No Poo

The teacher and I are both quite keen on being green and even though we're limited with what we can do to our rented flat, there are a lots of little changes we've made around the house. That mostly comprises using as few petroleum based, non-natural chemicals as we can, so my decision last year to stop using shampoo was twofold: it's better for the environment and better for my hair. Maybe threefold actually, since it makes my crazy hair a lot more manageable; perfect for a lazy girl.

You can read about how to go "no poo" here. It takes a wee while for your hair to get used to not having harch chemicals on it all the time and I did felt like a total minger for about 2 weeks but after that everything settled down. I use a baking soda solution since I always have lots of it for cleaning and baking.

Even though I hardly ever wash it (lazy), style it properly (lazy) or get it cut (lazy and nervous), I think it looks pretty ok!

Christmas Crafting

I'm definitely a last minute person. I'd like to think it's because I work best and my brain is sharpest when under pressure but my dad would tell you it's because I inherited a talent for procrastination from my mum. This isn't my dad's blog! Anyway, I've spent this week getting my shit together. I'm making as much as I can this Christmas. The ladies in my life are getting homemade bath and body treatments.

 

I'm really pleased with this patchouli and ylang ylang body scrub. I home-make as many toiletries as I can so I'm chuffed to have something else in my recipe book.

I've also spent the afternoon making fudge for everybody. Now I feel ill from all the sugar and I've not even eaten any! If that's not injustice I don't know what is.

This fudge is criminally easy and quite cheap to make so I feel a bit guilty as if I should have put more effort in. Even though I know it's delicious and they'll all love it. Is that mad?

I stayed up until 2am this morning making these after I found a tutorial online. This is the prototype which is why it's not very neat. It took me a couple of tries to get the hang of it, since I'm terrible with fiddly delicate things (except untangling. I could untangle a necklace in the Olympics) but they're actually easy enough. My mum loves paper crafts like this so I've prepared some for her to make herself when she gets home.

Lentil Soup

The first time I made this soup we were on the cusp of summer and even though I've made it regularly since then I've been so excited to sit down with a big bowl of it in winter. The temperature hit -10° a few days ago, I doubt we'll be eating much except this soup and nutella (v. popular in France, did you know. The Teacher was going through a jar a week when we first met) for a long time yet.

Recipe- adapted from Kitchen by Australian Marie Claire 

250g red lentils, washed in cold water
2 carrots, grated (grating carrots is my least favourite kitchen activity ever, I nearly always lost some finger. It's handy if you have someone you can convince to be your minion for 15 minutes)
1 brown onion, finely diced (conversely, I love dicing onions so much. If you are not that way inclined/have carefully applied makeup, you can use your minion as before)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1L vegetable stock (you can add more later if you think your soup is too thick)
Optional: 1 or 2 teaspoons mild chilli powder if you like a kick. The teacher does; I do not.

What to do:
1. Heat some oil in a big saucepan and gently fry the onion with the garlic until translucent.
2. Add the carrots, cumin, lentils and stock (and chilli if you've decided you do like oral torture).
3. Bring to a boil then cover and simmer for 25 minutes or until the lentils have disintegrated. Give it a stir once or twice to make sure the lentils aren't sticking to the bottom.
4. Eat it/freeze it/give it to a friend.



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The bowl is much prettier than the soup