Happy 2011!

Oh wait, it's a bit late for that, as it's the 16th of January! Anyway, I haven't posted since October and let you know what I've been up to, so I want to start by wishing you all well and I hope that you had a fabulous Christmas and that 2011 will be marvellous.

So, let me get you updated. The first bit of news I must tell you is that I've booked yet another Ashburton Cookery School course. They were having a 10% off sale and I decided to do the next course up, the 5 day 'Advanced Cookery' course. I've always thought I was going to do it, so I took advantage of the discount and now I'm looking forward to the 28th of February to start it. Only six weeks tomorrow!

Since I last posted, I've made quite a few delicious delights. It will be a long read, so make yourself comfortable, maybe get some Christmas chocolates, if you have any left or something tasty to snack on and enjoy. It's how I like to write my blog. Of course. In fact, I find that teaming most daily activities with eating chocolate makes everything much better. Except for my waistline!

The first delicious delight was a special birthday cake. This didn't turn out too well aesthetically, but it was tasty! It was my friend Briony's 23rd birthday and she had a Harry Potter party. I went as the mad Professor Trelawney and we all attempted to make The Hogwarts Castle in cake form. It turned out to be more difficult than I thought! I'd never made sugarpaste before, made from egg white, a lot of icing sugar and liquid glucose, and it was difficult to shape. Rather difficult in fact, as it was quite warm in the kitchen! Especially the dragon. I wanted to make it a scary dragon, with blue-purple open wings and a menacing face, but it ended up looking rather happy to be on the cake. Practice makes perfect though! But eventually, we managed a castle with a chocolate matchstick and chocolate finger roof, complete with Hagrid's hut, Hedwig and fire-breathing dragon, plus some peppermint sugarpaste trees, including the whomping willow.

In November, my Dad had a dinner party for some of his friends and asked me to help out by making the bread to go with the starter and the pudding. I made a wholemeal loaf and white dinner rolls, some with seeds, some without. For pudding, I made a chocolate orange mousse shot surprise, sticky toffee pudding and individual pavlova with raspberry, pear, pineapple and passionfruit, with a raspberry coulis. I made each plate personal by piping everyone's names onto it. I also added some, I'm ashamed to say, store-bought vanilla ice cream. I didn't have time to make the ice cream as everything else took me the whole day. But it was a good quality one!

Now we jump straight to Christmas. Throughout December, I begged my Dad to let me cook Christmas dinner. I'm always keen on improving and expanding my skills/cooking repertoire and I've never done a full Christmas dinner before. Unfortunately, Dad was adamant that he wanted to do it. Boo! Maybe next year...I did manage to help with some of it though- I made the braised red cabbage, stuffing and pigs in blankets.

In hindsight, it's a good thing that Dad did Christmas dinner as I had plenty of other things to do, which I'll get to a bit later. I also had been ill from the weekend before Christmas, so I was still recovering from that and gave myself a lot of kitchen work, which didn't help. I don't know what I had. I think it was some kind of virus, but I ended up fainting at one point and smacking my head on the hard, wooden floor whilst I was on a short break at Center Parcs and I spent most of it inside the villa. Rubbish!

So, even though Dad was doing the main event, he let me cook Christmas Eve's dinner which, as you can see, was Gary the Goose. I'd never cooked goose before and it turned out pretty well. I found a recipe on bbcgoodfood.com (I'm plugging a lot of websites today, aren't I?!) which served the goose with a cider gravy. We had it with the classic low calorie and healthy goose fat potatoes and butternut squash. It was so delicious, especially the gravy. Yum yum yum! I don't particularly like Christmas pudding, so I made an alternative of clementine and chocolate yule log. It was quite rich but lovely. I especially liked the addition of the clementine, it took the edge off the heaviness of the chocolate and cream.

Clementine and Chocolate Yule Log.

The reason I'm glad Dad did Christmas dinner was because he also gave me the task of cooking lunch on Boxing Day when my relatives came over to my house for what we call our second Christmas. Considering that all together, there were 16 of us, it was no easy task! I chose to do Nigella Lawson's cola ham which is cooked in full fat coca-cola for a few hours, then glazed in the oven for ten minutes with a mixture of cloves, mustard powder and black treacle (it is Christmas, after all). I also decided to make my Christmas presents for my extended family, just to add to the mayhem I was causing in the kitchen!

