Chipotle Corn Chowder Recipe

This is a fantastic recipe for a soup I served at yesterday's party. I made it up as a combination of the following two recipes which I found on the internet:
- Roasted Sweet Potato, Lime and Chipotle Soup (M.S. Milliken & S. Feniger)
- Sweet Potato Chowder (Jane Kirby)

*** Chipotle Corn Chowder Recipe ***

½ red capsicum, diced
½ green capsicum, diced
1 yellow onion, peeled and quartered
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp coarse salt
1 tsp fresh thyme, chopped
1 tsp fresh sage, chopped
1.4 kg sweet potatoes
1¼ L chicken stock
3 canned chipotle chiles, minced
400 g canned corn, drained
500 ml cream
1 Tbs brown sugar
¼ tsp nutmeg
freshly ground black pepper to taste

Garnish
1 bunch green onions, sliced thin
fresh herbs, chopped – coriander, sage, thyme
yogurt or creme fraiche
lime wedges

Toss diced capsicum, onion, oil, salt, thyme & sage together. Roast until softened and browned, about 30 minutes. Set aside. Roast sweet potatoes whole until soft and caramelised. Remove peel (flesh will have shrunk back from the peel).

Place the sweet potato flesh in a blender or food processor along with the chipotle chiles. Add sufficient chicken stock to blend the mixture to a smooth puree. Alternatively, place in your stockpot and apply a hand blender. Stir in the remaining chicken stock, cream, corn, capsicum mixture, brown sugar, nutmeg and pepper.

Garnish with chopped herbs and a dollop or yogurt or creme fraiche, and serve with lime wedges. Optional: serve with cheese quesadillas (tortillas folded around a mixture of cheddar & mozzarella, and toasted until the cheese is melted).

Serves 4

Baby Boy Welcoming Party

Here are all the shirts created at the Baby Boy Welcoming Party yesterday. (See my Yahoo! photo album for snaps of the creative artists at work.)

Credits (left to right)
Top row: Alexander, Jacqui, Kasia, Wenda
Middle row: Nick, Melissa, Jayden, Tom
Bottom row: Jessica, Maureen, Don, Wayne, Rob/Julie, Helen

My second last day of work…

Feeling very fatigued this week. I have no idea if it’s pregnancy, caring for Anya, the cold weather or what… but considering all that, I’m in pretty good shape if a bit of fatigue is all that’s worrying me. I hope over the next month to include some exercise on the days that Anya is at Kindercraft, perhaps swimming in a heated pool. (It’s just so boring!) Exercise hopefully will help my soreness as well as the insomnia.

Baby boy continues to amaze both David and me with his range of movement. He seems to move the most when I sit in the recliner in front of the TV. This week we were watching Dr Who and I was getting more entertainment out of watching my belly jump. Usually everything stops as soon as I try to get David to feel or have a look, but this time when I said to David, “Look!” he was able to see the movement from across the room.

Where did all this come from?

On Monday, I asked Stefan (my boss), “So how was your weekend?” and he replied, “Terrible! We had vomit all weekend!” and I said, “Me too!!!” Ah, the parental life… sounds like they had it worse than we did, with their daughter throwing up in four successive beds.

This has been a crazy week: David had two job applications due today, while battling a cold virus that he caught from Anya. He stayed home with her on Monday and Tuesday. I had to deliver a training course, so couldn’t stay home with her myself. She originally started with a light cough and restless sleep last week, and on Thursday Becca (Kindercraft) discussed her cough with me, but I really thought it was not going to get any worse. Then it did… she started vomiting a little upon coughing, but it seemed like she was just coughing too hard and throwing up a little saliva. Then her appetite diminished until she was refusing all food and taking only milk, or sometimes not even milk.

Saturday night she threw up when we tried to give her some cough syrup -- she got really upset and cried so hard that she started coughing and threw up. It went all down my front, while David jumped back out of the way. I was thinking, "Where did this all come from?" since she really hadn’t eaten anything all day. By Sunday we thought she was getting better because she ate a little bread and fruit. But while sitting on the potty before bathtime, out of the blue she vomited again. Luckily I had a bath drawn and we just wiped her up a bit and got her into her bath.

