September 13, 2012

lentil samosas



Last week saw my first full day at home with all three of my little boys. Will has taken a few days off so that when the boys aren't in kindy, he's been home with me, providing an essential extra pair of hands.  He went back to his normal working week last week, and I guess it marked the start of my normal working week too, because this is how things are going to be for a little while.

Anyway, I survived. We actually had a pretty good day.  Somehow, I managed to get all three boys to sleep at the same time, so I had two hours to myself.  I didn't do anything exciting with the time but I did finish painting our ensuite, which looks crisp and fresh and new.  Starting next week, I'm reducing the amount of time the boys are at kindy.  It's a decision driven by economics more than anything but also by my realisation that this is most likely my last ever period of maternity leave (I am not ruling anything out), and so making the most of spending time with the children while they are still preschoolers is pretty important.  We thought about taking them out of kindy altogether but we don't want to lose our places and it's nice for me to spend one-on-one time with Hugo.  It's also nice for the kids to have variety in their week and for me to not lose my mind trying to look after three kids on my own without any break.

In other news, we've been cooking new things.  I found this recipe for lentil samosas via Pinterest a few months ago and I've been keen to try it.  A couple of weeks ago, we did and it was good.  We modified the recipe slightly (details below) and they also fried well from frozen, making them a good, quick nutritious supper with greek yogurt.  The only changes I might make would be to add some chopped, cooked mushrooms, maybe.

Ingredients for about 40 little two-bite size samosas:
A couple of cups of dried lentils.  I used those round brown ones (not split) which kept their shape whilst still being tender.  I expect puy lentils would be great in these, as they too would keep their shape/texture and next time, that's what I'll try.
A couple of big handfuls of finely chopped baby spinach leaves
A big handful of chopped coriander
A big handful of chopped mint
A handful of chopped spring onions
A couple of teaspoons of garam masala
A teaspoon of cumin
Sea salt (to taste)
Spring roll pastry (found in the freezer section), unless you are a real hero with hours to spare and you have made your pastry from scratch*
Flour and water paste (for sticking the pastry together)

Method:
Cook the lentils.  To my mother's horror, I boiled mine rather than cooking them using the absorption method.  She believes you should only use as much water as is necessary so you don't need to drain them and all the nutrients are kept in the pot.  She has a point, but I didn't do it that way.
Drain the lentils and combine with the other ingredients.
Fill the spring roll or home made pastry with the mixture, using these instructions or however you want to fill them.  Triangular samosas are traditional and cutest. You use a paste made from flour and water to stick the pastry together.
Fry in hot canola or sunflower oil for a few minutes until golden and eat them straight away.  You can eat them with ketchup, or do as we did, and combine thick, full fat Greek yoghurt, chopped cucumber, chopped avocado, lime/lemon juice and seasoning. Spritz them with lemon juice just before eating.

This weekend, I'm going to make paneer samosas.  After I've consulted my mother of course.  I wouldn't want to get it wrong, you see.

*I have watched and helped my mother make the actual pastry for samosas.  It's delicious but it's also incredibly time consuming, and unless you have an abundance of aunties and cousins around to watch your kids for a couple of hours, it's probably not worth doing, as the frozen spring roll wrappers, which consist of the same ingredients and no additives work just as well.  I'm a convert.

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