Cauliflower Children

Cauliflower cheese is not entirely unlike Children.

• It’s unhealthy
• And time-consuming
• And easy to cock up
• Especially if you don’t give it your COMPLETE ATTENTION at all times
• The mess is astonishing
• At some point in the process you will swear Never Again.
• You will also announce that it is Just Not Worth It

Unlike small people however, you soon realise that it is ALWAYS worth it - particularly when paired with a green salad or avocado (which is not something you’d automatically put on a plate with a child). 

I did try to minimise the mess-factor by using an oven-proof pan for the cheese sauce, but some dozy cow from the council called around just as I was mid-roux, and by the time I’d managed to shoo her away (“I’m making a ROUX!” I finally yelled – how mad must she have thought me?) and got back to the kitchen it HAD BURNT, so I had to start again from scratch, in a clean pan.  The final pan / implement count was:  three pans (cauliflower x 1, cheese sauce x 2), one colander (cauliflower), one jug (milk), one cheese grater (um, cheese), one food processor bowl and blade (bread-crumbs,) one chopping board (cauliflower and cheese), two knives, one wooden spoon, two regular spoons, and one server thingy.  And that’s before I served it up.  Which is ALOT of washing up for one dish.  (I daren’t leave it for the au pair – not least because she has a weekend in Sweden planned in June which she can’t miss...)

So, as with a third child, I have finally accepted that when it comes to making cauliflower cheese, you should never say never.

(Ps:  Rachel made cauliflower cheese recently, which I suddenly thought of when there was NOTHING in the fridge apart from a cauliflower, some milk, and – hurrah! - some cheese.  Her recipe is probably alot nicer than mine, however calls for the white sauce simmering for 20 minutes, which is just too long in this house. Once I start cooking, I want my food NOW, or as close to as possible. I also use more cheese, because, as with wine (for me) and Calpol (for them), more is more.)

  

Cauliflower Cheese

You need (for 4):

• One large cauliflower, broken into large florets
• 600 ml milk (any type)
• 150g grated cheese (ideally a mix of strong cheeses;  I used cheddar and parmesan in equalish measures)
• Two heaped tablespoons butter
• Two heaped tablespoons plain flour
• A couple of handfuls of breadcrumbs
• Salt and pepper

Preheat the oven to 190c / 170c fan / 375f

Cook the cauliflower florets in a pan of boiling water for about 5 minutes – until they’re softened but still have a bit of bite.  Drain and leave to one side.

To make the cheese sauce:

Heat the milk (in the microwave is easiest).  You want it just below boiling. 

Melt the butter in a deep pan.  When it starts to sizzle add the flour and mix well with the butter.  You’re aiming for a dry, chalky mixture, with no obvious melted butter visible, so if necessary, add a bit more flour to get this.  Stir over a medium heat until it starts to stick slightly to the pan.

Do NOT answer the door for ANYONE.

Stirring like a lunatic, pour in the heated milk a couple of splashes at a time; the first few splashes will sizzle and (seemingly) evaporate, and the mixture will resemble thick paste.  Keep adding the milk, a bit at a time, and stirring frantically, until the mix has the consistency of double cream. 

Bring to the boil, stirring all the time, then remove from the heat. 

Add the cheese (keep back a small handful), and stir well to combine it. Taste, adding salt and pepper if needed.

(Alternatively, just buy a good ready-made béchamel sauce – about 750ml – heat through, and add grated cheese, to knock 20 minutes off your prep time, and hours off the cleaning up.)

Bung the cauliflower into the sauce, stir well to mix, then either keep in the pan – if it’s oven-proof – or slop into a separate oven-proof dish.  Either way, sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs and the rest of the grated cheese, and dot some butter on top, then stick in the oven.

A scant 20 minutes later, you will have perfection in your kitchen.

Which is not something most parents can often honestly claim.

