Canapes, canapes for everyone!

Week 3 of the diploma course drew to a close today. Nasty weather- it didn't stop raining the whole day! Joe was back with us today, setting us a canape challenge. Before the impending panic of canape making, we prepared a scallop starter. There was a worry that we wouldn't be able to have any scallops today- the divers don't go out when it rains as it breaks up the sea bed and makes it harder to hand pick them. Our scallops were hand picked. Most scallops are aggressively trawled, using nets to pull the scallops off the sea floor. This damages the sea bed and apparently takes seven years to recover! These scallops cost about 50p each, whereas hand dived ones cost about 80p each. You're paying for the divers' time, but it's more economically friendly.

I've never opened scallops before. so it was exciting to see how it's done. Quite simple, it turns out. You just need some force and need to be careful that you don't cut the scallop in half. Some of the scallops were still pulsating when I had cut them out of the shell. Another fact for you- you can tell a girl scallop from a boy scallop by seeing how big the coral is on them. The coral is the orange roe bit of them. If it's large, plump and bright orange, it's a girl. Did you know that scallops can change their sex if they wish?

We made a pea purée, simply by blitzing some cooked peas in a blender and adding a squeeze of lemon juice and my good friends, salt and pep. We also made a saffron foam- very cheffy. Then it was time for the pudding preparation, a tart tatin with a caramel sauce. Mmm mmm! We flambeed the apple slices in some brandy- very impressive, seeing the pan flame up- you can just about see the flames in the photo. We then laid them out in a pretty pattern in some really cute little individual tart cases. Then we tucked the apples in for the night with a duvet of puff pastry and left it to rest before cooking. The caramel sauce was made, simply mix some caramel made from melted sugar with some double cream. Extremely healthy! Before the canape challenge, it was time for the starter.

Pan fried scallops with a pea purée and saffron foam

Then it was time to turn up the heat in the kitchen for the canape challenge. The challenge was to make two canapes per team of two and we had a time limit of an hour. Margaret and I were assigned the job of making the parmesan cheese straws and teriyaki chicken skewers. We quickly devised a plan on what needed to be done and when and successfully whipped the canapes up. It was great to see everyone doing something different and it all coming together at the end. Then it was time to eat! We had ten different canapes to munch on. They were cheese straws, blue cheese and sesame biscuits, smoked salmon pinwheels, sausage and mash, mini yorkshire puddings with rare venison, parmesan crisps, bread tartlets with mediterranean vegetables with halved soft boiled quails' eggs, chicken teriyaki skewers, mini filo pastry tarts with avocado crab and mini puff pastry olive tapenade and tomato tarts. All so tasty and simple to do. Now I have some great ideas of what to make, other than the classic cheese and pineapple on a stick and cocktail sausages.

For the last time this week, it was pudding time, and boy it was good! We did some caramel work, manipulating the caramel into different shapes. I even managed to form an accidental flower. The caramel went everywhere. A very messy affair. It even got into my top 3 of my favourite puddings. Number 1 being the lemon tart, number 2, the treacle tart and number 3, the tart tatin. I think there's a theme of pastry growing here!

I'm looking forward to the last week of the course. I expect it to be pretty busy. We're doing our mystery boxes, wine tasting, healthy-eating day, sushi, exam...and much more. Then, next Friday, it will all be over. Boohoo! Maybe I'll just do all the courses at ACS and blog forever!

Thai time

Thai food was on the menu today, with Rob teaching us. I've never really had thai food, so was excited to see what flavours and unusual ingredients I would encounter. We began by preparing the thai green curry paste for supper later. To make an authentic paste, we had to grind the spices in a pestle and mortar for at least 20 minutes. The longer you break the ingredients for the paste down, the better it will taste apparently. Hard work, I tell you! We also fried some sliced garlic in a wok in lots of oil to make it crispy. We used the crispy garlic in our dishes today, but you can then use it for salads, use the oil in chicken dishes...anything you want. The resulting paste from the mortar I think looked a bit like elephant poo, but I'm sure it would taste nice!

