oven for 10 minutes, and 
• rest under foil for 10 minutes.

Don't be afraid!  It looks scarier than it is!

What to do with all that leftover chicken

I mentioned this in another post, but as I'm sitting here eating some leftovers, I've decided it's worthy of it's own post.  The sausage flavor is delicious!

Sausage and Chicken Soup!

Ingredients (approximate amounts, I don't measure):

• 2 large cloves of garlic, minced
• 1 tbsp olive oil (i use extra virgin)
• 4 links of italian sausage, casings removed
• 1/2 medium fennel bulb, chopped (1.5 - 2 cups?)
• 2 cups chopped carrots
• 3-4 cups of cooked rice (it can probably be done with uncooked and extra water - but we had leftovers)
• several cups of spinach, rinsed and chopped or baby (it melts and disappears)
• salt and pepper
• 1-2 cups leftover cooked chicken, chopped (i used about 1 cup dark meat)
• 4-6 cups of chicken stock (i used homemade)
• 2-4 cups of water

Directions:

1. Heat the oil and saute the garlic and sausage, making sure to mush up the garlic into pieces as it cooks
2. Add the fennel, carrots, salt and pepper, and stir occasionally until beginning to soften
3. Add the chicken and the broth and enough water to cover, plus a couple of inches (depending on pot size) to account for the rice to be added later, and bring to a boil
4. Reduce to a simmer, add the rice and spinach and cook until the spinach has thoroughly melted and the carrots are cooked to your liking.  It will look like an insufficient amount of rice at first, but the longer it sits, the more water it will absorb until it balloons up and you have porridge instead of soup (don't worry, it will still taste good!)
5. Enjoy!

New Mom Survival - Crockpot Chicken Thighs!

Yesterday I explained how to very easily roast a whole chicken.  But what if you want something a little... saucier, with less raw-chicken-touching?  Easy!  Frozen chicken thighs are one of my best friends since having a baby.

It all started with this recipe, but as usual I didn't follow it very closely.  I didn't have any apricot preserves, so instead added about 1/4 cup of water and a handful of chopped dried apricots - turned out fabulous!!  Since then I've made a few variations (no soy sauce now that baby is soy-free), and have tried making up a few recipes of my own with varied success.  A few weeks ago I attempted thighs in homemade barbeque sauce, it worked out pretty well!  Tomato paste, garlic, molasses, and honey, mix up, add thighs, and cook for 8 hours!  I might add some vinegar next time, but i was pretty happy with it :)  Another time i added some curry powder and later mixed it with spinach, rice and coconut milk for a southeast-asian inspired soupy stew.  The great thing about chicken thighs is that they stay moist, and they're very adaptable.  And crockpot meals are forgiving, so if you don't measure very closely it's ok!

As a compliment to most of my chicken thigh meals, I plug in the rice cooker and make use of the steamer attachment for some carrot coins or green beans.  If you don't have a rice cooker, go ahead and add some carrots right into the crockpot with your chicken thighs, or stir in some baby spinach leaves last minute for an easy vegetable!