It's Tea Time with Banana Chocolate Cupcakes.

This is a European recipe, so I converted the grams and ounces to cups and mls. I have European measuring utensils appropriate for this recipe, so if you have American measuring utensils then half a cup for me is 118mls whereas half a cup for you is 125mls. This recipe is written in my measurements with yours in the brackets.  

CUPCAKES
   118 mls (half cup) butter
   177 mls (3/4 cup) sugar
   2 eggs
   2 large mashed ripe bananas
   1 tsp baking soda
   2 tbsp boiling milk
   1 tsp baking powder
   236 mls (1 cup) flour

Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Mix in mashed banana. Add baking soda that has been dissolved in the boiled milk. Mix in sifted flour and baking powder. Don't over beat batter!
Bake at 325 F for 18-25 minutes. Until they are light golden on top and a toothpick comes out clean.

    

CHOCOLATE FROSTING
   148 mls (2/3 cup) unsalted softened butter
   207 mls (3/4 + 1/8 cup [or 5/8 cup]) confectioners sugar
   29 mls (1/8 cup) cocoa powder
   1 tbsp lukewarm milk
   1 tsp vanilla

Cream butter and sift in the confectioners sugar and cocoa powder. Add the milk and vanilla. If it needs more milk, add up to 1 more teaspoon of lukewarm milk. Mix until well incorporated. If it looks curdled, add more confectioners sugar.

Golden Ages to the Dark Ages of Teething

On average, a baby will cut their first tooth at 7 months. Which is around the same age they become these dangerously fast paced curious little creatures who may bite, pull hair and twist nipples when given the chance. Such busy bodies with equally busy brains. Adelaide got her first tooth at the beginning of August, and now she is working on her 5th one. For teething pain I just give her frozen berries and icecubes or frozen cubed cantaloupe in her Nuby mesh thing and she really LOVES it. She also loves her cthulhu's frozen tentacles, lol. And when the pains really bad, at night before bed I'll cave and give her a half dose of baby pain reliever. You could try Camilia. I get to brush the little teeth every night when we're in the bathtub! They're just the cutest little things.

I've noticed Adelaide eating more since she got her first tooth. So I get vegetables and fruits (homegrown and organic as much as possible) and puree batches big enough so there's plenty left over to freeze a few meals. Here is a super helpful and encouraging site to keep you from feeding your baby boxed or jarred instant food from the grocery store. http://wholesomebabyfood.momtastic.com. If you wanna make batches and freeze them like I do but need a bit of advice, just read THIS. We kept her on a gluten-free dairy-free sugar-free diet at first (mainly because of the yeast rash.) She's since had plain yoghurt which I add fruit to for a sweetener (because she still remains sugar free), and organic brown rice and organic oats which I just process to a fine grain in the food processor. The way I see it, it's only an hour and a half per week to make baby food. You could make bigger batches so you only have to make it every 2 weeks. Whatever works for you and your schedule!

When we started giving Adelaide textured lumpy food and finger foods, it was a little scary at first. I was so afraid she was gonna choke. I also wanted to avoid sugar and gluten filled prepackaged foods that some books recommend. Chopped banana is an easy choice, especially if you're on the go. Or soft fruits like plums, cantaloupe, berries, pears, or avocado without peels of course. Or bake small cubes of sweet potato adding cinnamon and nutmeg until they are super tender (and of course you can omit the spices.) Or slice an eggplant after peeling it and add minced garlic with a dash of pepper and let the eggplant sit and sweat for about an hour or more, then bake for 40 minutes on about 350F, let cool and dice in small bits.

I can't wait til she can eat what we eat! Curries, stews, soups, BBQ! Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!! I'm even going to attempt making breast milk ice cream!! Sugar-free of course! So babies can eat it. Perfect for teething!!

Six Months.

Adelaide has reached 6 months. She started off 5 lbs 13 oz and has now reached a whopping 17 pounds! Life is slowly getting crazier as she is becoming more independent. In the past month, so much has happened. It seems that when babies start to learn things, it's like a domino effect. She's becoming such a person now, full blown personality with more of an understanding on how things work. Incredible hand eye coordination. Eating food. Teething like mad (her bottom middle left tooth should make it's debut soon!) Rolling around. Sitting up. Pulling herself up to stand. Talking her own language. She's doing all the things a 6 month old should do but she has the temper of a two year old! It's the Bays/Horton temper and boy is it fierce. She can reach this crazy high pitch when she screams that make you cringe. When she first learned to scream, she thought it was funny. We did not encourage it, ever! But she still laughed. It's awful. She just wants to be heard I guess, lol.

She is SO in to music. Music anything and she just stares and takes it all in. Sometimes she'll sing with me when I sing to her. Her favourite is when Julian plays the guitar for her. I reckon she'll be very musical. There are some incredibly talented people on Julian's side! They can sing and play instruments, so you can imagine Christmas time is especially fun! You may have heard of Jodi King or Jenn Mierau and of course, lets not forget Hot Live Guys. My side of the family are the dancers. Can't really carry a tune, but LOVE music and LOVE to show off their moves.
Here, listen to Julian play Beirut for Adelaide while you finish reading!

