IF you're planning a tasty creamy mash for your Christmas dinner, look no further. A cooking expert has shared her tips for perfecting the festive side dish. Advertisement 3 Calling all mashed potato fans - if you want to know how to make the creamiest side dish, you'll need to listen up Credit: Tiktok / @177milkstreet 3 A food guru has shared her simple trick to making the best mash, and it turns out you need to stop boiling your potatoes in water and use milk instead Credit: Tiktok / @177milkstreet The chef revealed that you've probably been making your mash all wrong. According to the expert, we need to stop boiling our spuds in water if we want it to be extra creamy - yes, you heard that correctly. If you want to make the best mashed potatoes, you need to boil your potatoes in milk. Rosie Gill, director of Milk Street Cooking School, took to social media to share her mashed potatoes recipe - leaving many open-mouthed. Advertisement Read More On Food OH NO Foodie makes festive mashed potatoes using sour cream PRINGLES Mash made in heaven Top tips to reheat mashed potatoes She explained that it’s time to stop boiling your potatoes in water - as you’ll need to use milk instead. She revealed: “We simmer your mashed potatoes in milk, not water! And here’s why. “Potatoes are like pasta, they release starches into their cooking liquid. “That becomes liquid gold - allowing us to get lush, silky, creamy, mashed potatoes. Advertisement Most read in Fabulous FEELING FISHY I've been left with two black eyes after trying bizarre new beauty treatment JAB MANIA From sunken eyes to bulldog features - the scary things Ozempic does to your face Exclusive FACE THE TRUTH My fiance had the first face transplant, I'm accused of gold digging SON'S STRUGGLE Katie Price shares heartbreaking message from Harvey as he begs to come home “When you throw out water that you cook your potatoes in, you throw all that starch down the drain, so you’re wasting it. “The milk becomes our cooking liquid - and a replacement for heavy cream.” I tried the M&S Christmas cafe menu, the gravy dip is a festive revelation As she showed off her finished side dish, she added: “We just mash the potatoes directly in the pot - no mixer needed. “And that is how we get still creamy, but not too heavy, mashed potatoes.” Advertisement Rosie later confirmed: “In the case of pasta, you want to reserve some of that liquid to give the sauce a luscious shine and bind it to the noodles. “In mashed potatoes, cooking in milk, and preserving that starchy liquid, gives your potatoes a natural creaminess and allows you to skip the weighty heavy cream.” The TikTok clip, which was posted under the username @177milkstreet, has clearly left many stunned, as it was shared just one day ago, but has quickly gone viral, and has racked up a staggering 3.3 million views. Fridge or cupboard? The essential food storage guide Foods must be stored correctly to keep them fresh and prevent the spread of bacteria. Nutrition expert Birgit Brendel said bread will last longer when stored in the fridge or freezer. However, this can compromise the flavour. Storing in ceramic or pottery containers is an alternative that allows for air to flow easily and slow the growth of mould. Robert Morris, managing director of food safety consultants, Complete Food Safety, revealed the best place to store fresh fruit and vegetables. He said salad foods should be stored in the fridge drawer, but away from anything grown in the soil such as carrots, parsnips and beetroot. Tomatoes are an exception to the rule as fridges can alter the natural ripening process and diminish their taste. He also advised against putting avocados and bananas in the fridge as this will cause them to blacken quicker. But social media users were divided at the cooking tip - while some were impressed, not everyone was as keen. Advertisement One person said: “Awesome tip! I’m married to this from now on!” Another added: “Brilliant.” A third commented: “Genius.” Whilst another food fan beamed: “Great idea.” Advertisement 3 This hack, according to this foodie, will ensure you get the best tasting mash Credit: Tiktok / @177milkstreet However, not everyone was impressed with the foodie’s hack and many revealed that they didn’t actually think her mash looked that great. One user claimed: “Tried it - weird mush. Prefer chicken broth or chicken stock with water.” A second penned: “Looks v lumpy.” Advertisement Someone else chimed in: “They don't look smooth though.” Read more on the Scottish Sun COMIC'S CASTLE Still Game star takes £150,000 hit to offload luxury £4m Scots castle HITTING THE HIGH NOTES Much-loved pub named best music bar in Scotland Whilst another wrote: “That mash looks way too wet.” Fabulous will pay for your exclusive stories. Just email: fabulousdigital@the-sun.co.uk and pop EXCLUSIVE in the subject line .Ambitions, bills and grudges: Reasons DeSantis for defense secretary may never happen

