A new President.

I'm not going to say a huge amount on this subject. My left-wing politics, my personal contacts in The States, my degree subject all combine to mean that I woke up this morning to the best news I could have hoped for. I hope he gets the chance to fulfil his potential.

Mushrooms

My local greengrocer has chips of mushrooms- that's those baskets things- for £1.39 at the moment. They often have them this cheap but I never seem to use all of them and end up with a kitchen full of fruit flies and a giant case of guilt. This weekend I decided to get one and use them all, here are a couple of ideas.

1. Dried Mushrooms. I put the mushroom caps- face down- on a cake cooling rack and put it in the oven on its lowest setting for the whole day. When they were dried out I put then in a clean dry coffee tin with a table spoon of salt. I used smoked salt for a bit of extra flavour but anything would do as the salt is designed to draw even more moisture out of the mushrooms and stop them going mouldy.

2. Bottled Mushrooms. I finely chopped an onion and fried it in good olive oil (!), then I added a lot of garlic and the stalks from the mushrooms I'd dried. When they were cooked and seasoned I put them in a sterilized jar (I left it in the oven while they mushrooms were drying) and topped up with olive oil.

I'll use the dried mushrooms in casseroles and slow cooked sauces and the bottled mixture in quick pasta sauces and the like.
I'm off to get another chip tomorrow!