I have a confession to make: I fell off the wagon last week. Actually, it was more of a small trot alongside the wagon for a short while, before I jumped back on again; but however you categorise it, after two weeks of purging my body – and soul – I stumbled.
In my defence, it was a very very long day, which included a morning screaming match on the street with a white-van-reptile man (so classy) and an evening game of hunt-the-poo-which-I-know-is-in-a-tissue-in-the-pram-basket (don’t ask). And those were the good parts. The Boy and I fought like beasts (most notably in the middle of Sainsburys), and the Girl decided to replace her naps with non-stop howling, which I joined in with several times. My head was wrecked, and so when I finally herded them up and deposited them into their respective beds, stumbling exhaustedly off the wagon to which I had foolishly shackled myself seemed the only sensible thing to so.
God it felt good. But it also felt temporary, and since then I’ve had no enormous desire to fall again. Having said that however, if I’m unfortunate enough to face another day as emotionally traumatic, there’s a very good chance I’ll decide to check out the view from ground level again.
This awful weather doesn’t help. Day after day of lashing rain, night lifting at about 9am, then descending a few short hours later, breaks in showers only long enough to get two children wrapped up, tied into prams and out to the point of no-return, before it starts to hammer down again. I’ve come to realise that the reference to it raining “like cats and dogs” doesn’t in fact refer to the rain, but to the behaviour of mothers (at least this one) and toddlers (at least that one) trapped indoors with each other all day. At best we’re snarling at each other, then he disappears to God Knows Where, leaving me with glorious peace and quiet – until I remember that toddler+peace+quiet=trouble. Cue emptying bathroom bin into the toilet, climbing into the dryer and shutting the door behind him, or – my particular favourite, as the long silence was then broken by an ominous “uh-oh” - removal of keys from my laptop keyboard. That other NY resolution – to laugh in the face of toddler antics – is also facing temporary flouting.
When the Boy is not dismantling the house, or plonking his sister a box on wheels and whizzing her around the kitchen (her face is a mixture of terror and joy), he’s sprinting towards boy-hood. Less than a month ago, when his grandparents were visiting for Christmas, his vocabulary, while broad, comprised at most three words strung together - a feat which we greeted with clapped hands and encouragement. Now he’s chatting away with such fluency that we’re at the point of nonchalance; he stands in the middle of the room with his hands held out, palms up, looking mystified and saying “But where’s my car gone?” and I respond with a weary “I have no idea.” (The car/soother/elephant/book/whatever-has-just-popped-into-his-head is sought several times an hour, so I must be forgiven for the wearing thin of the novelty.) Last night I pointed at a picture and said “what’s the boy doing?” and he accurately responded that “the boy is doing kissing the rhino”. Bedtime makey-uppy stories, the topics of which are chosen by him, are mad, varied capers, involving giants snakes, “teeeeeeeny-tiny” kittens (“where’s their mummy gone?”), ”poor dogs crying in the trees, boo-hoo boo-hoo” and of course an inevitable digger (“man driving the digger very very slowly, being very careful, sneezing ACHOOOOO, hahahahahaha silly old man, like daddy...”).
It’s very sweet really, and lessens my guilt to feel that, however it started, we end the day on something of a high note. And then I go downstairs, gaze at the bottle of wine, and think up recipes which will enable me to reach for it.
Lemon and Courgette Risotto
Risotto can be a bit of a pain to make, and I generally opt for a baked version (which I’ll post soon), but any time spent stirring is off-set by there being hardly any ensuing washing up.
You need (enough for 4 with no leftovers, or 2 with plenty):
- 250g risotto rice
- 1 litre hot vegetable stock
- 1 onion, chopped quite finely
- 1 stick of celery, chopped quite finely
- 1 lemon (zest and juice)
- Two medium courgettes, diced
- Fresh basil or parsley (or, ideally, both)
- Glass of white wine
- About half a wedge of parmesan cheese, grated
- A large knob of butter
Put a good glug of olive oil into a large deep pan, heat, and add the chopped onion.
When it starts to sizzle, add chopped celery and a few basil leaves (if you have ‘em).
Stir after a couple of minutes, then reduce heat, cover, and leave for 7 mins or so (this is to soften the celery, and is especially important if the risotto will be eaten by a toddler with spit-out-crunchy-food issues)
Turn the heat up to medium, then add courgette pieces and the zest of the lemon (a citrus zester is best for this, otherwise use a peeler and peel off strips as finely as possible, then slice them into “teeeeeeeeny tiny” slices) and stir. Put the lid back on and leave for about three minutes.
Add the rice and stir to coat with the mixture – don’t leave it heat for more than a minute or so, or else it’ll take forever to cook – then throw in the glass of wine. This should immediately sizzle and will be absorbed fairly quickly. Stir it more or less constantly.
Add about a quarter of the stock, and stir through. You can keep stirring all the time, or go off for a few minutes and put on a load of laundry / clear the table / have a sneaky fag out the back. Once the liquid has been absorbed, add another quarter, stir, leave etc.
Repeat until all your cigarettes have run out the stock has all been used. This process takes about 15 minutes.
You should now have a wettish porridge-y mass of risotto, into which you now add the juice of the lemon, the butter and half the parmesan (how much you use depends on how cheesey you like it to be). Stir well to incorporate all the cheese, then add the rest of the herbs, some salt and pepper (as you like) and serve with the rest of the parmesan on top.
The perfect dish to chase away all thoughts of those pesky cats and dogs.
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