Got milk?

The first week of August is World Breastfeeding Week. World Breastfeeding Week is an annual event to promote breastfeeding on a global scale. (for Dutch readers: Wereld Borstvoeding Week will be later this year, in week 40).
So why would a food blogger who blogs about sweet stuff want to blog about breastfeeding? There are many reasons why, for starters, breast milk is FOOD and it's SWEET :) and besides that, it's the very best a child can get.
To help promote breastfeeding I'm organizing a foodblogging event. The rules are very simple: prepare a sweet dish (it's a sweet blog after all ;) with milk as an ingredient and post it on your blog if you have one, if not you can still enter (I'll give you the specifics at the bottom of the page).
To give you some background as to why I'm organizing this event I'd like to share a little of my personal experiences with breastfeeding.
I always knew I wanted to breastfeed my children but never really thought or knew much about it besides that it's a good thing. In the Netherlands 79% of the mothers start out breastfeeding but by the time babies are three months only about 35% are still breastfeeding (2005). And three months was what I sort of had in mind too. My classes would start when my oldest son was three months so formula would be more convenient or so I thought. During my pregnancy I read a bit more about breastfeeding and realized that it would be best to breastfeed for six months instead of three. So ok, I was going to do six months. At this point I realized there was something like a breast pump to help realize this goal as well.
I sort of romanticized the whole breastfeeding thing before my son was born. Turned out that breastfeeding wasn't all sunshine and roses...and I didn't even had any (major) problems! All of you breastfeeding mums know what suction power babies have ;) it doesn't feel completely comfortable, especially not in the beginning. So I breastfed but I can't say I really enjoyed doing it for the first three months, I didn't dislike it either though. After about three months I really started enjoying breastfeeding. I still thought, ok I'll do six months and we'll see how I feel by that time. So six months went by and the thought of stopping just never crossed my mind, breastfeeding was just so convenient. I couldn't imagine formula could be easier than breastfeeding. I breastfed my eldest till he was 19 months. He stopped drinking himself. That had everything to do with the fact that the milk flow subsided a lot due to me being pregnant again.
I'm still breastfeeding my youngest son (13 months) and haven't had any problems (I know I'm lucky that way). After breastfeeding for more than three years (with the exception of 3 ½ months during pregnancy) you could say I'm a pro ;) I've read a lot about it and am so happy I can give /have given my children all the benefits that come with it. And if this event will motivate even one mother (to-be) to breastfeed or breastfeed for a longer time it will make me feel like I've made a difference :)
Ok, enough with the personal stuff ;) let's go to some facts and figures that I found on www.breastfeeding.com.
Did you know that breastfed children:
Have a higher IQ?
Have less ear infections?
Have less food allergies?
Have lower chances of leukemia?
And the list goes on....

And not only the child benefits from breastfeeding, there's plenty of advantages for the mother too.
Did you know that breastfeeding:
Helps you loose weight faster? (didn't work for me unfortunately, luckily I didn't gain too much during pregnancy)
Helps you be more relaxed? (worked for me)
Saves money?
Gives protection against different kinds of cancer? (breast, uterine, ovarian)



DETAILS FOR Got Milk?

- Got Milk? is open to bloggers and non-bloggers.
- Entries submitted to Got Milk? must be made specifically for this event (pictures can be submitted to things like DMBLGiT though)

How to enter?

1. Prepare a sweet dish with milk as an ingredient.
You can use any type of milk (cow, goat, sheep, ...), non-dairy is allowed as long as is something that is generally substituted for milk.

2. Blog about it and link back to this post somewhere between now and August 7th

3. Send an email to: linda AT kovacevic DOT nl with your:
- name
- approximate location
- blog name
- blog url
- name dish
- permalink dish
- picture (maximum dimension of 150 pixels)

Non-bloggers: email me your name, location, name of your dish and a picture of your dish

Looking forward to your entries :)



As for the picture at the top, it's a Middle Eastern dessert called muhallabiya in Arabic or malabi in Hebrew. I've blogged about it a couple of years ago. It’s a milk pudding thickened with rice flour and flavoured with rosewater or orange flower water. I love it especially with rosewater!

Muhallabiya/Malabi (from The Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden)

Serves 6

1 l (4 ¼ cup) milk
80 g (2 ¾ oz) rice flour
80 g (2 ¾ oz) sugar
2 tbs rose water
chopped pistachio nuts to garnish

Slowly add 50-100 ml (¼-½ cup) of the milk to the rice flour - whilst stirring - until all the rice flour has been dissolved. Make sure there are no lumps.
Bring the rest of the milk to a boil in a heavy bottomed saucepan. Add the rice flour mixture whilst stirring. Lower the heat and allow to simmer for 5 minutes, stirring often. Stir in the sugar. Add the rose water and stir to mix.
Pour the pudding into a big bowl or 6 small bowls. Sprinkle the tops with some caster sugar to prevent a skin. Allow to cool. Garnish with pistachio before serving.

Variations:
- substitute corn flour for rice flour (or use a mixture of the both)
- substitute orange flour water for rose water
- add 1 tsp ground cardamom seeds with the rose water