New French government named after previous one collapsed in budget fightNEW YORK (AP) — Stocks wavered in afternoon trading on Wall Street Monday at the start of a holiday-shortened week. The S&P 500 rose 0.4%. A handful of technology companies helped support the gains. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 63 points, or 0.2% as of 1:18 p.m. Eastern time. The tech-heavy Nasdaq composite rose 0.7%. Semiconductor giant Nvidia, whose enormous valuation gives it an outsize influence on indexes, rose 3%. Broadcom jumped 5.2% to also help support the broader market. Japanese automakers Honda Motor and Nissan said they are talking about combining in a deal that might also include Mitsubishi Motors. Honda rose 3.8% and Nissan rose 1.6% in Tokyo. Eli Lilly rose 3% after announcing that regulators approved Zepbound as the first and only prescription medicine for adults with sleep apnea. Department store Nordstrom fell 1.7% after it agreed to be taken private by Nordstrom family members and a Mexican retail group in a $6.25 billion deal. The Conference Board said that consumer confidence slipped in December. Its consumer confidence index fell back to 104.7 from 112.8 in November. Wall Street was expecting a reading of 113.8. The unexpectedly weak consumer confidence update follows several generally strong economic reports last week. One report showed the overall economy grew at a 3.1% annualized rate during the summer, faster than earlier thought. The latest report on unemployment benefit applications showed that the job market remains solid. A report on Friday said a measure of inflation the Federal Reserve likes to use was slightly lower last month than economists expected. Worries about inflation edging higher again had been weighing on Wall Street and the Fed. The central bank just delivered its third cut to interest rates this year, but inflation has been hovering stubbornly above its target of 2%. It has signaled that it could deliver fewer cuts to interest rates next year than it earlier anticipated because of concerns over inflation. Expectations for more interest rate cuts have helped drive a 24% gain for the S&P 500 in 2024. That drive included 57 all-time highs this year. Inflation concerns have added to uncertainties heading into 2025, which include the labor market's path ahead and shifting economic policies under an incoming President Donald Trump. "Put simply, much of the strong market performance prior to last week was driven by expectations that a best-case scenario was the base case for 2025," said Brent Schutte, chief investment officer at Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company Treasury yields edged higher in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 4.58% from 4.53% late Friday. European markets were mostly lower, while markets in Asia gained ground. Wall Street has several other economic reports to look forward to this week. On Tuesday, the U.S. will release its November report for sales of newly constructed homes. A weekly update on unemployment benefits is expected on Thursday. Markets in the U.S. will close early on Tuesday for Christmas Eve and will remain closed on Wednesday for Christmas.

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OTTAWA—Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown said he received pushback from Indian government officials for his use of the term “Sikh nation” during the 2022 Conservative leadership campaign, but generally believes that foreign interference did not alter the outcome of the race. Brown was called to testify before the House of Commons public safety committee on Thursday evening. The committee is studying the Indian government’s involvement in political interference and violence in Canada. Brown initially declined an invitation to appear, but was formally summoned. He said he didn’t want to be part of any political wrangling. “I don’t have an interest in revisiting partisan debates.” A Radio-Canada story earlier this week reported that insiders on Brown’s Conservative leadership campaign felt the Indian government was interfering, trying to undermine his campaign. This included disinviting him from events in the community and encouraging volunteers not to support him. The story also alleged that Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner was encouraged by Indian consular officials to drop her support for Brown. Brown said on a campaign call he was told the Indian government rejected the term “Sikh nation,” which he had used in public remarks. “The concern that was raised was that I had used the term, on a number of occasions, Sikh nation, and the consul general had expressed directly to MP Rempel Garner that was something that obviously they didn’t agree with,” he said. Some members of the Sikh community in Canada favour the creation of a separate state in India called Khalistan that would be a homeland for their community, but the Indian government firmly rejects that idea. Brown said he used a different term than “Sikh nation” after the Indian government complained, and downplayed the importance of the wording change, but Liberal MP Jennifer O’Connell said she saw it as a clear example of interference. “I think that constitutes foreign interference, pretty clearly. With foreign interference it doesn’t matter the outcome. It’s the intention to have the foreign government influence the actions in Canadian elections.” Brown also said, in contrast