What do green tomato pickles and chinkiang vinegar have in common?

I'm sure you know of David Thompson.  He's the legendary author of Thai Food, that stunning pink fabric-bound encyclopedic Thai cookbook, as well as a frequent guest on Poh's Kitchen, an exceptional Thai chef, Head Chef of the first ever Michelin-starred Thai restaurant in London (Nahm) and a famously dry wit.

If David Thompson says something about Thai cooking, recipes or ingredients, I pay attention.  When I heard him chatting about oyster sauce once, my ears really pricked up - every time I use oyster sauce from the supermarket (that nasty congealed pale goop) it tastes of nothing, which is not surprising when you check out the ingredients; water, thickeners, preservatives, vegetable gums, and a little oyster extract.

David Thompson says the absolute best brand of oyster sauce (and fish sauce) is Megachef, a Thai company.  Containing 45 per cent pure oysters, Megachef sauce is so thick that when you turn the bottle upside down (even for a looooong time), nothing comes out!  You need to use a knife.  The flavour is just beautiful - perfect on some stir-fried greens.

The Megachef fish sauce (nuoc mam in Vietnamese, nam pla in Thai) is also excellent - mellow yet rich and flavourful.  The sauces are both surprisingly reasonably priced (the regular sized bottle of fish sauce was $3.30 and the massive bottle of oyster sauce was $5.55).

I often do an embarrassingly inauthentic 'Asian' stir-fried bok choi dish as a side with dinner - it is really nice poured over rice, with plenty of the sauce, with a small amount of grilled fish or chicken.

All I do is stir-fry some sliced bok choi (white thick pieces first, green leafy pieces at the end) in a little hot oil.  As soon as the white parts begin to soften slightly, I pour in:  a good glug of mirin, the same of soy sauce, a dash of fish sauce, a glug of oyster sauce, a good dash of chinkiang black vinegar, a drizzle of sesame oil, and a decent glug of good Thai sweet chili sauce.  I then reduce this over heat until it is thick and delicious, adding the green parts for a minute to soften, then pouring over rice.

I just mentioned, above, one of my all-time favourite ingredients:  chinkiang rice vinegar.  It is a black, intense, almost smoky vinegar, made from glutenous rice.  I use it instead of soy sauce for dipping when I have yum cha or dumplings at home.  Just thinking about it makes my mouth water!  I first discovered chinkiang at David's, one of my favourite Chinese restaurants.  I always order Mock Crab, an unusual and delicious dish made by gently cooking a rich, fluffy yet creamy egg-white omlette, with pieces of scallop and white fish tossed throughout.  It is served with chinkiang to pour over it.  It is probably one of my most favourite restaurant dishes.

Below, you can see what chinkiang vinegar looks like - you can get it at any Asian grocery.  Next to this, you can see a jar of Beerenberg Green Tomato Pickle.  Can you guess what these two items have in common??

Well, they are both sour...  There's a clue...

They were the two items that I completely craved during my pregnancy!  Barely a day would go past without eating one or the other - and I confess to sometimes pouring a little bowl of chinkiang vinegar and just dipping my fingers in to lick them.  I promise, at the time it didn't seem strange at all!

The Nursery

Tabitha had a very basic nursery - she did not, in fact, sleep in her 'nursery' even once for the first seven months, now she flitters between her nursery and our bed.

These photos were taken when I was first setting it up.  It looks much the same now, however there are more 'grown-up' clothes in the wardrobe, and there is a very large and gorgeous (if a little creepy) white rabbit lamp - this one.

We painted her room pale pink - we trooped down to the paint store, stocked up on swatches, bought little test pots and painted numerous patches of pink all over the walls.  Ultimately, we settled on Nursery Pink (half strength).  Isn't that terribly anticlimactic?  But it was truly the nicest pink - not too salmon, not too sickly.  We kept the ceiling and wooden trims white (White Watsonia), and to avoid the whole room looking like a bag of marshmallows, I chose very dark Walnut wood furniture, and accent accessories in shades of grey.

Here is Tabitha's cot - the Boori Paddington, in Walnut.  I loved some of the more modern ones, such as the Stokke, but I felt that a more classic style worked for our home.  I also think the Boori will fit a much longer toddler than the Stokke - and we are tall-ish people.