I made each couple, of which there were four, a Christmas hamper each with handmade foodie goodies. As well as making the edible treats, I designed the labels. I guess you could call it a prototype of what I hopefully will do in the future, I'd love to combine my two main passions, cookery and design.

I made seven different delights: festive shaped lemon and chocolate shortbread, white chocolate and Baileys fudge (pictured on the left) caramelised red onion marmalade, spiced pear and cranberry relish, assorted handmade chocolate truffles (pictured on the right) spiced beetroot and orange chutney and sea-salted caramels. I found some lovely little jars to put my chutney/preserve-y things in from the jamjarshop.com and topped them off with some light blue polka dot lids which looked fabulous. I put the biscuits into a kilner jar and chose to package the rest of the gifts in some little cellophane bags with strips of ribbon tied into the labels.

I designed the labels in a bold style and used different shades of grey for each word to express which shade they would be if they were only one colour. For example, (here's my nerdy inner graphic designer coming out!) I thought that the word 'chocolate' would be a medium to dark grey because I mainly used milk chocolate which is quite dark in colour in reality, compared with the word 'lemon' which I felt needed to be a light to medium grey to express the refreshing tangy flavour of a lemon, but not too light a grey as it's a flavour that can pack a punch. Back to the real world and away from shades of grey, (sorry!) I designed two labels- the top label told of the product and the bottom of descriptive suggestions of perfect accompaniments/how to eat them/anecdotes in a friendly, informal tone of voice.

I really wanted to bundle them all up into a nice basket, but my quest for the perfect shallow basket throughout December, hindered by the heavy snowfall which cuts my house off from civilisation and basket shopping was unsuccessful. So I used some free tall tins my Mum had won from previous cat shows (yes, there is such a thing) and kindly gave me. Here's what it all looked like.

Christmas was rather good this year, even though I spent most of it in the kitchen! I got some lovely cookery related presents, including the love bakery cookbook, a digital measuring spoon, various shapes of cookie cutter, cake stands, a pasta machine and a WAFFLE IRON!!!! I've wanted one for ages and ages. I just have a thing about waffles. A strange but delicious obsession! So far, I've made plain waffles with cheese and ham on top and blueberry and cinnamon waffles (pictured on the right), topped with ice cream and maple syrup. Wonderful waffles. I would make more, but my waffle iron makes four at a time (you can't make single ones) so I have to wait for more than one waffle request which is from myself. My next waffle plan is to make chocolate brownie ones. Heart attack, here I come...it will be so worth it!

For New Year's Eve, we had some family friends visit us and we had a sophisticated dinner party. Dad made a crab and cheese souffle and I made stuffed breast of lamb for the main course. I also made two puddings, a Heston Blumenthal Waitrose recipe of spiced popping candy chocolate tart and a meringue roulade. The roulade was delicious and the tart was alright, but I didn't have the right sized cake ring for it and it didn't turn out particularly well. It tasted alright, but I don't think I'd make it again. But you have to experiment and try these things, eh!

I also had my traditional annual get together of some of my friends from Junior School. Unfortunately, one of them couldn't make it due to illness, but the rest of us still had a good time. I planned a three course dinner party and greeted Rosie and Briony with a cupcake tree. Using my new love bakery cupcake recipe book, I made 23 cupcakes for my new wire cupcake stand which consisted of red velvet cupcakes and cosmopolitan 'cuptails' (basically a cupcake version of the cocktail). I'd never made either before, but both were delicious. I preferred the cuptails as they had a surprise filling of cranberry jam. I'd never tried red velvet cake before and it was ok, but I'm not a big fan of cream cheese frosting. I much prefer buttercream.

Red velvet cupcakes pre-oven.

For the actual dinner, I made a smoked salmon pate served in mini kilner jars, caramelised red onion marmalade and salad with homemade dill and chive wholemeal bread. For the main course, I made cider braised crispy pork belly with mustard cabbage, apple mash, celeriac puree and broccoli and salmon en croute with the same veg for the veggies.

