Mmmmmmmmm, as predicted, Tuesday was a bit of a nightmare - between the blasted lasagne, another meringue dish, a date tart and the cursed marmalade, it was manic and on top of everything, just utterly utterly freezing, just before 11h00 it was still -3 degrees, just not on! I was layered up so heavily I looked like the Michelin man and trying to knead my pasta was a bit of a laugh, what with me hardly being able to move my arms and everything.
I started promptly at 8 but everything just took forever - my marmalade recipe told me it had to boil for 8 to 10 minutes before it would be set and could be bottled, well mine was having a laugh and had absolutely no intention of setting, I was dashing back and forth to the fridge every 10 minutes or so to spoon a bit onto a cold plate, leave it for a short time, dash back again and see whether it had set and invariably it hadn't - took over an hour, I was ready to chuck spoonfuls of gelatine at it by then but it finally did it's thing and turned into grown up, proper marmalade, YAY!
The lasagne was equally traumatic - it was lasagne verde so green pasta made with fresh spinach which is a mission to handle because it's quite damp whereas pasta should normally be really dry so I spent a quality half hour at the pasta machine, armed with a large bowl of flour and semolina to keep throwing at it to stop it getting too soggy, rolled it all out really thinly, and then cooked it for a minute or two in batches in boiling salted water, then blanched it in cold water and dried it out on kitchen towel, needed a lie down after all that but it still had to be layered up with the ultra-slow cooking ragu meat sauce and the bechamel sauce, bit of parmesan sprinkled along the way and over the top and ta da, finally lasagne, took the whole morning!
Somewhere along the line I managed to make and roll pastry, slice dates to put into it (Medjool dates, they're just the business), fill it up with custard and shove it in the oven and even better, set the timer so I didn't forget about it completely, and then track down some strawberries, slice them, whip cream and put together the meringue thingy too - there was no time for piccies I'm afraid, as it was it was one of my special "finish after 1pm" days and I was utterly wrecked.
Staggered in for a bit of lunch - felt I had to at least try the damn lasagne after it had taken so long and it was fab, I have to say that as much as I adore homemade pasta I'm not sure it extends to lasagne, for everything else - the ravioli, cannelloni, what have you, I'd absolutely make it but I did have a bit of a yearning for good old lasagne sheets that just come out the box.................
Best part of the morning, a flurry of snow mid-morning and everyone raced out to do a bit of a jig in the white stuff, so fab!
Afternoon demo was with Rachel which was lovely, we've not seen her for ages and we had a great afternoon - she whizzed through everything knowing we had our wine exam the next morning at 8 and that some serious cramming was needed by most parties.
We did a few warm salads, one with beef fillet which I loved and a couple more with lambs kidneys which weren't my cup of tea, I'm not a big organ-eater to be honest, and then it was onto the main character of the day, skate or ray - the closest I've got to one of these before has been the aquarium and now the little soul was about to end up on my plate, topped with hollandaise or beurre blanc or something equally yummy and let me tell you, they're not easy to prepare, slippery little buggers and I know this sounds manky, but just so slimy, you wash them and wash them and wash them and even then they're still all goopy and gluey, somehow once they've been poached they're actually quite yum but it takes a while to get there for sure.
For pud, there were a few of my favourite things that I've been waiting to learn for weeks, so glad they appeared on the list at last - tarte tatin and classic crème brûlée, YAY, both just incredible, there was a bit of a tiff with caremelising the crème brûlée because the blow torch was out of gas but Rachel managed in the end, about 3 blow torches later! With our puff pastry which is still making an appearance most days we also did a feuilliteé with berries which is basically layers of puff pastry filled with cream and berries, yum, and then to finish off a couple of handmade truffle choccies, not too shabby for Deb and we managed to get through all that by 5, just in time to race back home and hit the books in a big way.
Darina had arranged for the fires to be lit in all our cottages late afternoon which was just so lovely so when we got home, instead of doing an impersonation of the walk in cold room our little cottage was all warm and toasty - we battled along until just before midnight, trying to sort out all the blasted different regions of France, with a few Italian estates chucked in for fun, we swung down south very briefly for a look at Chile and Australia, back up north for a very brief squizz at Germany and everything in between - bottom line, I'd far rather just drink the stuff!!
Wine exam at 08h00 tomorrow morning, 100 questions multiple choice (or multiple guess, depends which way you look at it), wish us luck...................!
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