Then it was onto the Poh Pia Tod or Thai style spring rolls. Our filling was pork mince, bean sprouts, vermicelli noodles and some other tasty things. They were quite easy to make actually. Simples. We then whipped up some Tod Mun Pla, or Thai fish cakes which when making, you indent your thumb, so that you can put a bit of sauce on top and eat together. The fish cakes used some unusual ingredients, such as kra-chaai (poor mans' ginger which looked like old, long fingers) and fresh turmeric (bright orange stuff which stains your fingers after cutting it for ages) .We made a tamarind dip and a nam aa-jaad, a spicy dip with cucumber, chillies, sugar and coriander. So lunch was served.

The spring rolls and fish cakes were really tasty. Of course they would be, they've been deep fried! I really enjoyed the tamarind sauce too. Next, we made Tom Yum Kung, a hot and sour soup. We used galangal, a kind of ginger in the soup as well as other things and garnished it with strings of fresh green peppercorns on the stem and birds' eye chillies. Rob taught us a trick of testing how hot a chilli is to judge how much you want to put into your dish. Cut it and give it a lick. See what your reaction is and act accordingly. I licked a tiny bit of green birds' eye chilli. It felt like my tongue had been stung! I don't really like spicy food so I was a bit dubious about this soup, seeing as part of its name included the word 'hot'. To add to the authentic Thai feel of the day, the soup was served with a Thai beer.

The soup wasn't bad, just not to my taste. I don't particularly like coconut milk or chillies. Something which Thai cuisine uses a lot of. The prawns were good though. Then it was time to make the green chicken curry. We had already cooked out the ingredients after making the paste in the morning, so the hard, time-consuming part was already done- the rest of the curry didn't take long at all. More coconut milk, chicken etc, boil some jasmine rice and voila.

Gang Kiew Wann and Kaw Savy or Chicken green curry with boiled jasmine rice

Did you know that Thai people consider rice to be the main meal and anything else is an extra? The curry was alright.Not I'm not too keen on curries, but it was quite aromatic and not too hot as my partner and I made it mild, rather than hot hot hot. I don't think I'd have it again though. Not really my cup of tea. The rice was good though. Sort of sticky and yummy.

Then it was pudding. Pon-la-mai nam-cheum or fresh chilled melon with Thai syrup. The syrup was made with palm sugar and pandan leaves which are like the vanilla beans of Asia. It was a refreshing pudding with coconut milk and the thai syrup poured over the top and some edible flowers for presentation. Good, but I would have preferred to leave out the coconut milk. But the syrup was tasty and very unusual.

I have enjoyed today, learning of new, exotic ingredients, but I think I'll stick to less spicy and coconutty foods in the future. Tomorrow, we're doing a canape challenge, scallops and tart tatin. Yum!

Ok, so I'm going to live on the edge...

I've picked up a few of the chefs' things they often say, catchphrases, if you will. Joe likes to say such things as 'no pressure guys' which he says after his demonstrations, even though often our tasks include multi-tasking and trying not to burn anything and also '..but I'm going to live on the edge, and do this', such as when he picks out the egg yolks with his hand when separating eggs. A very dangerous operation as the egg yolk could break and ruin everything!

Anyway, day 13 and it was game day. This morning we prepared our pigeons, ready to be pan fried for supper. My poor little bird was a bit wingless and only had the top half of each of its legs. They had probably been blown off when it was shot. It was the standard procedure of taking the breasts off. There's not much point in trying to eat the legs as they're so small and there's so little meat on them, by the time they were cooked, the meat would have shrunk into practically nothing.