Pudding trio- lemon posset, sticky toffee pudding and hot lemon souffle pudding with a

painted line of crushed sherbet lemon sweets

Pudding was as described above. Overall, not blowing my own trumpet, I thought it went well and was delicious. I had never had pork belly before and it was wonderful. I loved the contrast between the soft meat and crispy skin on top. Mmm mmm mmm! Pudding was my favourite though, as it always is! I tried a different sticky toffee pudding recipe that Masterchef judge, Greg Wallace gives in this month's Good Food magazine, after his extensive sticky toffee research. It's much lighter than other recipes I've tried and as delicious as it was, I think I prefer the heavier version. I liked the relief of the richness of the toffee sauce that the lemon puddings on the plate provided as well.

And that concludes an essay of a blog post! A great foodie 2010 and I'm looking forward to an even better 2011. No news on the job front yet. I'm looking, but hopefully something will arise. I'll tell you a story now. The author of the love bakery cookbook started off by making a batch of 200 cupcakes for her children's school Halloween fair. Then she was inundated with orders from other mums for cakes for their children's parties, then local shops and delis. Now she's running the successful Love Bakery cake shop in London. She has my life! Well, my (fingers crossed) eventual life...I'd love to have a sweet cake shop/cafe type shop, selling beautiful cakes, afternoon teas, a large bookcase with jams, preserves, chutneys and jellies with bunting hanging from the welcoming Farrow & Ball yellow walls. Maybe some lunches too. If she started small with a school fair, what's stopping me from having a similar experience? I know that my future definitely includes cooking and designing. Let's hope that it's something wonderful. Also, one of my new year's resolutions is to post more blogs. So please keep checking back to see what I've been making!

One last thing. This week on Channel 4, the big four of Channel 4, Heston, Hugh, Jamie and Gordon have been promoting the 'Big Fish Fight'. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall has been the main instigator of the campaign to shake up the way we buy fish. The campaign is to raise awareness of diminishing fish stocks and to get us to eat some of the lesser known, and more importantly, sustainable fish, such as dab, herring and coley. The 'big three' fish that we all love to eat are cod, salmon and tuna. Because of this, these fish stocks are rapidly declining. Please try and change this by not buying your favourite fish and try something new. Part of Hugh's campaign is to get the 'mackerel bap' onto your chippie's menu. Try it instead of your usual cod and chips. Mackerel is both sustainable and delicious. Also because of stupid EU quota laws, up to half of all fish caught in the North Sea are thrown back dead as 'discard'. Fishermen are simply not allowed to bring back certain fish which is perfectly good and delicious. Ridiculous!!! So please, even if you don't eat fish very often, don't like it at all, but care about the fact that millions of fish are dying pointlessly and want to make a difference, please sign this petition and get everyone you know to do so. Go to http://www.fishfight.net/ and join the other half a million people who care. Thank you. As Jamie says, 'there will be plenty of fish in the sea, so long as you choose the right ones'.

Better late than never...

So, it's been a while since I last blogged. Apologies for the lateness of an update of what I've been up to. I was quite busy after the diploma with visiting relatives and having fun up in London, catching up with some University friends and general unemployed life. Then when I finally had some spare time, the internet connection at home proved too slow and then broke. Anyhoo, enough of the excuses, I'm updating now!

The question is then, what have I been up to? The answer, lots and lots of cooking! The weekend following my diploma finishing, my family had our annual August Bank Holiday barbecue. Dad handles the meat and fire (me man, me make fire, me cook...) and I handle the sweeter side of things. However, this time, I used my newly found baking skills and made a variety of breads including a rosemary and sea salt focaccia, white baguettes and a wholemeal bloomer.

They certainly went down well! With every barbecue/large food event such as Christmas and Easter, I strive to make a smorgasbord of orgasmic puddings. As many as possible. Plus then, Mum and I enjoy pigging out on the left-overs the next day. I made a total of eight puddings for about thirty people. They all went apart from a little bit! I made a white chocolate and honeycomb surprise cheesecake, elderflower and sparkling white wine summer fruit jelly, white chocolate parfait, refreshing fruit salad, plain and sultana scones, peach tart tatin, lemon tart and a sumer fruit pavlova. Unfortunately, my lemon tart cracked and looked more like the Grand Canyon than a tart. Boohoo! I overcooked it a little bit and it cracked horrifically. It tasted lovely though!