Here is Tabitha's mobile - sorry, the lighting is really low!  There are a number of heavy canvas butterflies, in pink, grey floral ballerina print, and 1950s newsprint:

We got a large bookshelf / room divider from Ikea - this is brilliant in a nursery because it holds so much, and so many different types of things - there are books, tubs at the bottom (with puzzles, toys, breastpump and equipment, bibs and hats, and nappies), plus shelves for displaying objects, and there is a small pink case on one of the shelves with her first-aid kit, and a nice big blue Japanese bowl with all of her little rolled-up socks.  There is also a small stereo on one of the shelves, with some great baby music such as Music for Dreaming.  Below, there are close-ups of two of the shelves - one with a pretty little Tiffany 'bunny bank' which my dad brought her back from New York, with two rattles, and one shelf full of little toys:

The change-table is also Boori, walnut to match the cot.  I decided to get a style which is basically a regular chest of drawers, with a change-mat on top.  Most change-tables are quite open underneath, which I feel limits their usefulness - once the baby is moving around a bit (Tabby was well and truly rolling by 4 months), change-tables are pretty useless, and it's easier to change them on a bed or the ground.  Whereas a chest of drawers will remain necessary for years to come.

Actually, we never once used this change-table for changing a nappy.  That's right, never.  Because she slept in our room, we just changed her on our bed!  We kept - and still keep - all of her nappy equipment in a shelf by the bed.  So I sure am glad we didn't shell out for a dedicated change-table...

Everyone kept telling me how important it was to have a good feeding chair.  I hauled my enormous pregnant self around countless furniture stores, climbing in and out of chairs.  Ultimately, the most comfortable, roomy (for a wriggling older baby) and easy to clean chair was from Ikea - the Ektorp.  It truly is an exceptionally comfy chair - in the final weeks of the pregnancy, I would sit in it and never want to get out!

Also on the chair, below, you will see my Milkbar breastfeeding pillow.  This was a total blessing during the early couple of months - I didn't feed without it.  Just the right height, firmness, and removable cover for frequent washing (Tabby was quite the spewer in those early weeks!)

While the Milkbar got a real workout, the chair - like the changetable - got absolutely NO use until recently.  Because Tabitha was either in our bed, or in her little Moses basket next to the bed, overnight I always fed her sitting up in bed.  During the day, I preferred to feed her in the living room on the sofa, rather than tucked away in the nursery.  Lately, I have started to use it - the perfect size for cuddling up with Tabitha and reading stories, and when she sleeps in the nursery, I feed her overnight sitting in the chair.  It is very comfortable - in fact, last night, I went to feed her at around 1:30am, and fell asleep holding her curled up in the chair for nearly an hour!  When I woke up, she was still latched on and gently sucking in her sleep, too cute...

Because we got a plain white chair, I bought a throw rug and some attractive pink, silver and beige cushions.  Below, you can see that the cats certainly like the chair:

We got the wardrobes redone in both bedrooms - we cut it very fine, with the final touches finished just a week before Tabitha was due (though she didn't arrive for a further three weeks).  All of the wardrobes in the nursery are split horizontally, so that I can hang little baby things on the top and bottom.  Below you can see all of her tiny newborn nightgowns, onesies and coats, from 0000 size on the left, to 0 size on the right.  She wore the 0000 sizes for about 3-4 weeks, then the 000 size until she was about 4 months old, the 00 size until around 6 months old, and now she is 0 and 1 sizes.

Even now, I find sitting in Tabitha's nursery to be incredibly calming and serene.  The colours are muted, there is plenty of filtered daylight, and the floor-to-ceiling glass French doors look out to the garden.  It is my favourite room of the house to just sit and read in!  I have seen some really gorgeous nurseries filled with bright colours, but I personally think that muted tones are conducive to relaxing and sleeping.

Here are the doors - the glass panel off to the side overlooks the garden.  You can see baby Possum peering out to the decking:

Tabitha Update

Exciting news from the baby T front:

- I gave Tabby some fried egg this morning, and she ate it (gutsed it, really) with no red rash or reaction this time!  The egg was completely cooked, I will try again with some soft-cooked egg again this week.

- Tabitha can do all sorts of grown-up things now that she is a Big Girl of more than 7 1/2 months!  She can sit up and clap her hands, bang two blocks together, she can also pull herself up to stand against the sofa/walls/doorframes/human legs.  Once up, she can get down again (often even without bonking her noggin!), and she can slooooowly creep along, getting about a metre by shuffling along holding onto the sofa/wall etc.

- When I leave the room, she can generally crawl and come find me.  This is a grand improvement - it used to be that if I left the room for just a second (to get a glass of water, say) she would burst into tears and sit crying until I returned to scoop her up.

My favourite new development?  She loves to crawl across the room and then, panting and grunting with excitement and exertion, clamber into my lap and stand up so that she can wrap her little arms tightly around my neck, and burrow her face deeply into my hair/neck/jumper.  She will stay like that for minutes, just breathing in her 'mummy smell'.  Makes my day every time!

Here is a photo of my baby on the day she was born.  Note - my little sister added the stuffed mouse just for the photo while she slept.  It's not the done thing to leave a stuffed toy in with a sleeping baby, generally!

