Vegetables ahoy

Vegetarian day today with one of the purposes of the day to try and prove that vegetarian food doesn't have to be boring. Such as the classic 'cauliflower cheese and broccoli bake'. Personally, I don't think that I could be a vegetarian. How can anyone resist the smell of bacon cooking?! And then eating said delicious bacon sandwich? I could perhaps be a bad vegetarian and use chicken stock in soups and gravies and eat foods containing gelatine and parmesan cheese, using rennet. All of which of course, are made from animals.

The first job of the morning was to poach some quails' eggs for consumption tomorrow. I now know how to make the perfect poached egg, be it quail or hen. Roll up, roll up for breakfast! Here's another top tip for you- use a little white wine vinegar when poaching eggs as it helps to bind the white around the yolk when cooking. Not too much though, as otherwise it will end up tasting heavily of vinegar. Only use white wine vinegar too. No malt or balsamic please! We then rolled out our short crust pastry into a tart case, rested it and blind baked it, ready to use tomorrow. Then it was onto the soup.

After a night of thinking what I could possibly add to lentils to make a soup and not poison Rob, who was going to taste them all, I decided on definitely using cumin and carrots. Before we got started, Rob told us that we were going to make the soup for our partner, not for ourselves. Uh oh! He said it was because cooking for yourself and cooking for someone else are two very different things. We had 30 minutes to put it all together and I organised myself- getting everything chopped and ready to add when needed. My only downfall was the carrots took a while to cook, so I was a minute or two over the time limit, which made me panic as everyone was blending around me, way before I was ready! But from what I tasted and gave to Amy for lunch, it wasn't bad! I made a carrot, red lentil and cumin soup with a hint of chili. But I don't know if I added enough for it to be tasted. Anyhoo, so Amy made a soup for me of similar style with wilted spinach. It was a little spicy for my liking. I really don't like spicy foods. I think too much heat in food just overpowers the rest of the dish and you can't taste anything else. But apart from that, it wasn't bad. I don't think I'd make this soup again as I much prefer other ones we've made previously on the course.

After lunch, Rob gave us some feedback on our soups. He said mine was well seasoned and I used the cumin well, but it was a little thick for a Summer soup. I agree and it's because I didn't give myself enough time to loosen it before serving. But no matter. Not bad eh.

Throughout the afternoon, we made and ate, made and ate and...made and ate! Today was much more relaxed than yesterday, I think Rob was giving us a little rest from our hard day's work yesterday. The starter was a pink grapefruit, braised baby gem lettuce, gorgonzola and walnut salad. I rather dislike walnuts and gorgonzola, so Rob let me substitute them for pine nuts and parmesan cheese, as there wasn't any goats' cheese in the fridge.

It was really tasty. A good recipe to add to my vegetarian recipe bank. Then it was on to the main course of baked stuffed aubergine with roasted vegetables, griddled halloumi, pumpkin seeds, sweet chilli sauce and greek yogurt. I'm not a big fan of aubergine, but we only used the skin of it to hold the roasted vegetables. You could add in the aubergine flesh to the filling if wanted, but I chose not to. The vegetables used were sweet potato, butternut squash, red onion and courgette. The filling was extremely tasty and very versatile. You can use it on its own and fold it through some salad. Mmm. And I've found a new love. Halloumi. A bit salty, but oh golly gosh, so yummy! Probably really bad for you but it was so very delicious.

I would be very happy eating that as a meal. Especially with the cheeeeese. Pudding was raspberry souffle which rose beautifully, and then for a cheffy finish, you can dust some icing sugar on top and then with an extremely hot bar or poker, can burn some lines into the top. It made the top of the souffle taste like marshmallow. We also had a white chocolate sauce to pour inside which was delicious. White chocolate, cream and grand marnier. What's not to like?! It's all about game tomorrow, including a rabbit consomme. Right, I'm cream crackered and off to bed!