Coconut Biscuits

Since I was a little bit unwell this weekend I stayed indoors and cooked, and cleaned and reorganised the whole house, especially the kitchen. I got thinking, in the process, that I really ought to organise my spices and jars in a more dignified manner. Then today, having popped out for medicines, I was drawn into a few shops and, lo and behold, I found this (OXO Good Grips rotating spice organiser):

A spice shelf with spice turntables - Excellent!!!

From cool to cute... How pretty are these coconut biscuits?!

I'm sure there are loads of recipes out there for these, but this is my one, adapted from my grandmothers'. It makes loads - 30 or so.
125g butter or margarine
125g sugar

2.5 tsp baking powder
2 eggs
a few drops of vanilla and almond essence
250g desiccated coconuts

250g flour

Mix the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat the eggs, vanilla essence, almond essence and baking powder together, then mix in with the butter mixture. Add the flour and coconuts and mix them in. Roll the dough into chestnut-sized balls and lay them on a baking sheet 3 centimeters apart, sticking a cherry quarter on top of each. Bake at 200 degrees Celsius for 10-11 minutes until they have only just started to brown. Move them to a cool tray without breaking them so that they'll harden and set.

I also cooked up some octopus in red wine - a recipe taken from The Silver Spoon. It's the first time I've tried cooking octopus, and this was quite nice really, but not the best I've tasted. (Credit goes to my guy for dissecting the octopus, because I went all squeamish.) Octopus is tricky to cook without becoming chewy. This recipe did not hold the secret, I'll have to keep searching.