It's Parenthood, Stupid

There’s a Gary Larson Cartoon (I measure my life in GL cartoons) with a kid in a classroom raising his hand, saying “May I be excused, my brain is full.”  I have become that kid;  not because my brain is in fact full, but rather it has shrunk so much that it feels full.

As well as having nothing to say to anyone that isn’t child-related, the bit of my brain which deals with non-parenting issues has, I suspect, atrophied to such an extent that it no longer functions properly.  This can be the only explanation for the many less than intelligent things I do on a daily basis.  A selection from this week includes:

• Leaving my house keys in the front door.  Overnight.
• Leaving my house keys on the front windowsill.  Outside.  For the morning.
• Leaving my house keys in the buggy.  At the kids’ nursery. 
• Leaving my house keys in the Man’s coat pocket, while he went off for a walk with the kids, and I stood on my doorstep shouting at the inside of my handbag. 
• Putting woollens in a hot wash.  Twice. In one day.
• Putting eggs at the bottom of the shopping bag.  And then, having seen that they were all broken, putting them into the fridge anyway.
• Ringing someone and completely forgetting, by the time they answered, who it was I calling, and having to hang up.
• Putting onions on to sautee, then wandering off in a daze and half an hour later, as I was sorting through baby clothes, wondering (a) what the smell was and (b) why the smoke alarm was going off. 
• Making boiled eggs. But forgetting the water.  (So, not so much boiled, as shell-on-pan-fried)

Lest you think that the parenting part of my brain is bulked up, like a cyclist’s Yellow-Jersey-winning muscles, rest assured – my stupidity knows no boundaries.  And so this week I have learnt the following:

• Do not Google: “tiny blue dot on baby’s scalp”, before checking to see if it washes off.  Ink is alot easier – and less traumatic – to remove (not to mention fret about) than Melanocytic Nevus. 
• Do not snuffle into your baby’s flabby neck, unless you’ve wiped under the neck-flaps first.  (Indirectly, I also learnt that neck-cheese isn’t so tasty.)
• Always do a head-count before you start the car. Three isn’t such a hard number to remember.  If there’s only 2 – well, one might be in her car-seat on the pavement.
• If your son asks something, and you’re not quite sure what he said, always assume it’s a question to which the only answer is “no”.  Unless you want (a) a long protracted argument, and (b) - (notwithstanding (a)) - ice-cream on your sofa.

And now my brain really is feeling full, and I must go lie down. 

Soup & Gore

It is soup weather.  Which is, frankly, the only thing that this post-snow freezing-slush has going for it.  I love soup, and I am determined that my children will love it too. 

Actually, that’s a complete lie;  I could care less if they love it or not, but – God help me - they WILL eat it. To facilitate this, I announce the soup’s arrival in the high-pitched, over-excited  manner of a coked-up tv presenter, according to its colour. 

Behold the Orange Soup:

It may not sound– or look – appetising, but it’s very easy, very cheap, and very tasty.  And if the call-it-by-its-colour trick doesn’t work, employ the other pre-schooler favourite:  name the most disgusting thing you can think of as its main ingredient. So: behold the Blood-Clot soup... Which – of course - is best eaten with Pus & Guts (aka cheese and tomato relish) toasted sandwiches:

Tomato and Lentil Soup

You need (for 4 very generous portions)

• Some oil
• 1 onion, peeled and roughly chopped
• One stick of celery, roughly chopped
• One large carrot, peeled and roughly chopped
• Two tins of tomatoes
• 1 litre of vegetable stock (a cube or bouillon powder is fine)
• Two handfuls of red lentils
• A handful of parsley, chopped (optional)

Add a dollop of oil to a pan, and place over a high heat.  When it’s hot-ish, add the chopped onion and leave to cook for a few minutes – until it’s started to sizzle.  (If you like your soup to have a bit of a kick, and you have accommodating children (or indeed no children at all) add some chopped chilli, or a tablespoon of cumin powder (or both) to the pot now and leave cook for a minute.)

Throw in the celery and carrots, stir to combine, and when it’s all sizzling put the lid on the pan and turn the heat down low.  Leave it to soften – about 7 minutes (checking occasionally to make sure it’s not sticking or burning – if it is, add a couple of glugs of water to the pan and replace the lid).

Add the tinned tomatoes, breaking them up if you’re using whole ones. Bring to the boil, then lob in the lentils and the stock.  Bring to the boil again, then cover and leave to simmer until the lentils are almost disintegrating – about 15 minutes.  (Use this time to mop up all the wet sludgy shite which your kids have dragged in from the garden on their shoes AGAIN.)

If you like a bit of chunk in your soup, just season it and add the parsley. However, obvious chunks of UUUUUUUUUGGHHHTOMATOES are banned in most toddler-abodes (certainly in this one) so either employ the old blood-clot-trick, or puree the hell out of it, as I did, before adding the parsley. (Which obviously isn’t parsley AT ALL, but rather flakey bits of goblin skin...)

Then gobble up QUICKLY before the aliens that live under the stairs come and steal it.  

Downton Shabby

One of my good friends made the quite pertinent observation earlier this week that however hard it must be for me managing “staff”, imagine how it is for her. 

In fact what she said was: “I’m not sure who I feel most sorry for – you or the au pair?”  Alright, I concede that perhaps her remark wasn’t a commentary on the general nature of employer / employee relationships, but rather – IMAGINE being my au pair...

And THEN my sister instructed me not to sigh at her.

Sometimes I think that I’m a bit misunderstood.

So - to assuage any concerns anyone might have about how I’m treating my little teenage sloth – worry not.  I am amazing myself with my patience, and general management skills. I am actually being nice.  (To her;  not to anyone else.  Let’s not get carried away.) We have a chat at the end of every day, whereupon I employ everything I’ve ever read about managing toddlers.  I praise the good, and suggest ways of changing the bad. 

“I really liked how you were so thorough in washing the bread knife, but in future, you really only need to give it a quick rinse...”

“It’s great that you sat down and read to them during dinner, but maybe try to keep them sitting at the table and eating while you’re doing that...”

Etc.

It is yielding results – a vast improvement, daily (which just goes to show that all those toddler books might be good for something).  She’s great with the Grubette – tho’ frankly, given a choice between minding the Boy and the Girl, or minding the baby (that’s how the labour is generally divided in the house) I’d get myself up to speed with babies pretty damn quickly too. (Btw, on a completely different topic – the Grubette is now three months old...Huh?  How?  And how did we ever think our family could be complete without her?)

But the really big problem about having an au pair – apart from having to be nice – is that you start to see your life through her young eyes.

It’s not pretty.

For starters, you realise that you are the person she sees.  I cling to my school and college friends because I want to be around people who knew me BEFORE ALL THIS. I want them to see me as I see them:  20, enthusiastic, energetic.  Pert.  She sees me without this veil of symbiotic delusion:  I am old, haggard, have little to say that isn’t child-related, and wear the same clothes every day. 

But worse – far, far worse – is knowing that she sees your offspring without any allowance being made for their FOUL behaviour.  Which – as every non-parent knows – is a direct result of the FOUL parenting they receive.

In the past ten days she has witnessed:

