July 2010: C'mon threadbabes: eat like MLIC's; drink like TSC's; smile like Memphis's; laugh like Cakes's; crawl like nearly all of them (except Cake's)... but mainly: sleep like Spireals

[CakeandRoses]

Here we be (phew!)

yeah but my survey thingy is on the new thread. i quite like having two threads for a couple of days

cheers for the paste recommendation (well, i assume that's what it is!)

you deffo said you'd cut back on ironing a while ago - have you had a regression?

that sounds crap chul. can you get him back off after the poo? can you alter his dinner time?

Morning ladies,

Quite a bad night here but that's due to 2nd night of no feeding during the night. She woke at 2am and cried in and off for ages. But I didn't give in just allowed her water which she didn't want then she fell over till 6 so gave her a bottle then and she just woke at 8.

Chulita must be hard to get him to sleep by 5if he poos, could you change him in the dark (sort of) them quick feed?

Mlic is W teething? Glad you got E's nursery place makes them so grown up.

What you all up to today?

Well done F for staying in his own bed too cakes

I have a mega dark fake tan on, have to go for my shower to calm it down.

Morning ladies. I'm still here too. Thx for breakfast suggestions. Will give those a go. Ooh, didn't realise u could still get vitalit!

trumps mlic's teacakes with choc chip banana bread cake

Are we trumping our way to the end of the thread?

Night 3 of boot camp should her habit be broken? Dp on sofa again! No luck more room in bed for me. Also since I am refusing milk during the night does 6am seem too early to have a bottle?

6am doesn't sound too bad to me stac

Cake & Mlic, I made a banana loaf cake which was amazing, even if I do say so myself. :o My friend who doesn't bake even asked for the recipe. Going to have to make another as friends coming to stay for the weekend but I don't have any left, oops.

stac when I bootcamped L at 10 months it took 2 weeks. She did however have a glorious stretch for a few weeks of going to bed at 5pm and waking up at 6am so it was worth it. I'm going to start with S soon but not til these teeth have made their appearance! 6am is when S has a feed if he's not fed most of the night.

melissa i adore banana bread as it's so easy to make and ridiculously yummy. annoyingly i didn't make it for years as the word 'bread' put me off the idea of it

6am sounds fine to me too stac and we're not early risers

We need tsc and her little beany farts on here

well the pastry was trump-light and the pie delish.

thanks for the recipe mlic and chul ()

re the that i don;t make my own pastry usually - both my parents are good cooks but i was brought up by my father who isn't a baker (or a candlestick maker as it happens) so taught myself baking as an adult. i did used to make pastry but got seduced by the ease of making a pie and chucking jusrol puff pastry on top. still don;t think i'd make puff but will def make short-crust all the time now

Vegetable and lentil pie
(sorry if this isn't very nailed down - i made it up as i cooked so hard to be exact re quantities now!)

Pastry:
Have included this for completeness. I only used half of this quantity but you can freeze other half as you know!

110g/4oz wholemeal flour
110g/4oz plain flour
a pinch of salt
140g/5oz butter
very cold water
Sift flours & salt and rub in butter. Add 2tbsp water and mix to a dough and roll out.

Filling:
2 cloves of garlic
good glug of olive olive
1 parsnip
2 medium carrots
'handful' of runner beans cut to thin 2 inch long pieces
1 tin of green lentils
1/2 pint (ish) of vegetable stock - i usually use Marigold bouillon (made up with boiling water as per packet instructions)
Salt/Herbamare (which is what i use) and pepper to taste

Saute a couple of cloves of garlic and a leek in the olive oil
2 mins later add the carrot and parsnip
3 mins later add the lentils and runner beans and enough stock to moisten so it's not dry but not so there's loads of sauce either
Continue simmering until veg is cooked, adding stock as necessary
Season to taste

Place in pie dish and cover with rolled out pastry

Bake at 200c until pastry is done.

We had it with roast potatoes, peas and gravy.

I will make this again with more spring/summery veg like asparagus too

Tarke dal/dahl/dall:

I got this recipe from the internet yonks ago but the page isn't available any more so I've lovingly typed it out for you. There's loads of other recipes for it online but i think this is the most authentic-tasting unfortunately the quantities are guess-work.

Red lentils - i use whole standard size bag
Loads of garlic (to taste. I use about 5 cloves)
A few good glugs of oil (whichever oil you prefer)

Dry spices - I use about a tsp of each then add more to taste especially garam masala:
Garam masala
Paprika
Ginger
Chili
Black pepper

1 Cook lentils according to packet instructions (i also rinse lentils beforehand; spoon off the scum whilst cooking)

2 Once lentils are cooked. Separately fry lots of garlic in oil

3 Add spices to oil and garlic and fry for a couple of minutes

4 Mix the lentils and spices together, add salt to taste (you have to have salt as it tastes awful without)

I serve with chapatis, lemon wedges and mango chutney. Poppadoms too if F is lucky

I might try that pie, sounds interesting and I'd spice it up with bacon

tarka not tarke

you can't put bacon in a vegan's pie chul

Ok, chorizo then...that's not meat is it?