Supersize Me

The Countdown Begins

I’m starting maternity leave on July 13th. I think the time will go really quickly, because I’m delivering some training courses next week and the week after, then just have about a week and a half to wrap up loose ends with projects. I have to study up this weekend on the training course material… someone else prepared most of it. I don’t want to be standing there going, “Um, so the hydrodynamic theory is that, um…”

I do feel a little exposed because my studies in college didn’t really focus on this stuff (I only had 2 classes in fluid mechanics) and I’m only in the “water industry” due to the high demand for engineers to plan and design water and wastewater systems. Everything I know, I learned on the job by teaching myself!

The weather here is getting really cold. It’s a little warmer today, but a few days ago it was super chilly thanks to some stiff breezes. The cold made me dash out and buy myself a pile of clothing (some op shop stuff and some new maternity stuff). I am feeling anxious about breastfeeding in this weather! July is the coldest month, though, so hopefully I’ll only have about a month of this type of weather before things warm up again.

I still remember making myself a cave out of our spare room when Anya was still a tiny baby (guess she would have been 2 months old). I had the heater on in here at all times and then could breastfeed and sleep in comfort. I don’t know how that will work this time. Obviously I won’t simply be nesting in one room, with having to look after Anya as a toddler as well!

My latest Anya news is that she now weighs a whopping 15 kg. Plotted against World Health Organisation growth curves, this takes her into the stratosphere… see blue line below. I haven’t measured her height since April. I probably should do that to see if she’s had a growth spurt that way too, or if she’s just incredibly dense. Ha, ha.

Mothers Group 2nd Birthday Party

My mothers' group is still meeting -- apparently this is quite unusual! We had a group party for all the kids today. Susan organised the venue booking and made the birthday cakes while Terri and I made up the party bags (Chinese noodle boxes with pens, stickers, toys and small treats). Rather than one big cake, there was one decorated cupcake for each child, and they were all decorated differently. You can see them at the bottom of the photo.



The party was a great success. We had it at the Everton Park Hotel (for you non-Aussie readers out there, that's a pub!) It doesn't seem like a hotel would be a kid-friendly party venue, but it was fantastic. They have a large fenced playground, video gameroom (more fun for the dads than the kids at this stage), and musical carousel. (You can spot my reflection in the carousel's central post, upper left in the photo.) Anya's favourite spot was the pretend shop. That's her at the cash register and Terri sitting to the left, with Terri's daughter Sienna at the back table and Will as the customer at the right.

Cot Shenanigans

Today I rearranged Anya's room so that she could sleep on a futon on the floor, instead of in her cot (crib). She'd taken really easily to the floor futon while visiting Paul & Teresa so I thought it was a good opportunity to make the change. Besides I'd had the feeling for quite some time that it was the right time to change out of the cot. I actually had to take quite a few pieces of furniture out of the room to make enough room, so I was proud of myself for accomplishing it on my own (with Anya's supervision).

The funny part of the story is that when David came home, he tried to move the cot out of the room. I hadn't been able to do it, so I stranded it near the door. I couldn't figure it out until I remembered that we'd originally moved it in there by removing the door first. (Just that extra inch of squeeze space made all the difference.) David thought, though, that if he just tried hard enough, the cot would squeeze through. All that happened was that the cot got stuck halfway in and halfway out!

Meanwhile, Anya was inside the room (she'd been "showing" David her new room arrangement) and we were outside it, and the wheels had fallen off two of the legs thanks to all the shoving and jiggling... and it was almost bedtime! We performed an emergency door removal and got it all sorted out in time, thank goodness.

Sydney-ho!

We went to Sydney this weekend (for 4 days) to visit Paul & Teresa. They have an apartment in a fantastic position on the water. Every morning I would open up the balcony door and immediately feel relaxed as the sounds of lapping water washed over me. Paul & Teresa also took such good care of us that I felt as if I didn't have a single worry (other than losing at Scrabble).

[for more photos, see my Yahoo! album]

The first morning we were there, we walked along the water to Lavender Bay, then Luna Park, passing through several parks on the way. The weather was beautiful -- sunny and temperate -- perfect for enjoying the harbour. We finished off the outing with lunch at Paul & Teresa's local yum cha restaurant (aka dim sum). When we got back, Paul amazed me by falling asleep with his head, arms and feet hanging over the edge of the bed. My arms would go dead and my head would be pounding from the pooled blood!

The second day (Anya's birthday!) was another beautiful day. We drove into the Blue Mountains to see the Three Sisters, followed by lunch at The Conservation Hut at Wentworth Falls and a quick visit to Mt Tomah Botanic Garden. The garden was definitely the highlight of the day. We got a bit stuck in traffic on the way out of the mountains and had a very stir-crazy Anya to soothe with Wiggles stories, songbooks, and renditions of "Happy Birthday to You!" She *loved* getting serenaded and kept asking for it again and again.

Our last day, we flew back to Brisbane at 2 pm, so Paul took us to Bondi Beach for the morning. I haven't seen a wide tame beach like this since LA. The water was clear bluey green and I regretted not wearing my togs. (I'd thought it would be too cold.) Anya and I played in the sand while the guys bodysurfed. (Teresa had to go to work.)

The plane trip itself went very well. I guess 18 months of taking the train every week had Anya quite used to waiting and sitting and travelling. The only issue was that she didn't like having to be buckled into our laps. This was Anya's first plane trip ever and we'd been telling her all week, "You're going on a plane soon!" She absorbed the story really quickly and was telling all and sundry, "I'm going on a plane! Up high!" She even told everyone she was going to Sydney.

We liked our Qantas flight a lot better than Virgin Airlines. There was more leg room (we were seated right behind business class) and were in a row of two, rather than three, seats. Also, we received a "Freddo Frog" activity pack for Anya and the staff made sure to give her as much service as the adults for food and drink.

Huggy Monster

This has been the week of “I want ____” and “Mine!” (even said while taking something clearly mine, that I was in the middle of using or eating). Also “I need some ice” for every little itch and bump. (Must admit, though, ice does have great powers.)

Last week saw the rise of the “huggy monster” who runs full pelt up to her victim and hugs their legs/arms/etc. She’s also greatly enjoyed going “boo!” and “rarrrr!” while menacing with curled fingers.

Anya's favorite book at the moment is a library book by Terry Pratchett, Where’s My Cow? The main character, Sam Vines (a DiscWorld character) comes home every night to read Where’s My Cow? to his son. Over the course of reading out the story, Sam starts to think how silly you’d have to be to confuse a chicken with a cow. He then alters the story to be Where’s My Daddy? and introduces a number of other DiscWorld characters such as Foul Ole Ron and Coffin’ Henry. Anya loves this idea so much that we play it all the time, even without the book.

Anya spent a day at home with David after the Easter break, because she was getting over a mystery illness (developed a fever with no other symptoms except for a loss of appetite). By the next day, she was back to her normal routine, although still not sleeping or eating completely normally. But I’ve noticed since then that she’s much more willing to do things with David and have him take care of her. It is amazing what one day can do!

She’s also really fond of Karen, the group leader at Kindercraft, and actually cried about not going with her, when I took her home last week. I was astonished, as it’s usually the other way around!

Bad Dream

Anya's been saying lately, "I had a bad dream," when she wakes up. I try to ask her what it was about, but she doesn't know. Then this week she said, "I had a bad dream -- on my arm." David thought this was a hoot...

Boy o boy...

The 20-week scan was this afternoon. We learned that our baby is going to be a boy! I'm feeling a bit scared...

David told Anya tonight, "Mama has a baby boy in her tummy." She responded sceptically, "No..."

David's Cute Anya Story

David has been telling this story to all and sundry with delight this week. Picture him driving home with Anya in the back while the radio plays Alanis Morissette. David is singing along full blast: "You, you, you -- oughtta know-ow..." On the final chorus, he hears from the back: "I know!"

Nice to meet you!

We all went to a barbecue at my boss Stefan’s house this afternoon -- lots of people meeting their partners’ colleagues and families for the first time. There were about six families altogether. Most of the kids (including Anya) were too young to take any notice of each other, and just stayed with their parents. After about three hours, the guests started trickling away. I didn't really pay much attention but Anya must have been... Anya and I were sitting on the bench next to Stefan’s 3-yr-old daughter Elise watching the last family (except us) leave, when Anya turned to Elise, took her hand, and said, “Nice to meet you,” while shaking her hand.

First Scan

We had our first scan today. I had to drink 600 ml of water an hour ahead of time (and hold it). The appointment was for 9 am but I think I didn't get in until 9:45 or 10, so I was in dire straits!

Besides that the scan went really well. Perhaps it was better equipment this time, or just experience, but we could easily interpret what we were seeing compared to our first scan of Anya. Arms moving around, legs bicycling, even the hand rubbing the face (sucking the thumb already?!) The baby kept turning too, but never in the right direction, so the technician had some trouble getting the necessary measurements (back of the neck).

She let me relieve myself (what a relief!) hoping that would prompt the baby to move into a more helpful position. We eventually got the measurements by a combination of the baby moving a little and me lying on a slant. The measured risk result was very good (equivalent to a teenager's baseline) so we are continuing without any invasive testing.

I read somewhere that stronger morning sickness is statistically linked to a higher successful pregnancy rate, so I must console myself with that thought, as I am still not really enjoying eating or drinking. Meanwhile, three mothers in my mothers' group have had second babies already and one other is expecting in six weeks. I wonder who's next?

Koalas to Bandicoots

Today Anya started back at Kindercraft. She's been moved from the Koalas room (babies) to Bandicoots (toddlers). It's another milestone in her growing up! Luckily for us, her natural schedule actually matches the toddlers' eating and sleeping schedule, so the only real difference will be sleeping on a low cot rather than in a crib. I learned at the end of the day that she'd slept an hour, so it seems that the change of sleeping venue didn't worry her at all.

Meanwhile, I'm not working yet this week, but I took the bus out to the University of Queensland, just to see how long it would really take, and familiarise myself with the bus stop location and how to get to the office (located in the Engineering building). It was so strange to be wandering around a campus again. A friendly student escorted me to the Engineering building, and he took me on a shortcut through a building (which I would have no hope of remembering). There is definitely a distinctive university aroma -- is it books? Chalk? Chemicals? Dust?

The Saga Continues

Suffice to say that the fridge still smells (see previous post). David moved it outside, and alternated running it with leaving it open to the elements, all to no avail. After arriving, Don also cleaned it repeatedly and seemed convinced at first that it just needed his efforts to come good. He finally conceded after a week that the smell was not going away. It smells a lot less than when we first came, of couse, but it's still not usable. We lived out of an Esky after Don's family arrived and took over the downstairs unit.

Other than that minor discomfort, the rest of our stay at Peregian was good. The weather became fine by Friday, and Don & Ann Maree arrived on Saturday (30th). Every morning we all went to the beach together, dug a bath-sized hole for Anya to loll in, and swam in the surf. Anya didn't really approach the open water much, but loved digging and running around on the sand. For some reason, running laps around the bath-sized hole while carrying a bucket seemed to be one of her favorite activities. Afterwards she generally had a great big nap, too.

Anya's developed the endearing mannerism of putting her hands on either side of my face and asking intently for something she really wants: "bottle?"

New Year's Eve was pretty quiet. Don & Ann Maree went to their friends' party, leaving Raema in charge downstairs. The kids struggled to stay awake but none of them made it. David and I were both in bed by 9 pm, embarassingly enough.

Christmas Eve, Christmas Day & Boxing Day

Christmas Eve we all went over to Rob & Julie's around lunch time. They served a lovely meal and it was nice to have all the family together. Christmas itself was pretty quiet -- this year David's brothers spent the day with the "other" in-laws. David's mum (Raema) came over mid-morning and we all opened our presents together. Anya received so many presents she got bored with opening them. She really loved her new jungle gym (from David & me) and baby dolls complete with stroller (from Raema). In the afternoon we went over to Don & Ann Maree's and had a little swim. Anya's main interest seemed to be in walking around the edge of the pool and jumping into my arms at random. A little scary when she did that near the steps!

Boxing Day was possibly the worst day for both David and me in recent memory. We packed up for a two-week holiday up the coast, picked Raema up from her house, swung back by our house for some last-minute items, and were finally on the road by about 12:30. It was about 2:30 when we got to Coolum -- we had to stop because I was getting a bad headache from not having eaten. Unfortunately I'd forgotten that nothing would be open due to the public holiday. Luckily, a pie shop was open so instead of yummy fish and chips I had a pie. I couldn't wait to get to the unit at Peregian and settle in with some additional munchies.

Instead, when we arrived at the unit, a foul smell greeted me as I went up the stairs. I thought at first it was the house next door, whose family doesn't clean up after its dogs very well. Even after finding that the odor was coming from inside, I still thought that perhaps there was just a dead lizard stuck in the window, as has happened before. I walked into the kitchen, opened the freezer door, and realised that this decomposing mass was the source... remember that I was nauseated (pregnant), tired (pregnant), and had a burgeoning headache (again, thanks to being pregnant I'm sure!) I exclaimed, "GROSS!!!" with great feeling -- whereupon Anya burst into tears (she had followed me in).

I carried Anya out, feeling bewildered & overwhelmed. Thankfully, Raema kept her cool, and suggested we move into the downstairs unit until the situation was resolved. I did the bare minimum of carrying some bags in, made up the queen bed, and collapsed on it, completely incapacited by my headache. (It lasted for 3 days in the end.) Again, thank goodness for Raema, who looked after her while I lay and groaned.

Meanwhile, David worked out that there was no power to the whole building, contacted Energex, cleaned out the fridge (retching the whole time), finished bringing all our stuff into the unit, cleaned the fridge some more, kept cleaning, cleaned the fridge again every time he went back upstairs for something... you get the picture. Every time he returned from a foray, the stench came with him and even after he left the room a bit of the smell remained behind. It was truly terrible.

Don & Ann Maree & their kids were meant to arrive the next day, but we called them to ask them to wait a day or two. It was raining, so going to the beach was not really a big attraction anyway. We spent the evening waiting around for Energex to fix the power. Dinner was a very haphazard affair, eating ham and bits from our Esky. Anya was probably a bit perplexed about sitting in the dark and using torches. Three Energex staff came out separately to look at the situation before a crew was finally called in. It wasn't until 10:30 pm that power was restored. The failure had occurred from a neighbor's tree rubbing away the insulation on the power supply line to the property. They trimmed off some branches, but probably not enough. We really need to contact the owner (the property is a rental) and have the tree properly trimmed back.

Next time, I'm going to make sure to bring camping lanterns and some sort of gas stove, just to be safe. I'd really be happiest if we didn't have a fridge permanently loaded there, either, but the boys like to keep their bait in it. Sadly, we ourselves had left two Magnum ice-creams in the freezer on our last trip up, forgetting to eat them. :(

'Twas the Week Before Christmas...

...and all through the house, not a creature was sleeping... it was teething time again. Meanwhile this poor woman is drooping with pregnancy fatigue... in the end we got 2 new teeth (bringing the total to 8) with possibly one more hanging about in the wings.

On Friday my office had an end-of-year/Xmas/etc. morning tea and I went along despite it being my day off, as it was the only day that they could fit in a farewell activity for me as well. I brought Anya along, which kept me and most everyone entertained during boring speech moments. Afterwards, we went along to David's office as well, so that Anya could wow even more plebs. She was pretty tired after all that socialising and fell asleep in the car on the way home.

Big news

We're pregnant! This was our third try, and we implanted 2 embryos this time to increase the odds of success. I was just starting to feel defeated, and wondering at what stage we would give up, so I was surprised when the test came out positive. Wow! (Now I just hope I don't have twins...) The due date is calculated as 38 weeks from the moment of fertilisation, which makes it mid August.

For the curious, the IVF timeline was:

• 23-Aug...start treatment (nasal spray)
• 28-Aug...start injections (twice daily in the tummy, self-administered)
• 11-Sep...egg pick up (13 eggs)
• 13-Sep...1 embryo transferred, remainder frozen
• 20-Oct...1 frozen embryo transferred
• 24-Nov...2 frozen embryos transferred