Around 8 hours after Tabitha was born, The Daddy and I were completely exhausted (my active labour was nearly 45 hours long!), so my mother sent us off to bed for a nap and she sat with Tabitha in the living room (new babies pretty much just sleep for the first day or so) - this is when the above photo was taken.

Sunday Paella

Lazy Sunday - went to the Prahran Market in the morning with The Daddy and Tabitha, then had a couple of friends come over, then had my parents, sister, godfather and godson over for dinner.  I made seafood paella for dinner - my godfather gave me a whopping bit paella pan for Christmas a few years back, and it's always a great meal to make when there's a bit of a crowd.

Here is how I make paella:

9 cups of water

500g clams (vongole) purged of sand (soak in cold water with 2 big pinches of salt for at least 30 minutes)

500g mussels, scrubbed and debearded

2 fillets of firm-fleshed white fish (I used Rockling today) cut into 2 inch pieces

A few tablespoons of flour with a good amount of salt and pepper mixed through

Extra virgin olive oil

1 green capsicum, cored, de-seeded, and cut into 1 inch pieces

500g cuttlefish or squid, cleaned and cut into 1 inch pieces

20 raw head-on large prawns in their shells

2 garlic cloves, finely sliced

5 ripe tomatoes, peeled, de-seeded and finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika

20 - 30 saffron threads, lightly toasted in a dry pan for a couple of minutes, then ground to a powder (rub in a piece of baking paper)

3 cups paella rice (or short-grain rice)

In a medium saucepan, boil 5 cups of water, add clams and a teaspoon of salt.  Reduce heat and simmer, half-covered, for half an hour.  Set aside with clams WITH their water (throw out any that don't open).

Put the mussels in a medium saucepan with a cup of water, bring to boil, simmer, uncovered, until the mussels have opened (about 3-5 minutes).  Throw out any that don't open.  Set aside the mussels with their water.

In a large paella pan (mine is about 60cm or so across), coat the bottom with around 8 tablespoons of oil, and heat.  Dredge the pieces of fish in the seasoned flour, then pan-fry in the oil, turning once, until lightly browned.  Set aside.

Remove any solids in the paella pan, then, in the same oil, add the capsicum and cook over medium heat for about 3 minutes, stirring, until it starts to brown and becomes fragrant.  Add the cuttlefish and cook, about 5 minutes, stirring, and scraping anything that sticks to the pan.  Add the prawns and cook on both sides until pink.

Lower the heat to medium, and add the garlic, tomatoes and 2 pinches of salt and cook, stirring frequently, until the tomatoes have darkened and the mixture is a nice sludgy 'sofrito' paste (abour 10 - 15 minutes).

While this is cooking, strain the broth from the mussels and clams into a jug, adding enough plain water to make up around 8 cups of liquid in total.  

Pull off and discard one side of each clam shell (the side not attached to the clam).  When the sofrito is ready, sprinkle in the paprika and saffron powder, stirring over heat for a minute while the flavours penetrate and meld.  Remove the prawns, set aside with the fish, clams and mussels.

Add the clam water/plain water (8 cups), bring to the boil, and taste for seasoning, adding more salt as needed.  Sprinkle the 3 cups of rice evenly over the paella pan.  With a wooden spoon, check to see that the rice is evenly distributed across the pan.  Do NOT stir again!

Lay the pieces of fish, prawns, mussels and clams over the top (you can do this in a pretty pattern, or just keep it rustic, depending on your mood).  Cook, uncovered, for 8 minutes over high heat, then a further 10 - 15 minutes over medium heat, or until the rice is cooked (still having a fair amount of 'bite', you don't want it too soft).

The paella rice will be fairly dry at the end, and there will be an almost-burnt, crispy dry layer of rice on the bottom - this is the best part!  Remove from the heat, then cover with some paper towels and let rest for 5 minutes.  Squeeze some fresh lemon juice over the top before serving.  When serving, make sure you scrape some of the bottom crispy part into each serving.  

I cannot possibly tell you how good this smells (and tastes) - I had to shoo out a crowd of people from my kitchen, all trying to steal a taste out of the pan while it was cooking.  The smokey, intense paprika and salty seafood smell permeates the whole house.  It is intoxicating.

Here is Tabitha eating a prawn from the paella - it was delicious and spiced and smokey and she ate the whole thing!