Adelaide is starting to become independent. She likes to put her own soother in her mouth. She likes to hold her own bottle when I give her water. She grabs the spoon and tries to feed herself at meals. She's getting pretty good at feeding herself a biscuit. We're a fan of Farley's Rusks. Sometimes she'll have one mixed with breastmilk and bananas for breakfast. But she likes just eating the biscuits. They dissolve easily and they must feel great on her sore gums.

Introducing her to food is so fun! So far, she hasn't snubbed anything. She's had rice, banana, apple, pear, prune, avocado, pumpkin, peas, and sweet potato. I've also introduced her to cinnamon. I get recipes and ideas from http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/. I find it weird that in our culture we introduce the most constipated foods first. It's hard on their wee digestive systems. Bug LOVES sweet potatoes, but they also constipate her really bad. Good thing she loves prunes! I am looking forward to the next couple weeks when we're gonna start adding new things to the menu and spice it up a bit! Just because we're Canadian, doesn't mean we gotta feed her that way!

With all the changes going on in her diet and her teething roller coaster ride, she's become more susceptible to diaper rashes. So she is experiencing her first one. It sucks. The moment I noticed it I knew it was yeast related. Most diaper rashes are. It's bright red and raised. It started off patchy. So right away I upped my intake of Acidophilus to 4 capsules a day from 2 and I break open a capsule and give Adelaide the powder inside with some food or water once in the morning and once in the evening. I was using Penaten Cream at first but surprisingly that didn't work. A friend of mine got me a jar of Sudocrem and that seems to be working and giving Bug some relief. We also spend the day naked which gives us plenty of opportunities to use the potty. And at night I put her cloth diaper on really loose so moisture doesn't get trapped. Hopefully it won't be around that much longer. For more info on how to get rid of a yeast rash click HERE.

Now that Adelaide is sitting up and rolling over and pulling herself to stand I have to start baby proofing because it won't be long before she's on the go and into everything she shouldn't be. This is when things start getting really fun! lol. This is when you lose that last bit of baby weight!

5 Months.

"You and Me". One of Bugs favourite songs. I have an Ipod Touch so a couple times a week when we're laying in bed in the morning, I'll play a some youtube videos for her. This song is a good one to play when she's a little cranky. She calms down almost instantly.
And, "I Love My Hair" makes Bug smile and giggle. It's a great song.

I love Sesame Street!
http://www.sesamestreet.org/
We don't have cable or anything and we don't really watch the TV unless we watch a boxset and that only happens when Bugs in bed at night. (Right now we're finishing up Battlestar Galactica, the newer series!) So she rarely gets exposed to TV except when we watch a couple videos here and there on the ITouch or when we get together with friends some Saturdays to watch Hockey Night in Canada. She LOVES hockey! I am not sure how I feel about TV, but it's obvious to me that if she was to be exposed to the Tube, then only watch very small doses. And of course be careful what you expose their wee minds to. For instance...when I first started showing Bug the video clips on YouTube, we watched a couple Baby Einstein videos I found...she was enthralled, but they were boring. So I searched for a variety of them. Here's one we watched:

It was at about 2:43 when I realized that this really wasn't for kids. And the title didn't say "not for kids" at that time. But from the beginning of the video I was a little weirded out. Oops, lol.
Anyway, five months is fun. She's "talking" more, her vocabulary is quite something! She has learned to scream and will just do it because she can. She thinks it's funny. I hope this ends soon, lol. She's so giggly and really fun to interact with! She's a really tiny person with likes and dislikes. She is SO close to sitting up on her own. And she just wants to stand and jump all the time. She can roll over to one side only with a disposable diaper on because the cloth diapers are a bit bulkier, ha ha ha. Two teeth are about to make their debut any day now! And as of 2 days ago, we introduced her to food. Rice cereal, apples and breast milk. She seems to love it.

We decided it was time because she was waking more frequently at night time for milk. Like 5 times a night! Now she wakes up for 2 or 3 quick top ups between 7pm and 8am. Much better. Now I am excited for her to get to eat what we eat. Since we have the Cadillac of all food processors we'll be making our own baby food! I am thinking about getting a table at a farmers market this summer so I can sell jars of it, along with all the baby attire I make! I'll keep you posted!


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Homemade Ice Cream Cakes

I previously posted a recipe for brownie chunk ice cream, and since then I have mastered a recipe. I thought I knew how to make ice cream then...but I didn't...now I do!! So now that I have learned how to make the best ice cream in the world, I decided to make the best dessert in the world...ICE CREAM CAKE! These are honestly SO incredible, and since I make it from scratch, I know exactly what's in it!

