So it's 8pm, the house is quiet and I'm pitched up in my conservatory with a glass of red and the sun beaming in at me. This is possibly one of the best situations to be in to write a blog, well aside from a beach hut in South East Asia, the sound of gentle waves lapping onto the sand and beside me a giant bowl of Pad Thai and an ice cold Chang! Ok, snap out of it Kaori! Nothing is ever good enough, is it!!
I've thought for a while deciding what I'll write about today and a popular theme in my life is food, so it seems as good a choice as any, besides I'm stuffed from the curry I just ate tonight so writing about food 'shouldn't' make me hungry now... (she says whilst reaching for a Magnum!! Only kidding, well maybe later!)
Since becoming a Mum I suppose food stepped up a notch in terms of importance. Well I say that... I suppose it was always up there (a girl's got to eat!) and actually the last few weeks of being pregnant saw me madly batch cooking, resulting in about 40 meals to freeze ahead in preparation for sleep deprivation and lack of interest in the kitchen. We had curries (chicken; beef; spinach and chick pea), cottage pies, lasagnes (beef as well as chicken and chorizo), chilli's, spinach and ricotta cannelloni's and goodness knows what else and when it came to the little ones arrival they were an absolute godsend! Homemade ready-meal heaven and maintaining my all important independence!!
As a first time Mum I didn't do much research into 'parenting' whilst pregnant or when my Daughter arrived. I'm a bit of a chilled out hippy at heart and after the pretty good hypo-birthing start to her life I was all for the whole 'as a Mum you'll know what your baby wants' ethos and decided to pretty much go with the flow... This worked ok in the most part and when I was unsure I called my cousin a few times, who had a toddler and a new baby Daughter born just a month prior to my bundle. This settled my mind in terms of colic and things that you're really never sure of as a first time parent, well I wasn't anyway...
'Ok, so what on earth has this got to do with food, food and more food' I hear you thinking... well there was one thing I did some research on and that was 'weaning'. Food is important to me and I will literally eat anything, so it was super vital that I brought my Daughter up to do the same, but how? Kids are so fussy! I decided that the most important thing would be to make food interesting and for her to try as many things as possible as soon as she was able. I was about as interested in giving her baby rice as I was someone pulling my toenails off, so I started to look into this fairly new found and pretty controversial thing called Baby Led Weaning. This is basically where you're baby is fed strictly just milk until they are six months old and then, so long as they are able to sit upright by themselves, you give them finger foods for them to eat (well suck and play with) themselves. A common argument is 'how can the babies being weaned this way get the right nutrients' and the counter debate is that 'food is for fun until you are one', so as long as they are having enough milk it doesn't matter.
In my Daughters case the playing and sucking start didn't last long and before we knew it she was more or less eating the same foods as us and prior to her turning a year she was a massive fan of eating spaghetti bolognese, curry, chilli-con-carne etc oh and did I mention she did all this with her hands!! The mess took some getting used to, but it was all for the greater good, so I was sticking with this!! The other thing to get used to was the constant gagging reflex, which was actually incredible and seemed to come very naturally to her. We quickly got used to it but for others watching sometimes it made them nervous, which is one thing you cannot be as you mustn't pat them on the back unless they are actually choking. Your flinching could cause them to jump and not cough up what they were trying to get back into their mouths to chew a bit more. As weird as this might sound, I can say that to this day (aside from one choking incident in Croatia of all places!!) she has an amazing reflex when something goes down the wrong way and I'm certain it is because she learned it so early. The other massive positive to weaning this way was that from day one we ate as a family, no spoon feeding and hours trying to play choo-choo train just to make her eat. She was getting stuck into the same food we were at the table with us and it has always been a joy and a really important part of her upbringing. We don't really do routines in terms of times for stuff and never have but we do make sure we always sit down and eat together before she has a bath, story and bed. It works for us anyway. So what I was winding up to telling you was that I got so enthusiastic about this Baby Led Weaning that I actually created my own website about it whilst I was twiddling my thumbs for a few evenings. It's still live and I plan to add more to it one day, but if you're interested in having a look it's Baby Led Weaning Rocks.
The BLW website was one food related thing that I have set up since I last blogged in 2011 and the other was setting up my Fabulous Food Club on Facebook. This was really a result of me being bored of repeating the same meals all the time so I wanted to set up a group of foodies to share ideas with and inspire each other. The group is still going strong (183 members) and people post everyday. This year I was so determined to spice up dinner time that I set myself a challenge not to repeat the same dinner twice in the whole of January. I actually lasted longer than this but can't remember exactly how long for. It was great and I discovered heaps more meals that we all loved. I still try and do this as often as possible but it's tough with a fussy husband! Sshhh, I didn't say that!!
Something that we're talking about this week on Fabulous Food is meal planning. Basically unless I plan what we're going to eat the next week I don't feel that we eat particularly well. Don't get me wrong, we don't slip into processed foods or ready meals but there will be things on toast or all day breakfast type meals slipping through the net which makes me grumpy! So, to make this whole process easier I have an account with BBC Good Food and I have set up 'collections', which I haver very basically named 'week commencing 15th June', 'week commencing 23rd June' etc and as I find recipes on the site that look good I add them to one of the collections. Towards the end of each week I make sure there are about 6 meals in the collection for the following week and carry out my grocery shopping online based around the ingredients for these recipes. When the food arrives the next week, I check the use by dates and make a plan of what meals we will have on what evening so everything gets used up and not wasted. It works amazingly well, we probably save money on shopping (made up with wine orders!) and definitely don't throw much out at all. Best of all we eat well most of the time and I get to cook different things a lot more regularly. My Daughter is keen to muck in too and is showing a keen love for food, just like her Mummy!
