New Year, New Life.

I haven't posted for ages as before Christmas I was working and commuting rather than cooking. Since Christmas I've been licking my wounds and contemplating my short, disastrous marriage. I'm going to start posting again now, recipes and musings on life, single or otherwise, but what I want to know is...is two and a half weeks after your husband leaves you too soon to be thinking about dating?

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!

The best biscuits in the world.

This is the simplest recipe you can imagine and makes the best biscuits. I love them so much I once ate an entire batch made by my class and had to come in early the next morning to make a new lot. I make them plain and then add flavour through different icings, but you could experiment with different flavours.

It's a simple 3-2-1 combination.

* 6oz plain flour
* 4oz butter
* 2oz caster sugar
A few drops of vanilla essence.

Pre-heat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas 4.

Mix the dry ingredients together. Put the butter in- in small pieces and "rub-in" until it resembles breadcrumbs. Add the vanilla and a few drops of water (be very careful you need very little). Form into a ball, roll out and cut into shapes.
I have a big cookie cutter collection, but you can use a cup or a jar top if you don't have one.
bake for between 10 and 15 minutes until golden brown. I can't be more exact as it does depend on the size and shape of your biscuits.

These are delicious with or without icing.

Pumpkins

Here are some pictures of my pumpkin carving session with Hannah's class, and the finished product. I love carving pumpkins and wish it was a talent I could put to use more than once a year.
Thanks to Hannah for the photos. I use a melon baller to hollow out the inside from the back rather than the top and an awl to prick out the pattern from a paper draft. Then I use a scalpel style craft knife or very sharp vegetable knife to cut the pieces out. It's easier with a bigger pumpkin, but they're harder to find now.

Potato Ricer.

I got one of these the other day in TK Maxx. It's like a giant garlic press and I used it this evening to make the best mash I've ever made. As my national dish, mash holds a special place in my heart and is my ultimate comfort food but I've never been particularly successful at making it lump-free. Tonight it was light, fluffy and lump free.

Billy Bragg

Growing up in arch-tory rural West Oxfordshire (David Cameron is my parents' MP) It was Billy Bragg that showed me I was not alone in hoping for something different. It was a shock to be told at University that I shouldn't like him as I was from the south- obviously my "friend" Katie's grasp of politics was as tenuous as her grasp of geography.
I remember when the line-up was annouced for Live 8 that I was really angry Billy wasn't included as he'd campaigned far more than the majority of artists on stage. I didn't watch the concert as I went to Edinburgh with Julia for the demo. And there was Billy, singing a new version of Great Leap Forward and turning his back on the corporate entertainment area in Hyde Park by playing for the demonstrators instead.
I love Billy, I love his political integrity, I love that he volunteers at his local school, I love that he never gives up and I love his songs. Anyone unmoved by Levi Stubbs' Tears must have a heart of ice.

Go to his website.