Goodbye

Half of the traffic here comes from one forum I'm a member of and I've been told I can no longer mention anything about this blog.  This will be the second forum I've been told not to post about it.  (When you're talking about hits in the millions vs. hits in the hundreds, it's a shame these forums feel threatened by my simple blog.)

I've had a think about it overnight and I have to be realistic.  If half of my audience (which isn't exactly big) disappears, is it really worth carrying on?  I suspect not.  

I am sad, after all this little blog only lasted two months but I hope you've enjoyed reading my recipes and hopefully using some of them.  

I have a dream to be a food writer and maybe someday that will happen.  Thank you for taking the time to read about me, my thoughts on life and my family and my recipes.

Some more fruit purees

As I've said before, I don't buy commercial flavoured yoghurts or fromage frais because of the added sugar in many of the recipes.  Here are some more flavours I've come up with recently with an overall "basic" recipe:

Fruit puree

Dried fruit (e.g. raisins, sultanas, chopped dried apricots) - optional but good if the fresh fruit is tart
Fresh "bulk" fruit (e.g. apples or pears peeled and chopped, plums)
Fresh or Frozen "flavouring" fruit (e.g. raspberries, blueberries, strawberries) - optional
Spices (e.g. cinnamon, mixed spice, vanilla extract) - optional

Method

Boil the dried fruit in a minimal amount of water for a few minutes.  Add any other fruit and ground spices and boil until soft.  Puree with as little water as you can to get a good puree (you want it thick and some fruits will puree with no added water).  Serve cold with full fat greek yoghurt.  Freezes well in ice cube trays (silicone ones are best as they don't crack.)  Put into a freezer bag once frozen and label up.

Recent successes include:

Apple and cinnamon
Plum and sultana
Cherry (used frozen cherries) and raisin
Pear and blueberry
Apple, blueberry and strawberry
Apple, sultana and mixed spice
Apple and apricot
Pear and vanilla

Why don't people cook their own food?

I was middle aged before my time.  Radio 4 is a favourite of mine and I often download podcasts for when I'm taking my son for a walk.  I was listening to few earlier today about how people on lower incomes don't eat well despite all the information available and about children being educated on how to cook.

I don't know what the answer is.  It frustrates me slightly but then I also understand that it's not as simple as anyone thinks.  I don't believe that free healthy start vouchers help.  I don't believe that doing "change 4 life" tv advertisements help.  I don't know how to sort it but here is my assessment of the cause if you will excuse me using my uneducated opinion.

I believe that people are too busy.  Particularly women are too busy.  Wealthier women can afford to work part time or not at all.  It is hard sometimes to produce good food and generally the cheaper cuts of meat take longer to cook (all fine if you have a slow cooker of course).  That comes to the next problem.  I know I'm rare for my age group at knowing and being interested in how to cook and see cooking as more than tv entertainment.  The reason I know how to cook is I watched my mother cooking as a child and that gave me the confidence to go on and learn and experiment myself.  I'm not delusional, I'm no chef but I like to think I'm competent.  I don't think cooking has to be the preserve of women; in fact I'd prefer it wasn't but the fact is women can no longer afford (in general) to be stay at home mums and, in fact, neither could many of our mothers.  In that time as women were re-entering full time work in the 80's, a gradual increase in convenience foods turned into an explosion.  In the era of women "having it all" it generally meant they "did it all" ie the housework, the cooking, a full time job and looking after the kids.  Something has to give.  Now I agree with the view that there is no bad food (well maybe a few exceptions) but there are bad diets.  Something convenient once in a while is fine but every night using preprepared pizzas, ready meals, sauces...  It's not good for you in my view.

So we have a generation who, for the most part were not able to be taught how to cook by their mothers (or fathers).  We have a generation of men who, in general saw their mothers doing all of the housework and cooking despite holding down a full time job so they don't see why they should cook either.  We have a generation of women with no free time.  None.  I honestly don't know how women with more than one child cope, you're all bloody marvellous.

Better off women are struggling just as much but often have the luxury of working part time so are able to have time to prepare a little of their own food but where does that leave a woman on minimum wage?  Let's call her Leah.  Leah works full time for little money and has little time.  Rarely has any time for herself if ever.  Perhaps if she had a little knowledge it could be made easier but whenever I think about this, I start to feel I'm being patronising and that I have no idea what a hard life Leah has.  Perhaps we need to make life easier for Leah before she will have the motivation or interest to think food and nutrition are more important than making sure her life and kids are safe, solvent and ok.  Who can blame her?

Yet it's poor eating and drinking habits which causes many preventable diseases and contributes to shorter life spans in poorer households.

I have no idea how the situation is resolved but I don't think it's by focussing on food.  I think it's too simplistic.  Part of the problem is sexism, part of it is income and by putting on adverts saying "eat more fruit and veg" neither of those issues are addressed.

Sorry, got all political.  I'll get back to some recipes with the next post...

The importance of first aid

Our little family went away for the weekend to a remote cottage.  While having some apple finger food (which he's had loads of times before), my little one started to choke.  More than gag, properly choke.

As it happens, everything was ok, we did some back slaps across my knee and it came out with a bit of sick but it made me so scared (and thankful) that I'd done some baby first aid training.

We did our course with the NCT.  It was inexpensive and covered all the basics.  NCT website  Other providers also do similar courses including St John's Ambulance and the Red Cross.

I dread to think what would have happened if I'd not known what to do.  We were miles from anywhere with no mobile phone reception.

Here's a quick guide but please, if you've not had training, do so.  It stopped me from panicking.

Baby centre - choking