There you go, that just about covers food, food and more food (although there is plenty more that I could talk about when it comes to this topic). Now I bet you wish you'd never asked! Oh, hang on you didn't!
I've thought for a while deciding what I'll write about today and a popular theme in my life is food, so it seems as good a choice as any, besides I'm stuffed from the curry I just ate tonight so writing about food 'shouldn't' make me hungry now... (she says whilst reaching for a Magnum!! Only kidding, well maybe later!)
Since becoming a Mum I suppose food stepped up a notch in terms of importance. Well I say that... I suppose it was always up there (a girl's got to eat!) and actually the last few weeks of being pregnant saw me madly batch cooking, resulting in about 40 meals to freeze ahead in preparation for sleep deprivation and lack of interest in the kitchen. We had curries (chicken; beef; spinach and chick pea), cottage pies, lasagnes (beef as well as chicken and chorizo), chilli's, spinach and ricotta cannelloni's and goodness knows what else and when it came to the little ones arrival they were an absolute godsend! Homemade ready-meal heaven and maintaining my all important independence!!
As a first time Mum I didn't do much research into 'parenting' whilst pregnant or when my Daughter arrived. I'm a bit of a chilled out hippy at heart and after the pretty good hypo-birthing start to her life I was all for the whole 'as a Mum you'll know what your baby wants' ethos and decided to pretty much go with the flow... This worked ok in the most part and when I was unsure I called my cousin a few times, who had a toddler and a new baby Daughter born just a month prior to my bundle. This settled my mind in terms of colic and things that you're really never sure of as a first time parent, well I wasn't anyway...
'Ok, so what on earth has this got to do with food, food and more food' I hear you thinking... well there was one thing I did some research on and that was 'weaning'. Food is important to me and I will literally eat anything, so it was super vital that I brought my Daughter up to do the same, but how? Kids are so fussy! I decided that the most important thing would be to make food interesting and for her to try as many things as possible as soon as she was able. I was about as interested in giving her baby rice as I was someone pulling my toenails off, so I started to look into this fairly new found and pretty controversial thing called Baby Led Weaning. This is basically where you're baby is fed strictly just milk until they are six months old and then, so long as they are able to sit upright by themselves, you give them finger foods for them to eat (well suck and play with) themselves. A common argument is 'how can the babies being weaned this way get the right nutrients' and the counter debate is that 'food is for fun until you are one', so as long as they are having enough milk it doesn't matter.
In my Daughters case the playing and sucking start didn't last long and before we knew it she was more or less eating the same foods as us and prior to her turning a year she was a massive fan of eating spaghetti bolognese, curry, chilli-con-carne etc oh and did I mention she did all this with her hands!! The mess took some getting used to, but it was all for the greater good, so I was sticking with this!! The other thing to get used to was the constant gagging reflex, which was actually incredible and seemed to come very naturally to her. We quickly got used to it but for others watching sometimes it made them nervous, which is one thing you cannot be as you mustn't pat them on the back unless they are actually choking. Your flinching could cause them to jump and not cough up what they were trying to get back into their mouths to chew a bit more. As weird as this might sound, I can say that to this day (aside from one choking incident in Croatia of all places!!) she has an amazing reflex when something goes down the wrong way and I'm certain it is because she learned it so early. The other massive positive to weaning this way was that from day one we ate as a family, no spoon feeding and hours trying to play choo-choo train just to make her eat. She was getting stuck into the same food we were at the table with us and it has always been a joy and a really important part of her upbringing. We don't really do routines in terms of times for stuff and never have but we do make sure we always sit down and eat together before she has a bath, story and bed. It works for us anyway. So what I was winding up to telling you was that I got so enthusiastic about this Baby Led Weaning that I actually created my own website about it whilst I was twiddling my thumbs for a few evenings. It's still live and I plan to add more to it one day, but if you're interested in having a look it's Baby Led Weaning Rocks.
The BLW website was one food related thing that I have set up since I last blogged in 2011 and the other was setting up my Fabulous Food Club on Facebook. This was really a result of me being bored of repeating the same meals all the time so I wanted to set up a group of foodies to share ideas with and inspire each other. The group is still going strong (183 members) and people post everyday. This year I was so determined to spice up dinner time that I set myself a challenge not to repeat the same dinner twice in the whole of January. I actually lasted longer than this but can't remember exactly how long for. It was great and I discovered heaps more meals that we all loved. I still try and do this as often as possible but it's tough with a fussy husband! Sshhh, I didn't say that!!
Something that we're talking about this week on Fabulous Food is meal planning. Basically unless I plan what we're going to eat the next week I don't feel that we eat particularly well. Don't get me wrong, we don't slip into processed foods or ready meals but there will be things on toast or all day breakfast type meals slipping through the net which makes me grumpy! So, to make this whole process easier I have an account with BBC Good Food and I have set up 'collections', which I haver very basically named 'week commencing 15th June', 'week commencing 23rd June' etc and as I find recipes on the site that look good I add them to one of the collections. Towards the end of each week I make sure there are about 6 meals in the collection for the following week and carry out my grocery shopping online based around the ingredients for these recipes. When the food arrives the next week, I check the use by dates and make a plan of what meals we will have on what evening so everything gets used up and not wasted. It works amazingly well, we probably save money on shopping (made up with wine orders!) and definitely don't throw much out at all. Best of all we eat well most of the time and I get to cook different things a lot more regularly. My Daughter is keen to muck in too and is showing a keen love for food, just like her Mummy!
There you go, that just about covers food, food and more food (although there is plenty more that I could talk about when it comes to this topic). Now I bet you wish you'd never asked! Oh, hang on you didn't!
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