My Tips:

• Prepare the mis en plas well before starting cooking - preparing the clams, cutting everything up, cleaning the squid, toasting the saffron etc., can easily take over an hour if you do it at a leisurely pace.  Once everything is prepared and in the bowls ready to go, cooking is dead easy and very straightforward:

 

• My paella pan is far too big for a single burner, so I straddle it across my fish burner and two of the regular burners, turning every now and then to ensure the heat is even.
• Sometimes you need to add a little extra water, if the rice is not yet cooked and there is no liquid left - but just a cup or less of boiling water, sprinkled over, should do it.  And remember paella is dry, not wet like risotto.
• You can mix up the seafoods if you want - just use what looks good at the market.  Sometimes yabbies, bugs, you can even add some browned chicken thigh or rabbit (cook in the same way as the fish).
• You can buy excellent smoked sweet paprika and saffron from Casa Iberica in Collingwood (25 Johnston Street) - and, for that matter, paella pans.  For some reason, people often give me Spanish ingredients as a hostess gift (seriously - it's happened too often to be a coincidence!), so I have a bit of a stash.  This Bomba rice is the shiz:

We had some baklava and assorted similar sweets for dessert:

My friend Ruby came over this afternoon too - she is studying photography part time, and came to take some photos of Tabitha.  Here is one she took - she will send through more in the next few days hopefully:

And here is Ruby holding Marilyn - she went from being very nervous to completely in love, in the space of about a minute!  Now she wants a diamond python too - see, diamonds are a girl's best friend:

Not a great day...

I have had some brilliant days over the past seven and a half months - days when everything flows smoothly, Tabitha is happy and giggling, I get time to bake and read, and The Daddy and I have a long relaxed dinner with a glass of great wine.

Today was not like that!  During last night's frightening, awe-inspiring storms across Melbourne (flooding is so dreadful that cars were swept onto their sides on the freeway), our two Burmese cats, Pudding and Possum, went absolutely crazy, leaping in and out of our bedroom window all night (The Daddy was less than thrilled to be woken at 3am by 5kg of wet cat landing directly on his face).

On top of that, Tabitha was incredibly restless throughout the night, and woke at around 4:30am absolutely beside herself.  We brought her straight into bed with us, but she was so upset - she didn't want to lie down, or be cuddled, or sit up, or stand up!  She wanted to throw herself across my neck, burrow her face into my hair, and wail.  Poor little mite's face was so red, puffy, and all screwed up with tears.  For nearly two hours, we couldn't do anything but try and hold her while she cried and cried.  We finally got her back to sleep at around 6:30am, and she slept solidly and soundly for two and a half hours.  I believe it is her teeth that are bothering her - she has six already, with a couple more coming through.  She was generally okay today, but still had some moments of becoming very distressed.  Heartbreaking.

With both The Daddy and I exhausted from less than a few hours sleep (with the storm, the cats and the baby!), and Tabitha sore and sad, today was a loooong day (with The Daddy at work, poor man).  At around 5:30pm, I had Tabby in the Ergo (the only way to keep her happy - she never, ever cries while being worn), and suddenly she became very pale, quiet, then vomited ALL over me - for a couple of minutes, I just stood still while she covered me, the Ergo and herself with curdled milk!  She seemed happy enough afterward, so I piled us both into a warm bath, where we splashed around for 45 minutes until The Daddy got home.  Thankfully, she fell asleep easily tonight, and now we are enjoying some takeaway and watching a DVD.  What a day!

My exciting new volunteer role

Because I am not returning to work, I had always planned on taking on a volunteer role once Tabitha was past her infancy.  I'd thought vaguely about becoming a volunteer zoo guide, since I adore animals, and teaching.  I'd also considered becoming involved in the programs set up to teach English to refugee families.  Once I joined the Australian Breastfeeding Association, however, I immediately knew that I wanted to become involved on a deeper level - helping women to breastfeed their babies, and helping raise community awareness about breastfeeding, are areas I am incredibly passionate about.  My breastfeeding journey was, like so many women, initially fraught issues including mind-numbing nipple pain from deep cracks, bleeding, mastitis, engorgement, oversupply and blocked ducts, and the support I received in the initial weeks and months (from my independent midwives, as well as the ABA) was so helpful to me.  Giving Tabitha artificial milk was never an option for me, but there were days when I cried and cried from pain and hopelessness - still, getting through those initial challenges was so incredibly empowering and I feel like it helped me form my identity as a mother.

Initially, I helped out with my local ABA group whenever I was asked - I volunteered as a 'demo breastfeeding mum' with Tabitha a couple of times for the prenatal breastfeeding education workshops that the ABA runs for pregnant couples;  I was also a 'demo mum' for a talk on breastfeeding at Canterbury Girls' Secondary College; Tabitha and I posed for a newspaper article on World Breastfeeding Week; and we attended every fortnightly local meeting we could.

