Spicy Root and Lentil Casserole

This was a fabulous pinterest find from the BBC Good Food blog!  London isn't know for great food, but they sure have good taste in curry.  It's not authentic Indian curry, but it's quick, easy and pretty darn good for London curry!  Healthy too!

And it warms your stomach when it looks like this outside:

And I look like this inside:

As far as we know, Baby Merschat love curry too!  Enjoy!

INGREDIENTS
2 tbsp sunflower or vegetable oil
1 onion , chopped
2 garlic cloves , crushed
700g potatoes , peeled and cut into chunks
4 carrots , thickly sliced
2 parsnips , thickly sliced
2 tbsp curry paste or powder
1 litre/1¾ pints vegetable stock
100g red lentils
a small bunch of fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
low-fat yogurt and naan bread, to serve

Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion and garlic over a medium heat for 3-4 minutes until softened, stirring occasionally. Tip in the potatoes, carrots and parsnips, turn up the heat and cook for 6-7 minutes, stirring, until the vegetables are golden.

Stir in the curry paste or powder, pour in the stock and then bring to the boil. Reduce the heat, add the lentils, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes until the lentils and vegetables are tender and the sauce has thickened.

Stir in most of the coriander, season and heat for a minute or so. Top with yogurt and the rest of the coriander. Serve with naan bread.

Countdown to Baby Merschat's Arrival

It won't be too long until we get to meet our little boy!  I'm sorry I have not been diligent about posting photos of the pregnancy, but I really haven't had a noticeable baby bump until fairly recently, so I didn't think there was much to show!  But, with only a month or so left, here is a retrospective of the last 33 weeks...

This is our first photo of our little guy in September 2012... our little jelly bean!

And here's a video in October of our little guy kicking up a storm!  Isn't technology AMAZING?!?!  I never get tired watching this video...

And here he is at the end of November!  This is when we found out he was a BOY!!!  He has such a handsome profile, don't you think?

Now is about the time that I started showing just a little bit of a belly... just in time for my first baby shower hosted by mom and Ming-Cee in the bay area the weekend before Christmas...

It was such a wonderful party where we revealed the gender to all the guests when we cut the cake and the inside was blue!

For such a busy time of year, I was so honored to see many of my oldest friends and a lot of my "aunties" that I haven't seen in years!  Here's a photo of my good friends from high school... it's hard to think that we graduated almost 15 years ago!

In mid-January, we saw our little man yawn during our sonogram!  It was so cute and we were lucky that the nurse got a picture of it!

Here's a photo of the little basketball baby bump that I took in the mirror for a friend last month...

And here are some photos of my east coast baby shower last weekend hosted by my mother-in-law (Holley), Elizabeth, Vicky, and Pat!  It was quite a party at Elizabeth's house and everyone had so much fun!!!

Unfortunately, Vicky couldn't make it but she did MAKE this fabulous diaper cake (complete with lion hooded towel on top) and helped plan a bunch!  How impressive is this diaper cake?!?!  Wow.

And unfortunately Pat couldn't make it either but she helped Holley with the planning, contributed so much stuff, and we even used the beautiful Turkish bowl they gave us for Christmas for the fruit!  So super classy!

And I was so humbled by the thoughtful and generous gifts that everyone gave us, but the most special gift was the homemade quilt that Holley made for our little boy.  It was just perfect and we know it is something that he will cherish forever...

And of course the baby shower wouldn't be complete without another baby bump photo with some of my girlfriends...

It was so wonderful for our friends to come share this special time and I'm so grateful for all the generous gifts we got to welcome our little guy into this wonderful world.  And to show our gratitude, I painted and potted many of our house plants to give away to our guests to make room in our one-bedroom apartment for the little baby's arrival... I called it the baby plant adoption!

So with our mid-April due date looming just around the corner, we are working hard to get the place ready for the little guy... I'm only doing light cleaning and reorganizing, and Michael is doing all the heavy lifting and assembling furniture!  My in-laws helped us with some furniture last weekend too - it's really amazing how much work goes into getting ready for a little baby!

We can't wait to meet him and we can't wait for you to meet him too!!!  I'm sure I'll be better at posting pictures of the little guy once he gets here... at least I hope I will...