The next day, my friend Katie came over and we had a left over lunch, including a home-made pizza topped with mountains of cheese, torn beef burger, olives and rocket. The top of it was a little soggy- I like it like that, but it needed to be cooked a bit more. However, it was delicious! I still need to master my pizza cooking skills, but I hope that will come with practice.

I've also been tackling a key lime pie. I used a Jamie Oliver recipe which was quite good. Not as good as another recipe I've tried, but this one wasn't bad.

My friend Davey T came down to visit for a couple of days a few weeks ago and we showcased our cooking skills. We made a Hairy Bikers' recipe- Somerset Chicken which is not for those on a diet as it contains cider, a lot of cream and even more cheese! Absolutely delicious though. We tackled a baked alaska using jamaica ginger cake (one of my favourite sweet things to eat yum yum), vanilla ice cream, fresh fruit, an Italian meringue and a caramel sauce. It was fabulous, but the caramel sauce was just a little too sweet.

Davey T found a recipe online for 'sticky lemon rolls with a lemon cream cheese glaze' and we set out about making them for breakfast. The fundamentals of creating them are similar to chelsea buns which I was used to, as I made them at school, but with a little lemon zest added in. The rolling of the dough log to then be cut into rolls proved tricky as the filling was very wet. But we managed it. After letting them prove, we lovingly baked them. Once risen and golden, we drizzled the cream cheese on top, sprinkled on some lemon zest and then devoured them. They were absolutely delicious! The sticky filling had oozed down to the bottom of the tray and had been soaked up by the rolls as they baked so that when you bit into them you got an intense hit of lemony goodness. Fantastic! Not the healthiest thing to have for breakfast, but your taste-buds certainly won't be disappointed!

Cinnamon rolls with sultanas and a cinnamon icing

It was recently my 23rd birthday, so I decided to celebrate by making some calorific treats! I made a heart attack cake- a rich chocolate cake with a chocolate ganache icing with flakes, assorted Terry's chocolate orange segments and Thornton's chocolates. You could only have a small piece though as it was so rich, but oh so yummy. I also made some cinnamon rolls with a cinnamon icing for breakfast. I improvised with the recipe, using the lemon roll recipe and working around it. The experimental rolls weren't bad- needed to be a little gooey-er, but satisfying and tasty.

Then a few days later, it was my cousin's birthday, so I made him some orange birthday cupcakes with an orange buttercream icing and some decorated gingerbread men. Considering I've never made gingerbread before, they turned out pretty well.

So now what? I'm going to get moving and try and crack into the cooking world. Or at least become employed. I'm going to try and get some experience in a professional kitchen and see if I like it or not. From then I'll be able to decide what to do next. Maybe start out as a Commis chef? I'd love to package my own product. Hannah's puddings?! Maybe not that name but we'll see! Watch this space...

Graduation

So, here it is. The final day of the diploma course August 2010. I was quite sad today. No more legitimate excuses to overindulge. Now it's just pigging out and feeling guilty about it. Day 20 has come around so quickly. It seems like just yesterday, we were starting out, with Darrin introducing us to what's coming up. The final menu consisted of making sushi in the morning, the 45 minute exam after lunch, certificate presentation, then photographs and farewells. Joe and Phil were with us for the last day.

The first order of the day was for Joe to show us how to make sushi. It's a common mistake that people make to think that the word sushi means raw fish. Sushi is actually the name of the rice used. Sashimi is raw fish. We used salmon and loin of tuna. Tuna fish swim with dolphins because their main predator is sharks, who are scared of dolphins, so the dolphins act as kind of bodyguards for the tuna. The reason you often see 'dolphin friendly' on tuna cans is because some tuna is caught by using nets, which catch the dolphins too. Then the fishermen often sell the dolphin meat on the black market. We used grade A tuna which cost £60! The higher the grade in tuna, the tighter the flesh fibres are knitted together. You should use grade A when making sashimi as otherwise when you cut the tuna, it will just fall apart and be no good for your meal.