After a while, with some encouragement from my local ABA region leaders, I started thinking about training as a Breastfeeding Counselor - a voluntary position, this is a Certificate IV qualification, involving roughly 1-2 years' of study, and ongoing training and professional development.  I am now thrilled to say that I am officially a Trainee Breastfeeding Counselor!

Tabitha and I are going to Ballarat next weekend for the annual Victorian ABA Conference, which will include some fantastic workshops and panel discussions, including one on the ethics and issues surrounding milk donation (after donating literally litres of milk myself to other babies in the initial weeks, I am incredibly passionate about milk donation).

I have a lot of study in front of me, which I can do at my own pace, but I am so excited about getting to the point where I can go and help women and their babies with their breastfeeding challenges.  Also - one of the best parts about volunteering and training with the ABA is that, of course, Tabitha is welcome at every training session workshop, conference and event! 

Fresh Peach Cake and Banana Muffins

As soon as I put Tabitha down for her nap this morning, I walked into the kitchen and noticed that most of my lovely fresh peaches from the farmers' market last weekend were suddenly ripe and ready, filling the room with a sweet peach smell.  Tabitha and I like peaches, but we sure weren't going to eat a dozen in one day - so I decided to make a cake with some of them.  Today I have my Australian Breastfeeding Association local meeting, and also Mothers' Group in the afternoon, and I like to take a cake to at least one of those meet-ups.

I couldn't find a peach cake recipe that I liked the look of, and didn't have time to make a pie (with the chilling and blind baking of the pastry etc), so I made one up.  It turned out really nicely, so it's worth a try next time you have too many peaches!

Fresh Peach Cake

180g wholemeal self raising flour

180g self raising flour

2 eggs

225g white sugar

185g melted butter

1 generous, overflowing teaspoon of vanilla extract

4 - 5 large peaches, sliced (each half sliced into 5 or 6 pieces)

3 good tablespoons brown sugar

2 tablespoons butter, extra

Demerara sugar and Cinnamon, for sprinking

Firstly, melt the 2 tablespoons of butter and the brown sugar together in a frypan (preferably stainless steel or seasoned cast iron, as non-stick doesn't caramelize as well).  Pile in the peach slices, and gently stir over medium heat until the peaches are cooked but still firm, and coated in an oozy, golden caramel.

Here is the bowl of peach slices (5 peaches worth, I think):

Here is the pan of peaches caramalising in the brown sugar and butter:

Meanwhile, in a bowl, mix together both flours, the eggs, sugar, butter and vanilla extract.  The mixture will come together into something between a batter and a cookie dough - drier and firmer than an ordinary cake batter.  This is what you want!

Here is the batter - there is a fair amount, this is a massive bowl:

Prepare a 24cm springform pan by greasing and flouring, then lining the bottom with a circle of baking paper.

Press around 2/3 of the cake mixture into the bottom of the prepared pan, coming up ever so slightly around the edges:

Pour in the peaches (make sure they are not runny and juicy - if they are too 'wet', you'd probably want to strain off some of the moisture), and spread out evenly:

Then press the rest of the cake mixture over the top - you can just flatten small amounts with your clean hands, and press it gently over the peaches.  You want it to be uneven and a little broken, so that it spreads and gets a little crispy and the peaches show through a bit.  The cake won't be terribly high in the tin, but will rise quite a bit during the cooking.  

Top fairly generously with a sprinkle of demerara sugar and cinnamon (as above), then put in a 180 degree oven for around 45 minutes or so, or until the top is nicely browned:

Sorry, I do not have any gratuitous inside photos - I took it to ABA and in a room full of 20+ mothers, plus babies and children, it disappeared in an instant!

You could serve this hot / warm with ice cream or cream as a dessert (yes please!) or cold and sliced.  It's not a neat cake to slice cold, but it is tastes great and is easy to make.  You could also top the cold cake with some toasted almond flakes, and I think a little finely chopped thyme would also be really nice added to the peaches while you caramalise them.

I also had a couple of overripe bananas to use up, so I made a batch of banana muffins.  This recipe is from Nigella Lawson's How To Be a Domestic Goddess, and is quite healthy.  Tabitha has eaten half a banana muffin this morning, and seemed completely engrossed, so she must like them.

Banana Muffins

30g unsalted butter

60g honey

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 large, very ripe bananas

150g plain flour

1 heaped teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Pinch of salt

Melt the butter, honey and vanilla extract together in a small saucepan, then set aside.

Mash the bananas, then add the melted mixture to them.

In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, bicarb soda, cinnamon and salt.  Pour the banana/butter mixture into the dry ingredients, and gently mix together - you want to just stir a few times.  Don't overmix, because it makes for tough muffins.  The mixture will be, to quote Nigella, "a not terrible attractive lumpy sludge".

Divide the mixture between 12 medium paper cases, placed into a 12-hole muffin tin, then sprinkle the tops with demerara sugar (this is my addition - I sprinkle it on top of most muffins, it makes the tops nice and crunchy).

Bake at 190 degrees for 15 - 25 minutes or until just cooked.  Cool on a wire rack.

Note - I have made these before as vegan banana muffins for some vegan friends (I sent them to Sydney in the overnight post!).  Just replace the butter with non-dairy margarine, and the honey with golden syrup.

Japanese Groceries

Yesterday, Tabitha and I ventured out in the heat to go shopping for some Japanese groceries.  I really love going shopping for Japanese groceries - or to any Asian supermarket, really!  I can spend an hour wandering the aisles, filling my basket with loads of stuff (half of which I will never use).  My favourite Japanese grocery stores are Suzuran in Camberwell and Fujimart in South Yarra - Fujimart is a little bigger, though I have a fondness for Suzuran solely for the silly reason that it is owned by my father's old karate teacher from 25+ years ago.

The ingredients that I always stock up on at Suzuran / Fujimart include:

Instant dashi (Ajinomoto) - dashi is the main stock used in Japanese cooking, and it is a base for hundreds of recipes, from soup noodle dishes to simmered pumpkin to donburi meals and miso soup.  Proper dashi requires kombu, a type of kelp, and finely shaved bonito, which is dried skipjack tuna.  It is not difficult to make (you can buy shaved bonito), however for a quick dinner I always use hon-dashi, which is the Japanese equivalent of stock cubes - a powdered dashi.  I use the Ajinomoto brand, which comes in a small jar or a box containing a number of packets.  This is one of the most useful ingredients in my kitchen - for example, I can make Oyakodon for dinner with some dashi, soy, sugar, eggs, chicken, onions and rice, all in less than 20 minutes.

Dancing bonito flakes - officially called hanakatsuo, these are the thinnest form of shaved bonito.  In Japanese restaurants, they often come sprinkled on age dashi tofu, okonomiyaki and some donburi dishes, and when I was little (maybe 2 or 3 years old!) they were the highlight of eating at a Japanese restaurant for me.  I used to always order California rolls, age dashi tofu and steamed white rice - I could rattle off my order by myself before the age of three - but my favourite part was the dancing bonito flakes.  Last time I went to the Japanese grocery store, I forgot the name, and mimed a sort of dancing-hula-hands thing while I said 'bonito'.  The Japanese shop assistant laughed and copied my geasture, and said "oh dancing bonito!"  Very cute.  I put them on lots of things at home - donburi dishes, age dashi tofu, and sometimes even plain rice.  See below for a (pretty crappy) video:

 

Panko - Since I discovered panko breadcrumbs, I don't really buy regular breadcrumbs any more.  I buy matzo meal still, but for regular crumbing I always use panko.  They are lighter, fluffier, and fry up crispier.

Croquettes - Suzuran stocks really delicious crab croquettes.  They are frozen, around $5 for 6.  I defrost them, shallow fry them in some oil, and serve with steamed rice and some bok choi stir fried in oyster sauce/fish sauce/sweet chilli/sesame oil/chinkiang rice vinegar/mirin/soy.  It's not exactly Japanese (!) but the sauce is delicious over the rice, and with the crab croquettes, is an incredibly fast, simple and inexpensive dinner for two.

Toasted sesame seeds - these are just regular sesame seeds, toasted so that their flavour is stronger and more akin to sesame oil (which I am addicted to).  I keep them in a shaker jar and sprinkle them over veggies, teriyaki salmon and ginger/orange marinated duck breasts, amongst other things.

Furikake rice topping - this is a sort of savoury sprinkle, delicious for topping plain steamed rice.  It generally includes little pieces of dried seaweed, dried fish, sesame seeds, bonito, sugar, salt, and even things like dried egg, miso or dried vegetables.  I like the simple one, and an easy lunch for me includes plain rice, furikake, some leftover protein (fish/chicken/tofu) and a small bowl of miso.

Mirin - a sweet rice wine. Together with dashi and soy, mirin is a key ingredient in many soups, noodle dishes and donburi meals.

Miso and miso soup - Japanese grocers sell tubs of miso paste.  You can coat a piece of oily fish with white miso (450g white miso, 150ml mirin and 225g white sugar), marinate for a few days, then grill over high heat to caramalise the surface, finishing in the oven to cook through - here is sort of the recipe I use, though my method is a little different, and I often use salmon.  Nice on some simple rice with some greens.