to the Radio-Canada reporting, Rempel-Garner never indicated she was leaving because of any foreign pressure. “At no point when we talked about her departing the campaign did she say it was because of pressure from the consul general,” he said. At the end of the meeting, O’Connell moved to have Rempel Garner and several members of the Brown campaign called to testify. O’Connell’s motion will be voted on at a later meeting. Brown said when he was a provincial party leader he supported motions recognizing a 1984 attack on Sikh communities as a genocide and spoke out about some of the actions of the Indian government. He said Indian diplomats aren’t quiet about their opinions. “I think it’s fair to say that the government of India states their opinions and I think there’s a number of issues that I took a position on that certainly the Government of India wasn’t a fan of,” he said. Brown was disqualified from the Conservative leadership over allegations he had breached the party’s campaign finance rules. Brown said he had no direct knowledge of foreign interference in his campaign. He said he was aware of one community event where he was disinvited, but said he has no doubt the outcome of the race would have been the same. “I believe that Pierre Poilievre was successful in that race because he signed 300,000 plus memberships. And, I don’t believe acts of foreign intervention affected that result.” Brown’s community has a significant Sikh population and he said there is a lot of ongoing concern about India and other countries interfering in Canada. The committee has also heard testimony from the RCMP and other security agencies about the Indian government’s involvement in a campaign of violence in Canada. This has included the killing of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, B.C., which Brown said is a major concern for the community. He said he believes — to start with — the federal government needs to clearly outline the rules to foreign diplomats who are crossing the lines. “A starting point is a clear education on those who are serving as diplomatic representatives in Canada of what is appropriate behaviour and behaviour that is inappropriate with the laws we have in Canada, clearly there are diplomats that need that education,” he said.

DOGE wants to trim a $500 billion list of federal 'zombie' programs that includes veterans' healthcare, Pell grants, and NASAWA’s regional housing market is once again outperforming its capital city counterpart, leading the way in value growth, rents and rental yields. The latest CoreLogic Regional Market Update found while the pace of growth has slowed since earlier in the year, WA and Queensland regions continued to dominate the top-performing lists, taking out the top eight spots for quarterly value growth areas. CoreLogic Australia economist Kaytlin Ezzy said Geraldton recorded the strongest annual increase with dwelling values up 28.7 per cent over the year to October, adding more than $100,000 to the median value. She said the lifestyle appeal, relative affordability and favourable conditions for investors were driving buyer confidence in these regions. “Regions like Mackay, Geraldton and Townsville are seeing exceptional growth, driven by affordability advantages compared to our major cities, as well as lifestyle appeal,” she said. “This will have contributed to the strong demand but even with the impressive growth, for those with the capacity to service a mortgage, they still remain attainable with medians less than $600,000.” Conversely, across Australia’s largest 50 non-capital city Significant Urban Areas, seven out of eight Victorian and 10 out of 21 NSW areas saw values fall over the three months to October. KPMG regional economist Terry Rawnsley said WA’s economy was running hot and drawing more people to the state. He said when homebuyers were priced out of the Perth housing market they moved further into the regions. “During the pandemic Perth was the first port of call, and then you got pushed down to Mandurah and then if you get priced out of that market, you end up in Busselton, for example,” he said. “There’s been such a huge inflow of people in a short period of time and that ripple effect’s really heading on out into the different regional areas. “So it’s no surprise that the regional markets are rising as Perth boom continues while back on the east coast, markets are softening with vendors discounting.” Regional rental markets have also continued to outperform their capital city counterparts with Albany the strongest regional rental market in the nation, with a 3 per cent quarterly increase in rent. Geraldton recorded a 14.6 per cent lift in annual rent, equivalent to a $66 per week rental increase – illustrative of strong rental demand, a shortage of available stock and possibly investor appeal, Ezzy said. “Rental markets where there have been strong quarterly increases are experiencing a combination of strong tenant demand and constrained supply,” she said. Regional WA also delivered the highest gross rental yields, with Kalgoorlie-Boulder recording a yield of 8.8 per cent for the quarter. Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter .