Busy

I wish I could spend more time cooking and blogging but unfortunately I am much to busy!

I have my internship at a hotel 5 days a week, I go to school one day a week, and off course keep my house clean and do all the financial stuff.

An then I have my little girl who I don't see enough!!!

So I'm going to feed her now!!

byebye :)

Honey

Babyfood, Mango!

I've let my daughter taste mango... the really loves it!
(she is now 4 mothes and 2 weeks old)

Almond rice

I've had some almonds left over from my speculaas cookies so I made some almond rice and decided to to a quick post on it.

So what you'll need it:

3 cups of rice

3 cups of hot water

100 grams of almonds

1 small tablespoon of salt (according to taste off course)

and some oil

So what I did was, I put the oil in the pan and added the almonds. keep stirring and keep your eyes on it. As soon as they get a tan add the salt. give a quick stir and put in the rice. Then carefully stir again and the water.

Bring it to a boil and then turn the heat as low as possible.

Cover the lit with tin foil ore a towel, place it on the pan.

Let it sit for about 15 to 20 minutes.

turn of the heat and let it rest for another 5 minutes......DONE

If this isn't easy....

Dutch Speculaas and Almond Cookies

I love reading food blogs! And I just have to say that I´m so jealous at some of you... Beautiful lay-out, great writing ability and amazing pictures. I obviously am an amateur compared to alot of you. When I was doing this recopy I had trouble making pictures that wear at least clear. Are you all professional photographers ore something!

Anyway, I did the best attempt I can do and I hope you'll like it anyway and maybe even make it... if you do, let me know how it turns out.

This is a Dutch recopy, the Dutch may not be known for there great food but I wonder why. They have great foods for cold winter evening. Like these cookies with the main ingredient speculaasspices. A mix of spices that always give me a warm feeling, a bit like cinnamon always does.

If you are not able to find speculaasspices you can make it yourself , there are some variations but it's basically cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, cardemom and white pepper. Now don't think this recipe would be to much work, you probably have all ore most of these spices at home allready!

If you would like to know more I suggest you visit wikipedia ore Dutch girl cooking.

Ingredients
300 gr self raising flower

150 gr brown sugar
20 gr speculaasspices
salt
200 gr unsalted butter
2 tbs milk
50 gr almonds



And this is how you do it:

Whisk together the self raising flower, brown sugar, speculaas and salt
Then add the butter and use 2 knives to cut the butter in to the mixture (ore use a mixer, but I don't have one)
Flatten the dough into a round (using cold hands), wrap it in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least a couple off hours, if it's possible 24 hours would be perfect.

Get the chilled dough out of the refrigerator (the dough is hard right now) and wait until it is at room temperature
preheat oven op 160 degrees C (300 degrees F)
Flour your work surface and press your dough into an even, flat layer of about 0,5 cm (I believe that's 1/4 inch)
place the dough on the baking paper and make little squares by cutting lightly in the dough. (So not all the way through)
Use the milk to brush the top of your dough then sprinkle the almonds over it.

Place it in the oven and leave it for about 30 minutes

Allow it to cool,you should wait until it gets hard (but please taste some when it's still a bit warm!!!)
As soon as it has cooled off u can break it in squares.

Eet smakelijk!

Babyfood, Apple - the first time!

Now that my little girl is 4 months old I started thinking about how I´m going to handle things when it comes to food. When I was looking around on coffeeandvanilla.com I came across these tips Margot give on her blog and I agree with her for 100%.

These are her tips:

*Feed them with fruit and veg before they know they don’t like it, before they can walk or talk.
*Don’t give up, with older children it can take few years, it is hard to change old bad habits.
*Engage little ones in your shopping and cooking, let them choose and help to prepare.
*Reduce ready foods and sweets but let them have it from time to time.
*If you cook and eat healthy yourself, your children will follow you.
*The sooner you start introduce your child to all kind of healthy foods the better, hopefully later
those childhood experiences will change into healthy eating habits and love for
good food

The only thing I'd like to add is having family dinners, it gives them an example and you have an excuse to be together.
I hate eating alone! And it happens to me alot do to irregular working hours.

but, I hope I can live up too these tips and avoid something like this:

I feel bad for those children, I don't have to tell you how bad this is in so many ways!

Anyway,I think it´s time to introduce her to some real food now. I know that she doesn´t "need" it yet and opinions might be different on this subject, but I would like to allready let her taste some things. I've been reading on the Internet and according to different sources it's best to give your baby one kind of food for about 2 weeks to get used to the taste (they might not like it at first) and if they turn out to be allergic you know immediately to what. I´ve also been told is best to feed your baby pure ingredients first before start mixing them up, so they will know what the fruits, vegetables etc taste like individually. I wanted to start out with apples, so I peeled and cut an apple then cooked it with about a tablespoon of water and just stirred and mashed it.

She didn't really give a struggle ore spite it out, but she looked grossed out though! haha she did eat some bits eventually so I'm proud. How do you think I'm handling this? What did you do different? As a first time mom with NO experience (no baby's in my family) I would appreciate any advice!

Broke

As you may have noticed I have not been posting alot since I have this blog.

The reasons for that are lack of time and money.

My boyfriend just lost his job and I´m doing my internship (un-paid) so all the money we do have is spend on our daughter.

Anyway, I won't bore you guys with the whole story and I promise to post a recopy this week!

Not that anyone is reading my blog... (I think) but I'm promising myself!!