Soba and Udon - dried soba and udon noodles are a standby in my kitchen.  Not only are they perfect for simple soup dinners (cook them, meanwhile make a soup made of dashi, soy, mirin and sugar, gently poach some chicken pieces or prawns in the soup, add some sliced greens or snow peas, add the cooked noodles) but if I am in a rush and don't have time to make rice, some noodles will generally do instead.

Good soy (shoyu) or tamari for gluten free - you can get a much wider range of high quality Japanese soy sauces, including tamari, a gluten free soy, at Asian grocers.

Sesame oil - I am seriously addicted to sesame oil!  It is a fairly strong flavour, and I love to add a thin drizzle to steamed broccolini, bok choi or other Asian greens, or to simple foods like pan-fried chicken breast.

Silken tofu - this comes in a little plastic packet, in the fridge section.  I mix it with a simple brown sugar syrup (equal parts brown sugar and water, boil to reduce by half, add a few drops of vanilla extract) for a cool, simple and refreshing dessert (also vegan, which is useful to know if you ever have call for a vegan dessert).

Maybe you are already obsessed with Japanese groceries, like me.  The above is probably very basic, in that case!  But hopefully there is something new to try...

Gluten Free, New Toys and Nappies, and More Marilyn...

My friend Amy is on a gluten free diet.  This is generally thought to be a bad thing, if you are into food - gluten free 'imitations' of regular food, such as bagels, tend to be really tough and wrong.  I don't know much about gluten free eating, however I thought I would share the recipe for the delicious nut-based 'museli' that Amy is eating for breakfast lately.  It is incredibly yummy, healthy, and works equally well as a museli as it does as a topping for yoghurt or sprinkled on top of muffins, cakes or fruit crumbles prior to baking.

• 1/4 cup of flaxseed
• 3/4 cup of almonds (toasted or raw)
• 1/2 cup of sunflower seeds
• 1/4 cup of shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup of pecans
• 1/4 cup of walnuts
• 1/2 cup of dried apple (you could certainly add other dried fruits such as dates or dried cranberries)
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon powder
• 1 - 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Combine all of the above in a food processor, and give a fair few pulses to ensure everything is chopped and combined.  Amy came over and did a batch with FOUR TIMES the above quantities - see below photos, and know that my food processor is massive.

Store the mixture in the fridge, because otherwise the ground nuts will go rancid.  If you would like to 'lighten up' the mixture for breakfast cereal, you could combine it with some puffed rice or bran (obviously bran is not gluten free).

For a warm Bircher-style breakfast, soak one cup of mixture with 1/2 cup of milk or soy milk overnight.  In the morning, heat in a pan or microwave, and add more hot milk or soy milk to taste.

Another gluten free must is the incredible and inspirational blog Gluten Free Girl - http://glutenfreegirl.com/ .  Honestly, her blog and book are well worth a look, even if you are a fan of gluten (like me!) because most of the recipes are completely delicious, and a far cry from the 'fake gluten' type products you find in health stores.

In other news - Tabitha and I went to Chadstone shopping centre yesterday, to run some errands, and I bought her some new toys (now that she is crawling, sitting and even pulling herself up to STAND UP, she is ready for different types of toys).  She really enjoyed playing with the Fisher Price Peek-a-Blocks during our stay at the O'Connell Centre, so I got some of them, as well as some cute musical spheres and an activity cube that she can stand up and lean on while she plays.  The Peek-a-Blocks are clear blocks, each with a moving scene or object within - for example, a train that turns around through a tunnel, a puppy with a wagging tail, a snowman with little loose 'snowflakes' or a chicken that squeaks when you press the top of the block.

Predictably, Tabitha was more interested in playing with the little cardboard box that came in the pack, as opposed to the actual toys.  Kids huh?!

I think I mentioned that my garden is going brilliantly - see below one of the MASSIVE zucchinis which we have grown.  For scale, the tomato in front of it is just a regular cherry tomato:

The nappies we use are Itti Bitti d'Lish (mostly All-in-Ones with some Snap-in-Ones).  About a week ago, Itti Bitti released some of their coveted Limited Edition prints, and I quickly snapped up a couple.  Below is one of the LE prints which arrived during the week - so cute!  If you are interested to try out modern cloth nappies (MCNs), a good way to start is to buy an Itti Bitti Trial Pack, which contains one of each of the d'Lish styles.

I will dedicate a whole post to MCNs soon.

Last but not least - a couple more photos of our new baby Marilyn the Diamond Python.  She is so pretty, and already calm and placid despite being a baby:

Look at how incy-wincy and delicate she is:

A little food update - Tabitha is now 7 months and 2 weeks old.  She has been eating solids for a little over 6 weeks.  According to some 'baby weaning' books, which advocate only introducing one new food every 7 - 10 days (yep, even seemingly innocuous foods like carrot!), Tabitha should have tried MAYBE six foods.  If we were following these old fashioned books, she probably would have tried Rice Cereal; carrot; pumpkin; pear; apple; banana and maybe something exotic like pureed apricot.  Tee hee!  It really makes me laugh out loud to think about that!

