The holidays always make me really nostalgic for our early married days. We were married in October and the first fall and winter together were so special. We spent so much time cooking shoulder to shoulder in that tiny kitchen, and a staple in those days was chicken mish-mash (I don't remember how it got the silly name, but somehow it stuck). It was a recipe I first threw together for Alan while we were dating, and then we "perfected" together after we were married. I didn't really know much about cooking back in those days, so the recipe is really simple, but its an awesome comfort food. (I made it over at Joel and Kate's on friday night, so you can admire the glimpses of her beautiful tablecloth in there)

You will need:

• rice (believe it or not, when we were first married I had never even cooked real rice before, so we used to buy this boil in the bag stuff called Success rice. We have since put our big boy rice pants on, but I picked up a box of Success rice to stay true to the original recipe - two bags)
• 3 medium tomatoes
• 2 small onions
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 sweet pepper (I like green to balance out the colours)
• 1 can tomato paste
• 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken (you can substitute tofu)
• 1 tbsp. olive oil
• salt and pepper

This will feed 3-4.

Start buy chopping the pepper, onions, tomatoes, and mincing the garlic. . .

Put in a bowl and set aside. . .

Fill a pot with water and start your rice. . .

Heat up oil in a skillet over medium heat, season chicken with salt and pepper, and cook thoroughly. . .

Transfer chicken to a plate and add fresh ingredients and tomato paste to the skillet. Mix and cover, stirring often to prevent sticking. . .

Give baby keys to entertain. . .

Meanwhile, shred the chicken. . .

Add salt and pepper to the tomato mixture (it should be getting nice and stew-y). . .

Once the peppers are soft and everything is cooked down, add the chicken, mix, kill the heat and re-cover. . .

Look at that face! Gah!

Drain the rice (I sandwich it between two plates to squeeze the water out). . .

Return rice to pot and add chicken and tomato mixture, stir together. . .

Add more salt and pepper to taste. . .

And maybe throw a beer in the mix?

Baby definitely approved. . .

In six days Scoopy (or Scoops, as we have taken to calling her - I don't know, this girl has a lot of nicknames and they don't all make sense. Past nicknames include but are not limited to: Glowworm, Glow, Indiglow, Bug and Indy-Bug) will be 10 months old! Sheesh! This year is going by way too fast. I can't believe I'll be planning her first birthday party soon. Also, cool weather equals baby cuteness! Who can resist a bundled up baby?!

I would like to start a new monthly post of Indigo Lily updates called "Eats and Feats"! These are admittedly completely self-indulgent, haha. Anyways, this one is a little early, cause I couldn't wait til the 23rd once I had the idea. . .

Eats:

Indy just recently started taking in enough solid food for it to be worth anything. Breastmilk is still about 90% of her diet, but she's enjoying some of the new tasy additions. She will also only eat any respectable amount of food if its off the floor. She was previously being fed mostly in her chair, but she would throw almost all of her food on the floor, so I would sigh and figure she was done and didn't want anymore, and put her down to play. Only later she would go back and eat all of the food off the floor! Silly baby. Apparently she just doesn't want to eat while restrained. So now she rugs around and plays and goes back periodically to eat a little and then goes and plays again.

Some of her favorite foods this month include:

• egg yolk
• fresh and freeze dried strawberries
• cheerios
• apples
• guacamole
• rice and beans
• tomatoes (she goes back and forth on this one)
• mangos
• bananas
• cooked carrots/sweet peppers
• and anything ethnic: particularly pho and panang curry (what can I say, I ate a lot of these two while I was pregnant)

Feats:

Her mobility/motility has greatly increased:

• she speed crawls everywhere (as evidenced by the sometimes rug burn on her little baby knees)
• pulls to a stand easily on everything
• climbs steps, and tries to climb other less climbable things like pillows and piles of toys
• she loves taking things in and out of boxes and baskets (she thinks she's being helpful on laundry day)

Physical feats:

• she's getting in her two top teeth
• her hair is growing! Oh it's so cute!

Oh, and she throws tantrums now. Is that really a feat? I don't know. Does it matter? She's ridiculously cute. And also sometimes a little smug. . .