Quite by chance I came across the food blog of an old friend, started last year some time, and full of absolutely delicious looking things, most of which aren’t too difficult, but look really nice.

It’s here: Dried Basil and Other Heresies

I haven’t been cooking at all much lately. P’s been eating in the canteen at lunchtime at work, and I’m supposed to be subsisting off misery pouches, but instead am mostly eating too much butter and cheese, bagels and crackers and nothing of any real substance.

So having spent the weekend reading through the Dried Basil recipes, when it came to popping up to the supermarket to restock the fruit bowl, I found myself stocking up on the ingredients for half of the things that had been written about. Regrettably, my supermarket does not appear to sell the much-celebrated pre-prepped soffritto mix.

This evening we’ve had Adult Hot Chocolate, (and resolved to have less than a giant mugful each next time). Meanwhile, I’m marinating chicken pieces in a heady mix of marmalade, lemon juice, garlic, ginger and Angostura Bitters for Sticky Chicken tomorrow. I also have the ingredients for rillettes and pommes boulangères knocking about and shall give it a go when three hours of oven time opens up.

The manifesto is well worth a butchers too – I particularly like “Life’s too short for instant coffee” and will be shamelessly reusing that one.