We made a textured egg pancake, which was just made of egg yolks, but really thin layers which were then rolled over and over each other. It was used in our sashimi making and can be used for vegetarian sushi as all of the layers imitate the layers of fish and also give you protein. Cooking sushi rice is an art in itself. You have to let it gently simmer for 13 minutes precisely once boiled and then take it off the heat to steam for 10 minutes, leaving the lid on at all times. Then spread it out on a tray to cool it down immediately, to stop bacteria growing on it and making you ill. Phew!

After Joe showed us what to do, we were let loose to play. Sushi making is really fun and once you get going, you can whip them up rather speedily. We made maki which uses tuna, cucumber, egg pancake and red pepper, Californian rolls which use salmon and avocado strips, and nigiri which are sushi rice balls/ovals which are tied together with nori (strips of dried seaweed 'paper'). You can put wasabi in the rolls if you wish, but I didn't want to as it's so strong and really hits your sinuses hard. I had a tiny bit on a bit of raw tuna which Phil gave me and boy, was it hot!!! After lunch, Jonny had a large pea sized amount of wasabi. Big mistake!! He went bright red and was coughing and didn't look good! Evil stuff, wasabi.

We also made a teriyaki marinade for the rabbit loins that we had taken off Bugs Bunny previously in the course. We pan fried the loins on skewers and then reduced some extra marinade to go yummy and sticky. So then it was time for the final lunch.

Maki, Californian rolls, nigiri, a teriyaki rabbit skewer, soy sauce, pickled ginger and wasabi

I didn't eat the wasabi- I put it on the plate just for decoration. That much wasabi would blow my head off! Did you know that the Japanese eat pickled ginger in between different flavours to act as a palate cleanser? I really enjoyed the sushi and sashimi. I've only had sushi once before and can't really remember it, but I've decided that I do like it. Delightful. The rabbit teriyaki skewer was absolutely delicious too. I love teriyaki anything. Yum yum yum! Whilst we were eating, Joe and Phil were outside the dining room- it kind of looked like we were exhibits at a zoo and they were visiting us!

After lunch, it was exam time! I had revised a bit the night before and had read my theory notes as I got them as a bit of bedtime reading, so I thought I'd do alright. It wasn't too bad actually and I got 85 out of 100! Joe said that anything over 76 was first class. Woohoo!! I wasn't bottom of the class and I wasn't top. Margaret got 90.5. Well done MGT! Then we had our certificates presented to us, along with a snazzy apron and it was time to say goodbye and go home.

So, that's it. 20 days of intense cookery knowledge and experience. Completely worth the money and time and I'm so glad that I did it. Diploma: done. Now what?!!

I'd like to thank everyone taking the time to read my blog and hope you've enjoyed it. I've definitely enjoyed rambling on about this nut and that scone. Just the way I am! I'm going to keep this blog going, updating it with different things I make (but only if it's photo-worthy!) But probably not everyday. My everyday life isn't as exciting as it has been for the past month! Maybe a weekly blog. And I'll update about anything cookery related that I do, for example, hopefully my journey of cracking into the culinary world professionally!

Here's to the diploma course of August 2010. It's been a fantastic month!

And now, the end is near...

...and so I face the final curtain...

The penultimate day of the cookery course brought Stuart back to teach us one last time. It was good to see him- we hadn't had him for 3 weeks as he'd been on holiday. He said that we all looked at bit fatter. I really hope not! But I fear that he may be right...September is definitely diet month for me!

So, day 19 was Mediterranean Day. It was quite a light day, not too strenuous. Maybe the chefs were giving us a break as it was almost the end of an intensive month and from the past two manic days. On the menu was tapas for lunch and a Morrocan lamb tagine with minted couscous for supper, followed by a honey and greek yogurt panna cotta with roasted figs for pudding. Stuart showed us how to make the panna cotta, then we prepared the marinade for the lamb and we got cracking with the tapas. We made four different things. A Spanish tortilla/omelette, orange and red onion salad, tiger prawns with a rosemary and anchovy butter and shrimp fritters. Yum yum.