Another of the morning's activities was to make the jellies for pudding. Joe demonstrated how to make the champagne and elderflower jelly and then we gradually assembled layers of blueberries, raspberries and strawberries, letting each layer set in between. Joe even revealed the secret of how you can suspend fruit in jellies. I couldn't possibly tell you how it's done on here, as then it wouldn't be a secret and you wouldn't be amazed when I present a jelly shot to you as an amuse bouche at one of my future dinner parties. However, I can tell you that you can make a jelly out of pretty much any fruit, apart from papaya, kiwi, pineapple and strawberries. There's something in them that just won't set. I said strawberries as if you use too many, it won't set. A few whole ones will be fine. We also made a sorbet to go with the jelly. An odd combination of lemongrass, lime leaves, coconut milk and chilli. Quite thai inspired. And good timing, as it's thai day tomorrow!

Then it was on to preparing lunch. Smoked haddock, leek and cheddar cheese tart/quiche. Joe told us not to be shy in getting the solid filling in the tarts and some of us took it a bit too literally, with mountains of fish and cheese bulging out the top, with only little room for the liquid filling. Another top tip for you: when making a quiche, always cook the filling ingredients before you finish it with the eggy filling as they won't cook in the time that it takes to cook the filling.

What a tasty lunch. And just the right amount to eat. I was perfectly satisfied and full- not stuffed and not still wanting more. The pastry definitely fills you up.

Then it was back into the kitchen to make a consomme. Consommes are crystal clear, thin soups, made from a base of a well-flavoured cloudy stock. Then something magical happens. Put your vegetables and tomato puree into the stock, with an egg white, and as it simmers for almost an hour, the egg white at the top catches all of the impurities and vegetables, creating an egg white cake or omelette. You then strain this off and underneath is the soup. Ta-dah! We made some chicken mousseline quenelles and reheated our poached quail eggs to go in the soup, piled up in a cheffy way of course. Then, it was time to eat again.

Rabbit consomme with poached quail eggs and poached chicken mousseline quenelles. And a garnish of parsley.

The main course now needed to be prepared. We pan fried the pigeon breasts to the medium rare stage. Pigeon shouldn't be cooked for much longer as it's so lean that there isn't any fat to keep it moist. Therefore, it will be chewy and the best place for it is the bin. Apparently.

So, we multi-tasked, getting the balsamic roasted shallots, broccoli and jus ready. All while the pigeon was resting. It's the final countdown.

Pan fried pigeon breasts with roasted shallots, broccoli with a pine nut butter, game chips and a reduced port and mushroom jus.

Game chips sound posh, but are basically lattice crisps and are called 'game chips' as they are usually served with game. Very tasty too. Joe even complimented me on my 'excellent presentation'. Woopah! The pine nuts were meant to be hazelnuts, but, as you know, I detest hazelnuts, so made a smart substitution. The jus was amazing. Slightly sticky and sweet from the port. And the shallots. Ooooh me oh my. I quite liked the pigeon. Not too gamey a flavour. I would have it again.

Finally, it was my favourite part of each day. Pudding time!

Champagne and elderflower jelly with summer fruits, lemongrass, coconut and chilli sorbet and a passionfruit caramel coulis.

The pudding was a twist on jelly and ice cream. I really enjoyed the light jelly and with the juicy, summery fruits inside, it was really delicious. I liked the sorbet- the chilli was only a hint to give a little kick to the flavour and the lemongrass was nice, but it was a little too coconutty for me. I can manage a little, but not too much. I still ate it though! I think the sorbet would be good as a palate cleanser. I would like to see some sort of vanilla ice cream or raspberry sorbet with this jelly as I think it may have been one too many flavours. But still tasty. The coulis was amazing. Mmm mmm!

Thai tomorrow. Spicy soups, fish cakes, spring rolls and many minutes of thai green curry paste bashing in a pestle and mortar.

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!