• The Boy disappearing off up the street on his scooter, while I stood by the car, my entreaties to him to come back getting louder and more frequent. (Eventually I gave up and pegged down the road after him – at top speed, roaring every step of the way – whacking his bottom when I eventually got to him);
• Me stopping the car one evening, yanking the Boy out (it hasn’t been the best week for the Boy) and depositing him on the pavement;  (I relented – somewhat – by asking the au pair to walk the 50m back to the house with him – only because I feared the ensuing tabloid furore when he failed to ever arrive home);
• Complete and utter pandemonium as she stepped in the front door yesterday evening;  me kneeling in the hall in front of the naked Girl, telling her to NOT MOVE YOU’RE GETTING IT EVERYWHERE, and barking orders at the Boy to SCRUB!  SCRUB IT WITH THE CLEAN WATER, before noticing the au pair (“STAY THERE DON’T COME IN”) The Girl, having something of an icky tummy, decided to take a shit on the only adult piece of furniture we have left in our lives - the posh sofa.  Not only did her bottom explode all over it, but then she WALKED THROUGH IT all over the carpet and the rug and the hall... “It’s like peanut butter!” the Boy said, helpfully, putting me and everyone else off peanut butter for evermore.  God forgive me, I tended to the sofa before the Girl got a look in (“STAND THERE, DON’T MOVE!”  “But Mummy, I’m coooooooooooold, and I have...” – sob – “...poo! on my leg..”  “DON’T MOVE!” But in the end she moved – up the stairs, Christ alive – and so I had to get the Boy scrubbing and get her wiped down.  Into all of this the au pair walked.  I’ve warned her to listen at the door in future before coming in, and to scarper if she hears anything resembling Armageddon.

All that on top of the all-day-every-day implorings at the older two to leave each other alone, put it down, get off that, take your feet off the table, YOU’RE SPILLING IT, etc etc.   

So I can’t help feeling that my friend is right, and we should be feeling a bit sorry for her after all.

  

Slow, Slow, QUICK! QUICK! Slow...

I’m not doing so well with my 2 posts a week, am I?   I am BUSY.  I know everyone is busy, but I am really busy.  Three children is ridiculous. I am wholly responsible for FOUR lives (one of which really doesn’t get much of a look-in – guess whose...)  and partly responsible for two others  - the Man and – since Sunday – the Au Pair.  The staff arrived!  It was somewhat anti-climactic. She said hello, announced she had been sick on the plane, and went to bed.  The Man and I sat in the kitchen with a friendly bottle of red wine, which the Man used to ease the disappointment of the rapidly fading Ursula Andress image he had been hoping for.

She is, however, very very nice.  But also very very slow.  How can a human be so slow?  She is part Swede, part sloth. In addition, she has an affliction which I thought was specific only to men, in that she appears not to notice mess:  she walked past a pile of dirty clothes at the bottom of the stairs THREE TIMES, while I twitched and muttered in the background.   This can, of course, be beaten out of her (just look at how the Man improved) – but The Slowness is something I worry about.  Beating will probably only slow her down further. I asked her to tackle a sink of washing up – not an enormous amount, just the kids’ dinner stuff (so:  two plastic plates, two sets of cutlery, a box grater and a couple of pots) and I am not exaggerating even a teeny bit, in the time it took her to w-a-a-a-a-a-s-h everything at paint-drying speed then r-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-i-n-s-e it all off, I had fed the Grubette AND made this:

Green Sludge!  (Some of you also know it by its Italian name, Pesto).  Which, in fairness, takes no time at all to make, and the baby is a speedy eater, but still.  (She went out for a drink with neighbours’ au pairs last night, and being a control freak I started to get a bit worried when she wasn’t back after three hours. But THEN I remembered they were going to the pub at the end of the road, and given her sloth-genes, she had probably only just gotten there).

Anyway, back to the Pesto.  I've always been a big fan of ready-made - esp the ridiculously expensive tubs you can get of higher-end stuff - but no more.  They all taste like cack compared to home made.  It's super-speedy, super-tasty, and super-flexible, and can be eaten:

• Straight from the bowl, if you are me or my elder daughter
• On toast
• Dolloped into a soft-boiled egg, or onto a poached one
• Spread over mushrooms / courgettes / peppers and stuck in a hot oven for about 25 mins
• Ditto fish – really any type, other than smoked – but for 15 – 20 mins

Really, you can eat it with anything at all - even pasta, apparently.