The salad was very different from a typical salad you'd expect. It had red onions, orange segments, sunflower seeds, raspberry vinegar, sultanas and almonds. I really liked the raspberry flavour, but I don't particularly like raw onion. The shrimp fritters were really good and the prawns with the anchovy butter were fabulous. The tortilla was fantastic too. Lots of nice flavours. We had a little pudding too- Donna and James' left over puddings. Chocolate pots and chocolate cointreau mousse. They were divine. Especially when combined on the spoon.

After lunch, we were allowed to play with tuilles. Tuilles are basically thin biscuits that are used to garnish a dish, usually puddings, although you can get savoury ones. Stuart said that he once did veal tuilles to go with a main course. I played around and made some shapes- some ready made shapes and some freehand. I made a spoon and a knife by myself, but couldn't do the complete cutlery set as a fork was just too difficult. Maybe I'll create my own stencils to make some really good looking cutlery?!

We started the tagine and put it in the oven to slow cook and break down the meat and bring out all the different flavours whilst we were having a revision session in the afternoon. Stuart made the mistake of giving us some big pots of chocolate buttons to help us revise and give us a sugar rush to wake us up. They didn't last long. The purpose of the revision session was to review any bits of theory over the course and to prepare us for the FIFTY QUESTION EXAM tomorrow afternoon!!!! Poor Stuart, he kept trying to move on from each theory section and we kept throwing questions at him. He handled it well though. We also had a cheese quiz. I only got a few answers right, including one about yarg cheese. Going to university in Cornwall has paid off! (I'm only joking- I loved my time at uni) Anyhoo, then we went into the kitchen to finish our tagines and prepare the couscous.

Moroccan lamb tagine with minted couscous

I don't think I've ever had a tagine before, but i really liked it. Lovely flavours- it was delicious. I even liked the dried soaked apricots which were in there and I normally hate that kind of thing. I would definitely make it again.

Before pudding, I shall give you the answers to the wine quiz that I gave you yesterday.

1. There are over 10,000 wine grape varieties existing in the world today. Can you believe that?!

2. It takes about 600 grapes to make a standard bottle of wine.

3. Italy is the world's largest producer of wine. It overtook France in 2008 and produces just under 10 billion litres of vino a year. Wow!

Pudding was also delicious. Greek yogurt and honey panna cotta with orangey roasted figs and tuille biscuits. The panna cotta was very silky smooth and the figs were wonderful. I loved the orangey syrup that we made to go with it too. The tuilles were great and gave a different texture to break up the smoothness of the panna cotta and soft figs. Unfortunately, my biscuit spoon broke in the heat of the kitchen and made it go a bit soggy, so I had to sacrifice it (by this I mean eat it) and replace it with a biscuit twirl.

Overall, a relatively stress free day and very enjoyable. All completely yummy and satisfying. Plus I loved the extra chocolate treats we had. Tomorrow is the last day of the course. I can't believe how quickly it's gone! I really don't want it to end, but as they say, all good things must come to an end.

Shot of wine?

So today, day 18, it was our turn to relax, taste various wines and enjoy food that other people had been slaving away on all day. Sounds perfect to me! We all turned up at 11, after having a lovely lie-in. The team of Donna, Margaret, Jose, Amy and Jonny were working in the kitchen and looked rather stressed, probably how we looked to them yesterday! So, Matt was telling us all about wines today. We began with white wines. Matt tested us on recognising smells. We had ten little bottles of certain essences/flavours and had to decipher what each one was. Some were flowers, some were not. It's very difficult to tell what something is, just by sniffing it. I was pretty rubbish at it. I only got two out of ten right! Unfortunately, I seem to have developed a cold and today it was well timed for when I actually needed to use my nose! After a lot of guessing, Matt told us the answers. It made so much sense once we knew what it was as we sniffed it. Obviously. The bottles had all sorts of smells in them, including grapefruit, butterscotch, vanillan oak, melon and peach. Then it was on to trying the vino. Two glasses before lunch? Yes please!We tried various whites, including a Montelciego Rioja Blanco, Paua Bay Sauvignon Blanc and a Siegel Reisling. The Reisling was my favourite of them all. Quite sweet, so I don't know if it would be to everyone's taste, but I prefer sweeter wines. Then, just in time, before the wine went totally to our heads, the risottos came out for lunch.

Their task for the risotto was the s

ame as ours yesterday. This one was Margaret's which was very pretty and I appreciated the thought that had gone into it and the parmesan crisp on top, but it was a little stodgy and it shouldn't have been able to stand up in the ring. It was my favourite out of all of the risottos and quite creative, using red wine, giving it a lovely colour. I enjoyed all of the risottos. Many of them used goats' cheese in them which gave them a lovely creamy flavour. We had no idea whose food was whose, just as the tasters had no idea yesterday. We all debated together what comments to give and what to score them. We scored each dish out of five for presentation, taste and creativity. I tried to give constructive criticism, some points to improve on and what I liked about the food.

Throughout the day, we had flavoured breads. We had three focaccias, a spiced bread and a brown bread with tomatoes. My favourite of the breads was Amy's bread which was the only one to give us a dip of olive oil and balsamic dip which I appreciated. It was a shame though, as some of the breads came out straight from the oven and so were steaming hot, which isn't good for your digestion. But they were all tasty.

Then it was time for the starters, using scallops as the main ingredient. There were some with bacon and garlic, some with a basil pesto which was unusual but tasty and some with a saffron sauce. Jonny's was my favourite. He made scallops with parisian potatoes, crispy bacon and a lemon butter. It was quite delicious.

After the starter, it was time to change to red wine. We had another sniff test, this time of red wine elements. I got none out of ten right. Whoops! I assure you that it was rather difficult to tell what each one was. Then we tried some red wines. I much prefer white wine to red, but there were a few that I could definitely drink rather easily. This particular one, chateau La Roca from France was very smooth and velvety. Mmm. There is just so much to learn about wine. Grape growers keep crossing grapes to make new varieties. I'm going to give you a little quiz now, to see how much you know about wine. I shall reveal the answers tomorrow!

1. How many varieties of wine grapes exist in the world today?

a. 1-99 b. 100-200 c. 1,000-2,000 d. over 10,000

2. Approximately how many grapes does it take to make a standard bottle of wine?

a. 100 b. 300 c. 600 d.1,000

3. Who is the world's largest producer of wine?

a. France b. America c. Australia d. Italy

Main course time, where the chefs had to use rump of lamb. I would have liked to have seen some braising of the lamb, but everyone had roasted it. It was all very yummy. My favourite was Donna's. She had made some delicious duck fat roasted rosemary potatoes which were amazing. The sauce with it was fantastic too.

Last, but not least, it was pudding time. I think that this was the best course collectively. There was a chocolate and walnut cake, chocolate pot with a white chocolate and cointreau sauce and some fabulous orange biscuits, mocha ice cream, white chocolate and lemon tart with white chocolate sauce, chocolate and cointreau mousse and chocolate brownies. My favourite was again, Donna's amazing chocolate pot. The orange biscuits tasted so good and had a wonderful orangey fragrant flavour and the sauce was amazing. Mmm mmm mmm!

So then it was time for Joe to give us some feedback on all of us. We also got all of our score cards from the tasters back to see how we were scored and give us some constructive criticism. Just as I thought, my risotto was undercooked, my rosti wasn't crispy enough, my bread needed a bit more oomph, but my chilli jam seemed to be good. Not sure if anyone noticed my secret ingredient?! Apparently my pork was well seasoned, my calamari was good and my pudding went down well. Joe said that my presentation was really good throughout and I had some good flavours. Then Joe and Matt announced a winner from the two days from our scores. The winner would win a bottle of champagne. All of our scores were totted up and...it was very close, but it turns out that I won!! I couldn't quite believe it actually. I thought that some of my mistakes would have cost me, but apparently not enough. I'm so pleased! And very proud of everyone else. It has been a wonderful couple of days and I've thoroughly enjoyed myself.

Tomorrow is Mediterranean day. Tapas for lunch, anyone?