Sweethearts

Another gorgeous cloud free day - long may this Indian Summer last, so not what I was expecting in the Emerald Isle.

I went into the kitchen a bit earlier this morning with a view to making a few extra goodies and I managed some of them but never got to the orange cake, will have to give that a bash next week. Kicked off with good old brown bread, trying to make some type of bread every day now since it really does form such a critical part of the course and our final exams and it's pretty foreign to me but if you're going to make it every day then it needs a twist so instead of slapping it into a boring old loaf tin, I made bread scones, gave them all funky toppings and then put them into a cake tin so that they could bond in the oven and come out as one big happy family and YAY, they did just that, look.

Finished off the blasted candied peel and decided that needed a bit of excitement in it's life too so instead of your bog standard little strips of peel in caster sugar, or better yet, choccie, I cut mine out with a little heart cookie cutter and then did the whole sugar/choccie thing, aren't they little sweethearts??

Anyway I struggled home at lunch under the weight of countless jars of candied peel, honestly I've enough to make Christmas cakes for the greater Cork area and likely a bit left over, if you get this for Christmas don't say you weren't warned..............!

Made a Mexican dish that had been on my list today, wasn't my cup of tea to be honest, too much melted cheese but my teacher liked it and it seemed to go down very well at lunch so all good. And then finally I rescued my little summer pud from the fridge - despite the copious nibbling of yesterday morning I had enough sponge cake bits to make a big pud and then a tiny individual one too, in a coffee cup, so I turned that one out for scoring and apparently it was dead right, so fab. Summer pudding isn't a big South African thing and I'm not too familiar with it so I was so pleased that it came out all right - actually I was just pleased it came out at all, had to give the coffee cup a stern talking to and in the end, shove it under the hot tap for a while before it gave in and the pud finally made an appearance on the plate - hence the slightly messy sides which were a result of my increasingly desperate attempts with a palette knife to move it to it's new home.

Lunch was great - I'd been looking forward to the Thai butternut soup and that Mexican salad all morning and they were so worth the wait. My partner this week, Laurie, made the soup and it was fantastic - I spent the better half of my morning hovering over the pot, I'm sure she probably wanted to belt me with the ladle.

Afternoon demo was taken by Rachael Allen for the first time today, Darina's daughter-in-law, and I'm sure many of you know her from the telly - anyway she was great, worked through the recipes in double quick time and gave us all a couple of giggles, it was a good afternoon. She showed us how to make a few green soups which to be honest I wasn't that excited about but WOW, changed my mind faster than a South African taxi driver can cut you off on the highway after I tasted them, so so good - kale, spinach and rosemary, and watercress - she mentioned the lower fat option with olive oil and sans the butter and cream but phew, the full fat version was deadly, I think I'd rather just have less of those ones. We also learnt how to cook loin of bacon and then cut it into chops and pan fry them - I know it sounds a bit boring, good old pork chops but these weren't them, take whatever you've had in the past, chuck it in the bin and make this one instead, these were the five star version and with creamy mashed spring onion mash potatoes, Italian peppers, fried banana and Irish whiskey caramel sauce they were a dinner made in Heaven, my tasting portion disappeared in a flash. She also made a brilliant cabbage salad, a much fresher alternative to good old coleslaw with apple, mint, raisins and a wine vinegar and honey dressing and then for pudding, blackberry, apple and geranium tart with a new type of tart base - no, don't get excited, it might be slightly different ingredients and made in a different way but it's still looks almost as difficult as my favourite old friend, shortcrust pastry.

Scariest part of the day - finding out that the first of our exams is on October 29th and that it's the dreaded Techique Exam - best part of the day, knowing that we're going on "School Tour" tomorrow with Rory (who has begged us not to turn him into a demented tour leader by 18h00) - I suspect that it we retire to the Blackbird pub tomorrow evening for a restoring pint we may well find Rory there putting back a few doubles........) - we'll be visiting the very best suppliers and artisan food makers in Cork and it really is so fab to be "seeing" the ingredients we cook with every day at this stage of their life as such, can't wait - much more on this tomorrow.