Bread of Devon

A nice relaxed weekend, which included on Saturday, going to the Flavour Fest in Plymouth- a food and drink festival with lots of stalls and cookery demonstrations. Even though it rained and my £2 Primark shoes split and let in the rain, giving me cold, wet feet all day, I had a lovely time. I went to see a chef I know, Peter Gorton and Darrin and another ACS chef tutor (the chef manager) Rob do some cookery demonstrations.They were all really good and everyone got to try the finished dishes they all made. I even came across a balsamic vinegar and olive oil man's stall- he was on Dragon's Den once. He had a 66 year old balsamic and even a hundred year old one. Anyhoo, I digress. Back to cookery school!

So, Week Three commencing and today was all about bread and baking. We had Rob teaching us today. He certainly worked us hard today. I'm knackered! On today's menu was pasty-making, walnut and date bread, dinner rolls, oregano and garlic plant pot bread, short crust pastry, chelsea buns, de-boning chicken legs and gluten-free chocolate brownies. The morning consisted of chelsea bun making, really simple by the way and making the walnut and date bread to prove over lunch time. We also de-boned a chicken leg each and took out to sinews. Goodness, chicken legs are extremely sinewy- there are at least 10 in there. They're not particularly easy to remove either.

I made the short crust pastry, to be kept for a quiche later in the week and my new partner, Amy, made the pasty pastry to be used for lunch. Did you know that pasty pastry contains lard? And rather a lot of it. So that's why it's so tasty! We prepared the pasty filling and put together our lunch of chicken, celeriac and goats' cheese pasty. We used a kind of goats' cheese that only three goats produce. We used Ethel's cheese. Thank you, Ethel for your cheese. Rob told us of a guy who was on a course and asked him why they only use female goats' cheese. Haha, nitwit!

The pasty was really tasty. I think I prefer the traditional chuck steak pasty, but this was a tasty alternative. I tried to do a decorative pastry leaf on top- the photo doesn't really show it very well. I need to work on my crimping skills as I have too many crimps, but not bad for my first traditional Cornish pasty!

After lunch, it was time to cook the chelsea buns and make the other breads. I now know how to shape bread for dinner rolls and make weird and wonderful shapes to impress. We even made mini focaccia I learned today why you let bread prove twice, or maybe even three times. You let it prove once (letting the yeast do their thing, creating air bubbles) knock it back (knock the air out of it) and let it prove again, to make the air bubbles twice as big as before, to make the cooked bread light and not let it end up dense and have a cake-like texture. If you let it prove three times, that will mean that the air bubbles are three times as big and makes the bread quite hollow inside, if you like that sort of thing. Did you know that you can kill yeast in many ways, including adding liquid to it that is too hot and by letting it prove for too long without enough food. Yeast likes to eat sweet stuff, like sugar and honey, which is why you add a little bit of sweetness when using any yeast. You learn something every day!

We even made an oregano and garlic plant pot bread, where you actually cook the bread in a terra cotta pot, to give a different shape and for fun. So, after an afternoon of baking, filling the kitchen with delicious smells of freshly baked bread, it was time to collectively prepare supper, that was a buffet, consisting of many things we had made the week before, including gravalax, rabbit rillettes, corned beef, chutneys, cheese board, parma ham, salads, pickled onions, breads made today and potato salad that Amy and I made. It was very tasty and good to break up the string of rich meals we've been eating.

The rabbit rillettes and corned beef were particularly tasty and the gravalax. Mmm mmm mmm! Finally, it was pudding time- gluten free chocolate brownies. Unfortunately, they had hazelnuts in, so I only tried a little bit on the side which was nut-free. From what I tasted, it was very good and lovely and gooey. But I really do detest hazelnuts, so I offered my pudding up to everyone else. Probably the only time that will ever happen. I do love my puddings!

Tomorrow is vegetarian day. No meat or fish. I hear that supper includes gorgonzola and walnuts for starter. The main course consists of aubergine. I'm not a fan of any of these ingredients. But I'll try it...but not the walnuts. They are the spawn of the devil. Apparently you can leave them out or substitute them for something else so fingers crossed! Also, we have a mystery soup where we individually have to make a soup containing lentils and make it summery, selecting from a range of ingredients Rob is going to provide. We have to make a bowl for our lunch and also one for him to taste. And no recipes. And a time limit. Oh god, what do I do?!?! This must be to test whether we've been paying attention or not and if we've learnt anything so far. I hope I have! Right, I'm off to think of something edible to make! Wish me luck...

