Bonkers today - totally bonkers. Olias has taken up a new hobby and it is causing some grief. You would think it was easily solved and it probably is, but I don't want to stop him.

Our "little big man" has become obsessed with pulling things out of the cupboards in the kitchen. Doesn't sound too bad does it? Most people would just put something on the cupboard to stop this - you can buy little clip thingies for just this purpose - but not me.

Just to be different, we've never done this.

Isis used to pull things out of the cupboards, Eve was even worse. But I have always been of the opinion that this is normal behaviour and shouldn't be stopped. To a little baby this is great fun, there are interesting things hidden behind doors and mummy and daddy love playing with them too, so why wouldn't any baby want to do this?

When Isis was young we let her play in the cupboards as much as she liked and after a few weeks she got bored and went on to other things. Eve really loved pulling things out and was much worse than Isis for this - but she soon realised there were better things to do and moved on.

Olias is the cupboard monster. If you put him down - anywhere - he makes a bee-line straight to the kitchen cupboards and begins to methodically remove everything. He loves it. Yesterday he managed to grab a jar of Lime Pickle and it smashed on the tiles - luckily for me it was almost empty and I have a reserve jar.

Many people I know who have small children make an extra special effort to remove anything which might break from the reach of their little ones. You can see the reasoning - broken glass is dangerous, it's expensive to replace plates and glasses and it's a pain in the arse to clear up. We haven't really gone down this avenue though, being of the theory that children need to learn how to eat off plates and drink from glasses, so the earlier they learn the better.

You'd think there would be broken glass everywhere wouldn't you, especially as we always use real glasses at dinner and there are no plastic plates in sight.

Not at all.

Every now and again something gets broken, but the usual culprit is Toni, who has a tendency towards being a bit of a clutz. Yesterday she broke a glass and it took about 20 minutes to clean up the broken shards from the kitchen before anyone could safely come in again. The 2 older children are usually fine with dangerous things, it's my partner who's the real hazard.

So my theory is, let you kids eat off china plates and let them drink from proper glasses. Every now and again something will get smashed but it will anyway. Let them play in the cupboards, let them roam around the house as if it were their home and don't worry too much.

Oops, got to go. Toni just knocked over a 200 year old Qing dynasty Chinese vase and has managed to superglue her fingers together trying to fix it.

Menu

Chicken Chasseur

Sautée Potatoes

Green Beans

Chocolate Sponge and (Easy) Chocolate Sauce


Ingredients*

Chicken Chasseur 2 Large Chicken Breasts 2 Shallots 1 TBSP Olive Oil 2 TBSP Tomato Purée Bouquet Garni 200ml Chicken Stock 200ml White Wine 200g Mushrooms Salt and Pepper Fresh Herbs (Chervil and Tarragon are traditional, but we didn't have any chervil so had flat leaf parsley instead.)

Preparation

Chicken Chasseur is normally made with a whole jointed chicken but we only had some breast. Also (according to my Petit Larousse de la Cuisine) it is normal to fry the shallots and chicken in butter - and drain off excess fat during the cooking. I used olive oil instead and as I was using breast the sauce wasn't too fatty. One last deviation from the original - the French recipe uses home made tomato sauce but I don't have any of this so used tomato purée. My old French Grandmother Helene would probably weep into her calvados but she left us many years ago and as such there's no one to complain - unless you want to make an issue of this..?

Chocolate Sauce (I got Eve to make this, she didn't burn herself or make any mess): Put a little water in a pan and melt some chocolate buttons into this. Add a big blob of Nutella and stir in, the add some double cream. Easy peasy chocolate squeezy.

Today's Ratings:

Isis: Yuk.
Eve: Yuk.
Olias: Yum.

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*All quantities are very approximate and for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 kids aged 5 years, 3 years & 9 months)

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JCBorresen@GMail.com