The Overly Developed Imagination of the Only Child

So, to herald my recent departure from unemployment, pajamas, self loathing and day time television is a recipe 100% guaranteed to warm the cockles of your heart. If hearts have cockles, which I happen to highly doubt. For one thing, this recipe is a slight adaptation from one on the BBC good food website. For those who don’t know me very well BBC good food is to me what cute, captioned pictures of anthropomorphic cats are to most people. The internet equivalent of a sanctuary; a safe, unbreachable, harmonious haven.

RECIPE:

• 4 portobello mushrooms
• 4tbsp olive oil
• 1 large clove garlic, chopped
• 400g baby spinach
• frozen puff pastry (block or sheets) defrosted
• 140g stilton (or other blue cheese) sliced
• 1 egg, beaten

Preheat your oven to 200’C.

Put the oil in a frying pan and let it heat. Sizzle the mushrooms for a few minutes each side, just until they begin to darken and soften up a little. Put them to the side.

Turn the heat low and using the same frying pan and oil, add the chopped garlic and let it cook for a few seconds. Toasty, golden garlic may be delicious but burnt garlic tastes like the innermost circles of hell. Add the spinach and stir it until it’s wilted to about a millionth of it’s former size. Season the spinach and garlic with salt and pepper and pop it in a sieve to drain. You can use the back of a spoon as a squishing device to speed the process along a little. You want to squeeze out as much liquid as possible or the pastry will be soggy. Which is, as we know, completely unacceptable.

Roll out your pastry (about a £1 thickness) on a lightly floured surface. Using a bowl or plate that is much bigger than the mushrooms as a template cut out 8 circles from the pastry for the tops and bottoms.

On 4 pastry discs, spoon a quarter of the spinach mix, a couple of slices of cheese and add the mushroom (smooth side up) and top with a little more cheese until it kind of looks like a little pixie house (I was an only child, alright? Drop it.) Repeat this for the other 3 mushrooms.

Brush some beaten egg around the edge of the mushrooms and drape the 4 remaining pastry discs over the top. Use your fingers to press the edges of the pastry together. The bottom disc will be much wider than the top so I like to fold it over in a pretty sort of star pattern. This also seems to seal the pastry better, making the cheese much less likely to leak out of the sides.

You can also use the left over pastry to make some highly unnecessary but pretty decorations. Glaze the tops with a generous amount of egg and pop them in the oven for around 40mins or until they are very puffed up and golden-brown.

How sweet are they? Little golden parcels of deliciousness. The blue-cheese tanginess is so good with the meatiness of the mushrooms. They have the added benefit of looking kind of posh as well, so dinner party it up! Impress your in-laws. Or just foil your friends into bringing round copious bottles of wine. It’s a win-win either way!

The Trials and Tribulations of Man-Flu

So the boyfriend woke up this morning sniffly and complaining and brutally aware of his own tenuous mortality. I really should have seen it coming this last week. All the symptoms were there: scrumpled tissues apparently self-generating in random places about his person, walking around the house in dressing-gown and slippers looking confused and hard-done by and generally acting like an old man who’s forgotten where he’s put his trousers. I should have known. Man Flu has descended.

Once again there is only one answer: Soup. On a day like today a knife and a fork is evidently out of the question. In fact, even the most basic forms of cutlery and crockery are ill-advisable in the face of chronic man flu. I intend to give this to him in a mug alone and then leave him in bed gently groaning to himself.

This recipe is a tribute to the many lunch-dates me and my friend used to have in Scotland in a little coffee place that did the best soup and sandwich combos in the world. It seems rather fitting on a day like today where the temperature would be better suited to Aberdeen than Australia. But not to worry – this soup is as thick and comfortable as a woolly jumper and a cuddle.

RECIPE: (serves 2)

• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, chopped
• 1 large sweet potato (about 400g), roughly diced
• 1 red chilli, chopped
• 1tbsp curry powder
• 1tsp turmeric
• 1tsp ground coriander
• squirt of lemon juice
• olive oil
• 500ml hot vegetable stock
• fresh coriander (optional)

Heat the oil in a saucepan and add the onions, garlic and chilli and sweat on a medium heat for about 5 minutes. Add the spices and mix until it smells totally luscious and the onions are nice and soft.

Add the sweet potato and stir until it is coated in all of that yumminess and then add the vegetable stock. Bring to the boil and leave it to bubble away for about 10 minutes, or until the sweet potato has gone all smooshy. Add a squirt of lemon juice and take off the heat.

Pour it carefully into a food processor and mush it all up, put it back in the saucepan and add pepper to taste. This makes a fabulously thick soup. If you like your soup a little thinner and more catwalk-model-y OR if your boyfriend is so ill that even vigorous swallowing is beyond him then you can add a teensy bit more water (and provide him with a straw).

Garnish with some fresh coriander for that restaurant-y, impress your friends-y look. I promise you it is so yummy and creamy and satisfying that it can cure almost any ailment. Obviously apart from man flu, which is widely accepted to be terminal.