Piggy In The Middle

Woke up feeling so-so, not 100% but not any worse at least, layered up under my chef coat (cold, cold cold) and headed for Kitchen 3 which I've been waiting to be in since I first arrived, so glad it's my last kitchen, it's gorgeous (as kitchens go), looks out onto the fields and I just love it.

Not a bad morning, by comparison to last Friday at any rate it was an absolute stroll in the park - I made brioche dough which has to spend a night languishing lazily in the fridge so we'll see it if actually worked tomorrow, fingers crossed.

My starter was the spicy aubergine dish from last week, I layerd it with some soft goat's cheese, my best thing, and a few rocket leaves - customer feed back was excellent (I had it for my lunch, no bias involved).

And for main course, I roasted some pork belly (now that's what you call a muffin top, the layers and layers of fat that piggy had, my word, SuperSize Me doesn't begin to explain it) and it went with the Barbie pink cabbage, yum, and the braised artichokes.

Demo was with Darina and it was a buffet-themed day so masses of salads (cauliflower, mushroom with caramelised onions, potato, carrot, broccoli, and more), roasted meats and finally, finally, the praline ice cream which we'd tasted in our first week and which we've all been waiting on ever since then, I've no words to tell you how good it is and it doesn't even need an ice cream machine so there's (very sadly) no excuse not to make it - there were a few variations too, rum and raisin (my dad's best, will have to make that for him) and honeycomb (with homemade honeycomb - as one of the students said, wouldn't it just be easier to lick all the chocolate off a Crunchie??). I'm making that one tomorrow, sincerely hope it'll all work..................

There were also some gorgeous poached pears which I love, kumquat compote (try and say that quickly a few times for laughs......), a few pea soups, one with coriander and a touch of chilli (although the recipe was misread today in error and the final result could have been used by NASA to launch rockets).

I'm off to bed again now, sorry to be a bit useless, still not feeling quite right and so badly want to get rid of this cold.

P.S. Exactly one month today until your man arrives to visit, not long to go now, YAY!!!