Would you like some cream with your sugar?

I think I might have a heart attack soon. The amount of sugar I have consumed today is unbelievable! Today was pastry and sweet pudding based. Very tasty, but very fatty and sugary. Not that it's a bad thing, but preferrably not all in one go! Joe was back with us today. He used to be a pastry chef, don't you know! The first job of the day was to make choux pastry. Now you may think, 'oh choux pastry, that's just profiteroles and eclairs'. WRONG! The amount of things you can do with it. Pipe bits into a deep fat fryer and then roll in cinammon sugar to make doughnuts; leave out the sugar to make savoury pastry and make some breadsticks and cover them with any seed you like; make savoury buns and fill them with chive cream cheese and put some smoked salmon on top. Oh the possibilities!

Then it was on to making some of our own pastry cream to fill those beautiful little choux creations and mille feuille which were to be made later. Joe showed us a simple recipe of lemon posset which was for pudding later and then we all made crystalised lemon and lime zest, which is so easy. I shall never buy it again. Then it was lunch time, where Joe gave us free reign of the ingredients to make an egg based lunch, or if you wanted, just a salad. He said it was 'probably one of the healthiest things we'll eat on this course'. Haha! I decided to go for a kind of omelette/frittata made of shallots, mangetout, salad onions and cheese. Odd combination, but tasty. Complete

with a poppyseed choux breadstick. With some salad leaves as well. And some eight year old balsamic. As you do.

After lunch, it was back onto the sweeter side of things, with a swiss roll needing to be made. Very simple and extremely verstaile- the things Joe said you can do with it. It took under 10 minutes to cook and after it had cooled slightly, apricot jam was to be spread on it. As you can see from the photo on the left, Ashburton Cookery School has a plentiful supply of jam! Here's my work partner, Rachel spreading the jam onto the cake.

More jobs were to be done- making a chocolate sauce for the profiteroles, finishing the pastry cream with some kirsch and more double cream and shaping and cooking puff pastry for the mille feuille. We used Jus-Rol puff pastry as it always works and apparently, to make it yourself takes about six hours and when it's ready to use, it often doesn't work, so time is wasted. It's good to know that it's ok to use some ready-made items! We attempted to make chocolate decorations to garnish our puddings by spreading melted chocolate onto the granite work surface and letting it set, then using a metal scraper, curl the chocolate into a 'cigar' shape, however, it didn't work as the Summer heat was too much for the chocolate to handle and it didn't set. Yes, for once, the sun was actually beating down hard in Devon! We at least tried to make it work, as you can see.

So then it was pudding, or as I like to call it, heart attack on a plate! Lemon posset, profiteroles and mille feuille. Rachel and my disks of puff pastry were, shall we say, a little well cooked. Joe said not to worry and to tell people that they were darker in colour because they were chocolate flavoured. He was very kind though, as he gave us his perfectly cooked ones and used our charred ones to demonstrate. Everything turned out well, apart from my mille feuille, which stayed together for about five seconds before it collapsed, due to the heat of the kitchen and warm, melting pastry cream. But you get the idea!

Everyone was so full that most people didn't eat much of their puddings. A few went for gold and demolished it all, some ate nothing and I, foolishly ate most of it. I really shouldn't have, as even though it tasted great, I felt sick before I had even started as Rachel and I had been dipping the spare choux into the spare chocolate sauce all afternoon. I did not feel very well after pigging out on the pudding and had some serious sugar shakes and a racing heart. That'll teach me! It's now time for a weekend break, but the thought of Monday's baking day of bread, chocolate brownies and more fills me with the feeling of sickness. But by then I'm sure I'll be up for it all. Half way through the course now, I can't believe how fast it's going!!

