Sweet Potato Fries, Tonkatsu with Curry, and Zach Eating Food

I made sweet potato fries using the brilliant cold oil method I mentioned recently.  They were delicious - let them rest for a minute or two on the rack after cooking, as they crisp up best that way.  You inevitably end up with lots of odd shaped leftover pieces when trying to fashion a sweet potato into chip shapes, so steam the bits, mash with butter and cinnamon, and have them spread on toast with green tomato pickles and grilled cheese!

Tabitha has some balloons, brought home from a party, with which she likes to play Pregnant Mummies.  She gets out her medical kit and does a pretty thorough examination of herself - blood pressure, stethoscope, blood test, and uses the Pinard, below, to listen to her baby.

When I used to work in the city (many moons ago), I loved a Japanese pork Katsu Curry for lunch on a cold day.  Now, I make it at home - using the same curry-in-a-box that many of the Japanese joints use anyway - S&B Golden Curry Mix.  It couldn't be simpler to make:

For 2-4 people (as a main vs a side dish), use half a packet of curry mix (50g).  To start, fry a chopped onion in a tablespoon of oil until softened, then add a diced carrot, fry for a minute, add some sliced celery and capsicum, and any other veggies you want (beans, peas, corn), then add 1.5 cups of water, and simmer for around 15 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the veggies are tender and the sauce has thickened (add more  water if you'd like a thinner curry).

Serve the curry over rice.  I like to also serve it as a side dish, with rice, with tonkatsu, which is just a Japanese sort of pork schnitzel, using panko breadcrumbs.  Pound pork fillet or loin steaks until thin (5mm), then dredge in seasoned flour, egg then panko.  Fry in vegetable oil (either deep fry, shallow fry, or do as I do and hybridise the two with around an inch of oil) on both sides until the tonkatsu is richly golden brown, and the pork is just cooked inside.  Rest on a wire rack to drain for a few minutes, then slice into 1cm strips, and drizzle over Kewpie mayonnaise and Tonkatsu sauce (available from Japanese groceries).

This meal is an absolute winner with kids, and a great treat on a cold night.

Lots of scones are being made in this weather, too.  Tabitha is 'just having a little taste' of the scone dough, below:

Caught in the act!

My final word on Winter for today?  Mandarin season is here, get as much citrus as possible into you to stave off the colds.  Tabitha agrees:

Zach is really enjoying his food - he started solids at six months, so he's been eating for three weeks now.  Here is an example of one of his meals - he eats what we eat, only slightly modified to be easier to manoeuvre while he's still working on his fine motor skills, and I also avoid excess salt.  So, when we had teriyaki salmon with rice and brocollini, he had some rice (which I pressed into a firm 'log' shape), some broccolini, some crispy salmon skin, and some of the salmon fillet, in a few hands-sized pieces.  I barely brushed his salmon with the teriyaki sauce, as it is fairly salty, but he had enough for a taste.  There is no reason why I couldn't have given him the rice as we had it, or the salmon in a big piece, but I was trying to minimise mess somewhat!

The crispy salmon skin was a winner!  Plus, full of nice good fats for baby brain development.

These photos were taken before he got stuck into the rice.  When eating rice, Zach would benefit from a baby Hazmat suit.  Or a good hose down outside!