They depend on me...

Every night at 1am and 3am, I have one wish which will never come true: I wish men could breastfeed... (Translate: i wish my husband could breastfeed...) Whenever Sophia starts crying Ely would call me, "mama! I think baby needs to breastfeed!" Yes. Yes. I know she does...all the time... As I nurse Sophia, I cannot stop thinking about the fact that we, women, feed our offsprings. The survival of our species heavily depends on us. I look at Sophia, who almost doubled her birth weight in two months, and I am amazed by this very primitive (yet important) function of my body: feeding our babies. For us humans, feeding our offspring does not stop when our children stop nursing. The end of nursing is just one milestone. Parents are responsible for feeding our children for a very long time. In my family, the primary person to feed the family is, of course, mama (= me). I was looking at Ely's baby pictures, and came across a lot of pictures of homemade baby food and toddler food. Although I highly recommend to make your own baby food, I know it is not for everyone. It takes time and effort. Ely is now old enough to eat the same meals as ours, and her health continues to depend on me. The other day, a terrible thought came to my mind...what if something happens to me... Who is going to feed them? At the dinner table, I told my husband, "I have one wish. Can you promise me that the girls will continue to eat good home cooked meals if something ever happens to me?", "please do not feed them frozen and boxed food." Of course, my husband did not take me seriously, and said, "nothing will happen to you." I am not expecting  anything to happen to me. I was talking about the "what if" situation, and yes, I am serious. My husband knows how to cook. He makes good pasta with tomato sauce, and super juice, and some sandwiches, but he cannot raise our girls feeding on only those foods day after day. I told him that it would be nice if he can expand his cooking repertoire, and he agreed. He hasn't quite entered the kitchen to do so yet, but I am hoping in the near future we will have a cooking date in our kitchen.

Tequila Cilantro Pasta

This recipe was adopted from a recipe I received from my friend Lisa. The original recipe is called "Tequila Chicken Fettuccine". I make this without chicken and replace chicken broth with vegetable base broth.

INGREDIENTS:

1 pound dry spinach fettuccine

OR

2 pounds fresh spinach fettuccine

1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

2 tablespoons chopped cilantro reserved for garnish

2 tablespoons minced fresh garlic

2 tablespoons minced jalapeno pepper (seeds and veins may be removed) - I usually omit this because it becomes quite spicy for my daughter.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter (reserve 1 tablespoon for saute )

1/2 cup chicken stock (preferably homemade) - I replaced this with veggie base broth using Rapunzel vegetable broth cube. 

2 tablespoons gold tequila

2 tablespoons freshly-squeezed lime juice or lemon juice if you don't have lime 

3 tablespoons soy sauce

1/4 medium red onion, thinly sliced

1 medium red bell pepper, thinly sliced

1 medium yellow bell pepper thinly sliced

1 1/2 cup heavy cream

DIRECTIONS:

Cook 1/3 cup cilantro, garlic and jalapeno in 2 tablespoons butter over medium heat for 4 to 5 minutes. Add stock, tequila and lime juice. Bring the mixture to a boil and cook until reduced to a paste like consistency. This will take a while. Do not rush this step. You need to be patient. You also need to be attentive to the pot so that it will not burn. 

This is how it should look. 

Meanwhile cook onion and peppers, stirring occasionally, with remaining butter over medium heat. When the vegetables have wilted (become limp), add soy sauce and quickly toss and add reserved tequila/lime paste and cream. Bring the sauce to boil and reduce the heat to simmer, stirring occasionally. You don't want to continue boiling it as the cream starts to separate. Taste it and add salt and pepper if you like. Turn off the heat. 

Prepare rapidly boiling, salted water to cook pasta; cook pasta accoding to the direction. When sauce is done, toss with well-drained spinach fettuccine and reserved cilantro and parmigiana cheese. I this picture, I used spinach spaghetti. 

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