Here's photos that I took of the 2 cakes I made as I was making them. One has a chocolate bottom and a vanilla top and the other has a vanilla bottom and a chocolate top. Both have crumbled Oreo cookies and chocolate fudge in the middle. I will be making another one in a couple weeks that will have homemade brownie chunks instead of Oreo cookies. Mmmmmmm!

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Coconut Crepes.

Coconut crepes are something I fell in love with in Goa.  I ate them on the beach like everyday! These are pretty inexpensive fruits and if you use the mature coconuts it's a great source of protein!  With a little google searching, I discovered that coconuts are very beneficial for you!  They:
   Help you lose weight, or maintain your already good weight
   Reduce the risk of heart disease
   Lower your cholesterol
   Improve conditions in those with diabetes and chronic fatigue
   Improve Crohn’s, IBS, and other digestive disorders
   Prevent other disease and routine illness with its powerful antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal agents
   Increase metabolism and promotes healthy thyroid function
   Boost your daily energy
   Rejuvenate your skin and prevent wrinkles

Now that the weekend is here, it's the perfect time to whip up some coconut crepes!  My crepe recipe is my Mum's which is a bit of this and a bit of that, lol.  It's a great recipe for gluten free crepes too, just use rice flour!
In a large bowl mix:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 cups milk
3 eggs
1 tablespoon oil
some salt
some sugar, if you want
some cinnamon, if you want
and add mushed bananas or other fruits you love, if you want!
Once it's all mixed, just pour some into the middle of a hot frying pan and tilt the frying pan in circular motions to spread out the mixture to make it big and round and thin.  They take little time on each side, but fry them until they're done just the way you like it!  When each crepe is done I stack them on a plate inside a warm oven until there's no more mixture left.

While you're frying these up, break open your coconut and take out the meat.  And then grate it all in to bits.

And then it's time to eat!  Put some coconut into the middle of the crepe with syrup or honey.

 Roll it up and top with more coconut and syrup or honey.  ENJOY!!!

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I Heart Whole Wheat Bread.

On Christmas I received bread pans! Three in fact. Perfect! Since being back in Toronto I have been sort of obsessed over baking bread. There's many reasons why you should bake your own bread.
1. It's cheap
2. It's easy
3. It's healthy or healthier
4. Fresh baked bread tastes incredible
5. The smell! To have your whole place smell like a bakery is just THE BEST!!!

I was under the impression that making your own bread was rather difficult and time consuming, when in fact, it's the opposite. I know that it takes anywhere between 1 hour to like 5 days to make a loaf of bread, but there's very little work involved. Most of the time is spent unattended. I also discovered how a food processor is the best for making the dough in. Seriously, food processors are incredible. Over the past few weeks I have made white breads, whole wheat breads and cinnamon raisin breads. My fave...the whole wheat. It's plain, I know, but oh so useful. Fresh out of the oven you could lather it in butter and jam, or even just butter. Or garlic and butter and eat with pasta! Have it for breakfast lunch or with supper. Mmmmmmm. Anyway, you get what I'm saying. It's also the one I have mastered. So from here, I will branch out making different kinds involving seeds and flax and oats and who knows what else...maybe poppy seeds?! And as I master other types, I will post the recipes as well.

Okay so what you're gonna need is:

2 cups whole wheat flour
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast
2 tablespoons (or a bit more) honey
2 tablespoons butter (room temperature)
1 to 1 1/3 cups warm milk

Now place flour, salt and yeast in the food processor. Mix for about 10 seconds. Then while the food processor is still mixing, put down the shoot the butter, honey and milk. Then mix for another 30 to 40 seconds. The dough should be barely sticky. If it's too dry, add milk about a tablespoon at a time and then mix for another 10 seconds...or add flour if it's too dry (very unlikely). Now take it out and knead it for a few minutes. Grease a large bowl with oil or butter. Shape the dough in to a ball and then place in the greased bowl.

Cover the bowl with a damp towel and place the bowl in a warmish place...maybe need a radiator or heat vent. Let the dough rise for 6-12 hours.


Then deflate the ball of dough and reform back into a ball and let sit on a lightly floured counter top for 15-20 minutes.

From there, pat down the dough into a rectangle shape.

Place in a oiled or buttered bread pan and pat down with the back of your hand.

Then cover with a damp towel and let sit for at least 2 hours.


Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Brush the top of the loaf lightly with water. Bake for about 40-45 minutes. It's done when if you tap the bottom of the pan it sounds hollow. Remove from heat and cool on a wire rack for about 15 minutes or more before you eat the best bread ever.

This is a very forgiving recipe, so if you want to let it rise longer at either rising point, go ahead, or if you don't have time to let it rise so long, don't worry. Just remember, the longer it rises, the more flavourful and fluffy it will be. If you want to let it slow rise for up to 5 days, just put it in the fridge.
Good luck!


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