29 July 2009

A Big Serve of Yuck

I’ve been out of commission recently due to a revolting stomach bug. I never realised how much of my time I spend thinking about food, anticipating what to buy, cook and eat next, until I was limited to “plain food” which I hate and which was making me sick anyway. I was thrilled tonight to sit down with a proper serving of pasta with Bolognese sauce (although I put on much less sauce, butter and oil than usual, to be on the safe side). If I made a mistake in doing this, I’ll know in about an hour...

Meanwhile, Anya has been making up for me, by eating about three times as much as she normally does. I thought at first that she was just being greedy about snacks, but she was happy to have second and third helpings of the meals themselves, and seems to be eating all day. I wonder if she will suddenly shoot up in size next week (like Jack’s beanstalk)?

Callum, of course, has always been a big eater. He reportedly had three helpings of pumpkin and spinach pasta at Kindercraft yesterday, so I begged Pin (the chef) for the recipe: mashed pumpkin, thickened cream, salt & pepper for the sauce, with baby spinach mixed in. Amazing! She is a great cook and always seems to come up with dishes the kids all like. She even makes mild curry for them!

In other developments (not to talk about food endlessly!) Callum has still been trying to learn how to jump. He pumps up and down but doesn’t quite get that he is supposed to bend his legs first. (Maybe if I dangled some food on a stick above him!) He loves trying to do the same circus tricks that Anya and I practice at home: flying (my feet on her hips while I hold her hands), rolling (he did some great sideways rolling in a rage this evening), even holding a chair up with his legs (when he saw Anya doing it, he immediately carried the other small chair in from the other room, and tried to do the same thing).

20 July 2009

Broccoli Souffle with Tapenade Sauce

This wonderful recipe from one of my favourite cookbooks, The Impoverished Gastronome by David Chater, was our dinner last night.  I’m pretty sure I’ve made this before, as broccoli is one of my favourite foods, but I think I made the mistake of leaving out the sauce last time.  The soufflé is very mild tasting on its own (milk, butter, eggs, flour, cheese, almonds), so the tapenade really makes the difference.  Interestingly, the tapenade itself is slightly different from the usual, as it includes mustard.

I won’t give the full recipe here, as it’s probably not that hard to find a recipe for a broccoli soufflé.  The main things that make this dish are the combination of the soufflé with the tapenade, and the inclusion of mustard in the tapenade.  I tweaked the recipe a little too, as I couldn’t bring myself to boil the broccoli (just seems like a travesty to treat broccoli that way!) and instead I sautéed it in a little butter, then added a dash of water, covered the pan and steamed it until soft.  If you do this just right, the broccoli keeps its bright green color.

For the cheese I used finely grated Romano, but I toyed briefly with the idea of putting in some blue cheese for a stronger flavour.  I left it out because David doesn’t like blue cheese, but it’s probably worth trying.  Also I wondered if some fresh herbs (tarragon? coriander?) might be tasty.

13 July 2009

Baby Banana

Mysteriously, Callum’s latest thing is to get a drink or piece of food, and just hold it for an hour or more without actually drinking or eating it, while steadfastly refusing to give up the item. His appetite has been very small lately compared to usual, because of colds and teething, but normally before now he would have just been uninterested in having anything. This magpie-like behaviour is perplexing and frustrating. I’ve gotten to the point where I am wary of giving him anything squishable, crumbly, or tip-out-able. While I am quite happy to clean up afterwards when he actually eats, this new habit of festooning our carpet and sofa with perishables for no purpose (he usually eventually abandons the item) just drives me crazy.

We have all been gradually getting well after a week of snuffling and coughing, so I took it as a positive sign last night that after eating some pasta, Callum asked for a banana. Like a fool, I actually gave him a piece. You guessed it: he then clutched it, wandered back and forth, clambered over my legs and into my lap and out again, all the while applying just enough pressure to the banana to render the surface slimy. Eventually, it popped out of his hand on to the carpet.

It didn’t rest there for long, because Callum spotted a washcloth on our side table, so he picked up the banana, placed it on the table, and draped the washcloth over it. Next he patted it, and said, “Baby.” This went on for a little while longer, and then he picked up the banana again, this time with the cloth around it, and continued climbing over my legs and lap. He even gave the banana an experimental nibble, so that I teased him that he was eating his baby, but he never did eat it.

But at least I got an amusing blog-able moment out of it…