Got crabs?

Well, we've certainly packed it all in today! Darrin was back today, after spending some time up at the other cookery school, helping judge the South West Chef of the Year 2010 competition. Darrin warned us in the morning that Day 9 was a busy day, but I didn't think it would be this busy! Corned beef, rabbit rillette, take apart a crab, crab risotto, chutney, hot smoked salmon, gravalax, mackerel filleting, chickpea and bacon salad, pasta making and duck confit tortellini. I thought I'd show you all a photo of a mahoosive block of butter that was being chopped up, ready to use in the future. I think that we probably go through it in a few days.

So, this morning, Darrin showed us how make corned beef and got the rabbit legs off to their confit fate. We made some fresh pasta, by hand, to make tortellini with a duck confit filling, which we had prepared over the last few days. We even used a proper pasta machine as well, rolling it out to an ultimate thinness. Although, the machine fought back when I was turning the dial and caught my hand, making a cut. The evil contraption! We took the meat out of the crab, which is rather fiddly and time consuming. No wonder white crab meat is expensive! Contrary to popular belief, crabs' dead mans' fingers don't actually kill you, they would just give you a stomach upset if you ate them. Not that you'd want to anyway.

Then Darrin showed us an alternative recipe for lunch. We were meant to poach a fillet of salmon to go with our lunch of crab risotto, but instead, due to popular demand, Darrin showed us how to hot smoke the salmon. It didn't half smoke out the kitchen with the oak chippings! But it was worth it, as we tucked into it for a delicious lunch of hot smoked salmon and crab risotto with petit pois, saffron and herbs. And lots of parmesan cheese. Mmm. Quite rich but oh so tasty! Did you know that (oh yes, another juicy fact for you!) a truly good risotto should level out in a bowl when shaken and shouldn't be so stodgy that it just stays put. My new partner Rachel and I made a risotto that the Italians would be proud of. The salmon tasted very good too. And so easy to do. I'd make it all again fo sho!

After lunch, we filleted some unlucky mackerel which wasn't too bad, apart from getting the darn pin bones out. You have to literally cut them out, rather than tweezing them out, like other fish as the bones just snap off back into the flesh. Then we finished off the tortellini, filling each pasta parcel with a mixture of softened onions, shredded duck leg confit and two types of balsamic vinegar. We were shown how to make an apple, pear and date chutney for use next week. We then began eating our feast for the evening. They had sprung a three course supper on us, starting with the pasta. The sauce was a combination of butter, sage and hazelnuts, but I left my nuts out as I can't stand the taste of them. They ruin so many lovely chocolates. Yuck!!

Duck leg confit tortellini with a sage butter (no hazelnuts!)

The pasta was a-mazing!! Such a rich tasting filling with fresh pasta- it was worth spending a long time making the fiddly little shapes. Then it was back into the kitchen to pan fry the mackerel fillets and make a chickpea, bacon and salad onion salad with a mustard vinaigrette that Darrin made for us all.

The main was matched with a lovely white wine from Spain. On Thursdays every week, our meals are matched with specially chosen wine. We had the matched wine last Friday, so I guess something went wrong with the planning?! Anyway, then Darrin brought us all out a piece of treacle tart. I had high expectations of this tart. Darrin said it would either be our favourite pudding so far or a close second. And boy, was he right! It was fantastic. But not as fantastic as the lemon tart. It's very close, but lemon tart is still my number one, followed by the treacle tart and then the creme brulee. I'd like a trio of all of those right now please!

When Darrin said that with treacle tart, 'the more clotted cream, the better', I thought he was joking, but it came out with about half cream to tart! Not that I'm complaining. The tart was served with a muscat wine which was alright but extremely strong, similar to port. Too much for me! But I can see why the wine went with the pudding. Tomorrow will mean that we're half way through the course! Boohoo :( I don't want it to end. But maybe a break from the rich food and huge calorie consumption might do me some good!