I’m not going to bother giving specific measurements, because it’s a rough-and-ready recipe.  So roughly (and readily), you need:

A food blender / processor, into which you put:

• Two handfuls of basil leaves, stalks removed (this is about equal to the contents of one of those 28g packets)
• One handful of grated parmesan  
• Small handful of pinenuts
• One clove of garlic, peeled (more, if you are a garlic fiend)
• Not-too-strong extra-virgin olive oil (or a 50:50 mix of plain olive oil and EV)
• A splash of water, maybe

Turn the blender on, and while it’s whizzing, slowly pour in the oil(s);  how much depends on your preferred green-sludge consistency.  I count to 5 while adding the oil, then leave it to blend for half a minute or so before checking it.  If it’s too thick I then add more oils or a splash of water, if the oil is a bit overpowering.  A squeeze of lemon is also good for cutting through any overly-strong olive oil taste

It’s ready whenever you decide it is.  If you want to make a pouring sauce out of it, add an equal amount of crème fraiche to it.  (This also makes it into a really nice pasta sauce).

Whatever you do, gobble and enjoy.  Quickly. 

Positively 2013

Two topics today.  The first is, not entirely originally, New Year’s Resolutions. To see how I fared in 2012, I looked at the first post from last year when I set out a few intentions.  Included in it was this little gem:

“Detox for a week at some point this month. I have to be careful about this one – the last two times I’ve done it, I’ve found self in the family way not long soonafter.”

Christ alive. Talk about tempting fate. It’s little wonder really that the Gods started to rub their hands together with glee.

So my first resolution this year – and for every year for the rest of my fertile life – is to NOT DETOX.  (Notwithstanding that the c-section included a teeny tube-tying procedure - there’s a miniscule chance of failure, and I really don’t have the energy to make medical history).

The second is to try to find something positive – no matter how minor - about every day. The Man came home from work yesterday and asked me – reasonably enough – how my day was. I gave him The Look.  “Give me one highlight and one lowlight”.  I really did try, but honestly, the only highlight I could come up with was that the day had passed without any hospital visits / major calamities.  Which are, I accept, highlights in theselves.  But assuming I can get all of us through every day more or less intact, I’m going to try for something more; some icing of positivity on the humdrum cake of life, if you will.  Already today there have been a couple.  The first was at 7am when I woke up after over 7 hours’ sleep.  The other was the Boy and the Girl playing happily together in the garden for the bones of half an hour.  Happily!  Granted, the play involved mud and water, but what price a disgusting pool of filth for enough time to have a cup of tea and a piece of toast?  

Finally, I’m going to really really try to post new recipes every week.  In addition to a whinging rant an all-new-singing-and-dancing-with-positivity recount of the hell bliss that is my life.  I got some wonderful cook books for Christmas, and I’m determined to do more than just read them and salivate. (I'm going to read them, salivate, try to copy, and post really cack photos of the results. Hold on to your seats.) 

Onto the other topic:  equally originally, a quick review of 2012. 

The blogging highlight – ie, the post which was most popular – was the announcement of My Condition.  (Seemed that was a bit of a shock to some of you – just imagine how we felt.) Despite the somewhat less than auspicious beginnings, her arrival was our personal highlight, and she remains the gift that keeps on giving.  She gets cuter - and fatter - every day, full of coos and dribbly  smiles, and combined with her new gift of sleeping past the early hours, is currently the best child in the house. (Mind you, her competition isn't much - the fact that she can't speak catapults her to first place in itself.) 

There were a few lowlights, but nothing major*;  just like long-distance flights with children, or broken teeth, once the moment has passed you forget about them and move on. (Which reminds me, I’ve got to organise ROOT CANAL TREATMENT for this month;  don’t expect much positivity after that.) The ongoing juggling of life with three children, and trying to work out the constantly changing logistics remains a challenge, but the all-new-positive me is hopeful that it’ll get easier.  (It has to get easier, right?)

And so I wish you all a very happy New Year;  may it be full of not-too-challenging challenges, children’s dvds, dark Scandinavian crime thrillers, fat smiley babies, mud dragged through your kitchen, and crisps stuffed into your mouths while your children aren’t looking.  Which just about sums up my 2012.

(* Apart from a week-long hospital stay.  Which - thankfully -  seems to have been wiped from my memory by the ensuing sleep deprivation.)