With baby led weaning / baby led solids (BLW / BLS), the baby simply eats regular family food, and feeds herself, instead of being spoon-fed.  I don't want to bore everyone to tears by explaining the concept every time I mention it, so I will say "read the book" if you are interested in more information - it is available at most libraries, or online for around $15.  There is also loads of decent information on the internet.  I will, of course, still be posting loads about BLW, but I don't want to keep explaining the basics over and over.

Thanks to BLW, Tabitha has had the pleasure of trying a lot of foods in her short time as a food-eater.  We've given her all sorts of things, including egg, peanut butter and nut products, dairy, wheat and berries.  So far, the only things she seems to be intolerant of (or mildly allergic to) are eggs that is not fully cooked (as found in Carbonara and mayonnaise), and tomato and eggplant (part of the same family).  The egg, tomato and eggplant have each given her a mild contact rash around her mouth, though she has not seemed at all bothered by this.

I have updated the list of foods that Tabitha has eaten so far, over the past 6 or so weeks.  I have probably left lots out - but even so, you can get an idea of the wide range of tastes and textures that a BLW baby is exposed to when they are first discovering food, over a traditionally puree-fed baby.  Of course, BLW means that the babies get to touch and feel their food, examining it up close in its whole form, rather than having a puree popped straight into their mouth.

1. Bread - pita, sourdough, rye, bagel
2. Bread dipped in all sorts of sauces from our plates
3. Rice cakes
4. Vegimite
5. Peanut Butter
6. Taramasalata
7. Cheese - Onetik Ossau-Iraty, Comte, Cheddar.
8. Peach
9. Spicy marinated chicken rib
10. Apricot
11. Banana
12. Green beans
13. Tuna sashimi
14. Avocado
15. Steak
16. Lamb cutlets
17. White fish
18. Capsicum
19. Gingerbread
20. Nectarine
21. Roast pumpkin
22. Brocolli
23. Brocollini
24. Raspberry
25. Cucumber
26. Cauliflower 
27. Steamed carrot
28. Edamame (soy bean pods)
29. Roast potatoes in duck fat
30. Asparagus
31. Spinach and feta golzeme
32. Carbonara
33. Baba Ganoush dip
34. Veggie burger
35. Strawberry
36. Zucchini
37. Eggplant
38. Snowpeas
39. Tomatoes (in a sauce from a bowl of mussels, with onions, garlic etc.)
40. Some homemade cakes, like date loaf, carrot cake, banana cake.
41. Chocolate ice cream (a taste)
42. Frozen blended pure fruit (strawberry and banana)
43. Teriyaki salmon
44. Rice
45. Sushi - little nori rolls with prawn, tuna and avocado
46. Some new sauces, such as a saffron butter sauce on some steamed veggies
47. Plain organic full cream yoghurt
48. Porridge (with dates, banana, cocoanut and a little organic cows' milk)
49. Sardines
50. Crayfish
51. Prawns
52. Chicken in various guises
53. Challah toast
54. Stewed apple
55. Jam
56. Almond spread and ABC nut spread
57. Watermellon
58. Cantaloupe
59. Almond croissant
60. Salt and Pepper Squid with Vietnamese lime and chili dressing
61. Rabbit and Porcini terrine
62. Tempura vegetables
63. Gyoza
64. Har Gow dumplings
65. Falafel
66. Satay chicken
67. Pasta with pesto

Her fine motor coordination has improved immensely, and she can now manipulate fairly small pieces of food into her mouth.  She will often pick up a piece of toast or rice cake, examine it carefully, and then turn it around so that it is 'topping side down', meaning she gets maximum flavour!  Clever baby.  

Tabitha's favourite foods so far seem to be:  avocado; sardines; capsicum; brocollini; and, unsurprisingly, sweet things like ice cream and cake (which she's only had the odd taste of, but never knocks back!)

We haven't avoided offering her spicy or strongly flavoured foods - because she is feeding herself, she can easily decide not to eat something.  She hasn't shown a preference for the classic 'bland flavours' recommended for babies (she completely turns her nose up at things like steamed carrot, boiled potatoes, steamed pumpkin) and seems to really enjoy stronger flavours like mild spices, sardines in oil, gyoza, pesto and natural yoghurt.

Experts point out that breastfed babies are exposed to lots of new tastes every day through their milk, so are generally more adventurous eaters in the early days.  But all babies, regardless, are exposed to some variety of tastes via the amniotic fluid in their days as a fetus.