Curry for the Whole Family

I never thought I would find myself preparing dinner for my family with a recipe I found in a cookbook for babies but that's exactly what I did tonight. And guess what... it was a huge success!
Last year my aunt sent me a copy of Cooking for Baby as a birthday gift while I was expecting my first baby. The first chapters are full of what you'd expect in a baby cookbook: lots of mush and recommendations for adding new foods to baby's diet. Don't get me wrong, those early chapters we very helpful in guiding our food choices as Genevieve began trying solids. Now that she's gotten a little older, however, the meal ideas in the book have gotten much more exciting and include dishes I never would have thought to feed a baby. I've been letting Genevieve sample portions of our meals, usually fairly plain vegetables and chicken, the occasional noodle, but tonight was the first meal from which she received a complete portion.
Enough talk though, right? On with the recipe! My version makes about 3 times what the original makes and has a variety of veggies. It originally called for a cup of diced zucchini but since I only had one small zucchini to work with I had to add some other ingredients to triple the final product.
The cookbook's authors recommend this recipe for babies ages 9 months and up but check with your doctor before introducing new foods to babies especially if there's a history of allergies.

Baby! Oh Baby, It's Curry!Ingredients
2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 can (about 13 oz) coconut milk
1 1/2 cubes of chicken bouillon
1 tbsp red curry paste (make sure it doesn't contain shellfish or shrimp. This makes a very mild curry, I think you could safely increase the amount to 1.5-2 tbsps or more depending on your tastes and the age of your baby)
1 zucchini, diced
1 head of broccoli, florets trimmed and cut into bite sized pieces
2 large carrot sticks, diced
Basil to taste

1. Put broccoli and carrot into a steamer basket over about 2 cups of boiling water. Meanwhile cut chicken into thin strips. 
2. Heat oil in a wok over medium-high heat, then stir-fry chicken for 3-4 minutes. Remove chicken from pan then set aside. 
3. Add zucchini, broccoli, carrots, coconut milk, curry paste, bouillon and 1 1/2 cups of water used to steam the veggies to the wok. Bring to a boil then cover and reduce to a simmer for 6-7 minutes.
4. Add chicken back to the wok along with basil and continue cooking until chicken is completely cooked and the vegetables are tender. Serve over rice.For baby's portion, cut the chicken into small pieces. 

Rainy Day Play "Quilt"

After a very rainy week the sun made a perfectly timed reappearance on Columbus Day when the Mr had a day off of work allowing us to go apple picking, something that's been on my Fall bucket list for years. unfortunately I knew the ground would be wet and that we would probably end up sitting on the ground at some point. Knowing that the regular blankets we usually use as play areas for her weren't going to cut it in the mud, I whipped up this water proof "quilt" during her morning nap before venturing out for an afternoon at the apple orchard.

I'll start out by saying I have NO experience in quilting but I was able to complete this project from concept to packing it in the diaper bag in about 2 hours, with a little help from my husband to cut and pin a few pieces.

Rainy Day Play "Quilt"

Materials: 3 large scraps of fabric about 1/2 yd each (A,B,C)
1 yd PUL
thread
embroidery floss

1. Cut nine 1 ft square pieces of fabric, 3 of each color (A,B,C).

2. Pin sqaures right sides together into 3 rows of three in the following order: 

• Row 1: A, B, C
• Row 2: C, A, B
• Row 3: B, C, A

3. Sew the squares to form the three rows using a 1/2 inch seam allowance. 

4. Now pin the rows right sides together matching up and pinning open the seams. You can take the extra step of using an iron to press the seams open but I was in a hurry and it turned out just fine when I only pinned them open to sew. Sew using 1/2 inch seam allowance to form a large square from now on called the Quilt Square.

5. Now that you have your Quilt Square pieced together, lay it onto the PUL matching up one of the corners and two edges. Cut the PUL along the remaining two sides of the Quilt Sqaure to make a PUL square of the same size.
6. Match up the sides and pin the Quilt Square to the PUL square right sides together and sew using 1/2 inch seam allowance and leaving a gap a few inches wide to pull the piece through.

7. Trim the edges to 1/4 inch and clip the corners to the seam then turn the piece right side out through the gap you left.
8. Pin the edges smooth and sew a 1/4 inch hem all the way around to close the gap and keep the edges in place. We want a mat not a bag! :)
9. Now the whole point of this is to have a dry place to sit on damp/muddy ground. That's what the PUL is for; it keeps water from seeping through the blanket to baby's bum the way a normal blanket would. Now the more holes we put in the PUL by sewing through it, the more places there are for water to leak through so we can't stitch all over quilt style to keep the two sides of the blanket from slipping around. Instead I used embroidery floss in a complimentary color to stitch small Xs at the four corners of the central square in my "quilt." You can do French knots instead if you prefer the look or place the stitches in the center of some of your quilt squares instead but I recommend as few stitches as possible to hole the piece together in order to maximize water-proofing.
Enjoy!

Bree's Bubbles & Bows Tablecloth

My friend asked me to make a tablecloth for my god-daughter's new play table. I'm pleased with the results. I love this polka dot fabric I found at Jo-ann's. The tablecloth is super simple but the crisp edges and cute details really make it special.
On to the tutorial!

Dragon's Hoard Terrarium

My husband and I made this terrarium this afternoon.

It was a fun project. Putting it together didn't take very long but we had lots of fun wandering around garden centers, toy departments, and craft stores deciding what we wanted it to look like and what we would put in it.

I found instructions in this month's Everyday with Rachael Ray. One thing they left out: get a bigger container than you think you'll need... or plan to fill it with less. We found ourselves digging things out and smoushing things down to make room for the dragon.