Sun hat

I think one of the things that bores me about this blog is the knitting - I like knitting, but I get frustrated, especially at the moment, with how little knitting - or crafting in general I am getting done. I think the blog just emphasises for me how unproductive craft-wise I am being. I'm being productive in other ways.

I have knit Frances a sun hat - sometimes she will wear it, but a lot of the time it's immediately snatched from her head (if it even gets that far!)

27/07/10 ETA link to ravelry so that Kristin can see which yarn I used!

Baby saag

Apart from being busy looking after Frances, working, meeting up with people, visiting places, trying to do a bit of gardening, a bit of crafting and generally living life, I think one of the reasons the blogging stopped is because this blog bores me.

I'm not sure what to do about it - do I abandon the blog? Or take it in a different direction - not sure which direction that would be? Or something else as yet un-thought of? Who knows?

While I figure that out I thought I'd post about baby food. If you've read David's blog (also stalled) you'll know that we do a bit of cooking, so it will come as no surprise that we've primarily been cooking our own baby food for Frances.

There are times when jars are great - especially when travelling - but I do wonder what's in the food to allow them to have an unrefrigerated jarred shelf life. I also think, of the ones I've tasted, that the savoury offerings are very bland, and the sweet offerings very sweet.

So, back to cooking baby food - we have one baby cook book. "New Complete Baby and Toddler Meal Planner" by Annabel Karmel. I've found this a very good guide through the weaning process - there's contradictory advice out there about what to give babies at certain ages, particularly concerning eggs and dairy, but I've been quite happy to follow her advice. Frances hasn't had any allergies (so far!) so I'm quite happy to continue following it.

The one recipe that I feel is missing is a baby curry. So this afternoon I've been rectifying that. I adapted a recipe out of another cook book that we have (and we have plenty!) called "Curries without worries" by Sudha Koul.

So, what I did:
1. Defrosted about 300g of frozen spinach
2. Chopped an onion, couple of cloves of garlic and a couple of cm's of garlic in the food mixer. Then added about 5 cloves that I'd pounded in the pestle and mortar.
3. Fried onion mix, then a chicken breast that I chopped finely in the food mixer.
4. Once everything was looking well on the way to being browned I added two chopped tomatoes, 1/2 teaspoon each of turmeric, cumin, cinnamon and cardamom (all pounded in the pestle and mortar if they were whole), and about 100g creme fraiche.
5. Added the spinach, reduced the heat, covered and let cook for a bit until it looked right.

This made about 5 jars of the 8 month old size when I filled the jars about half and half, rice and curry.

I was going to take a photo of it, but Frances ate it so quickly that I didn't manage!