Well, Halloween came and went. We dressed up as zombies, ate cake (I made carrot cake muffins and a chocolate gingerbread – both Nigella and both yummy) and vodka jelly and went out. I mananged to flake out at 1 o’clock which was a bit pathetic.
Some (slightly fuzzy) pictures:
One of the students organised an awesome beach barbeque for us all as a thank you to the staff and as our first farewell party.We had spit-roasted piglet which was yummy, although a bit disturbing watching it being prepared!
The piglet is prepared
Poor piggy
The sun finally comes out!
Week 10 has flown by and suddenly I have 2 weeks to go. I am really enjoying it here, but I’m also getting impatient to go home now. It can get a bit boring being somewhere so quiet for 3 months, especially without any transport!
The main focus of this week has been our 3 course menus for our final exam. We have 3 lots of exams in total: a practical exam (the biggest chunk of the marks), a wine exam and a written exam (3 papers). Now that I think about it, there are a lot of 3s! Our wine exam is on Wednesday morning and our written papers are on the Friday of week 12. Our practical exam is over 3 hours and mine is the Wednesday of week 12, at 9am. I’m absolutely terrified!
Anyway, we had to hand in our final menus and ingredient lists on Friday, so it’s completely set in stone now. Our menus are meant to be balanced, themed (not like a pirate theme or something, just ‘a farewell dinner’ and things like that), seasonal (or using ingredients we have in the glass houses at the moment) and we are also trying to showcase how much we’ve learned. They also have to be Ballymaloe recipes. With that in mind, my menu is……. (drum roll please)………….
Roasted beetroot, Ardsallagh goat’s cheese, rocket and balsamic vinegar
***
Chargrilled chicken paillarde (butterflied chicken breast) with aioli, roasted cherry tomates and couscous with pinenuts
A green salad with Italian salad dressing (lemon juice and olive oil)
***
Mini lemon sponge (told you I’d get it in!), vanilla bean ice cream and fresh raspberry sauce
So there you go. Now all I have to do is practice it, write a time plan and hopefully manage to cook and present it in 3 hours without completely breaking down and having to be carried off to some kind of institution. I chose things I really like to cook which I hope will help, but I’m nervous already so God knows what I’ll be like on the day. Best not to think about that I reckon.
Other than that, this week has been pretty good. I made puff pastry for the first time which worked out really well (I’ve got a load of it in the fridge so I’d better do something with that…), jointed a duck (very similar to a chicken), made a really nice sponge cake and iced it really badly and made a bunch of other things that I can’t bring to mind right now. Next week we get to do steak and lobster (not on the same day, that would be ridiculously decadent), pork loin and pork belly and on Wednesday afternoon our demo is made up of student suggestions. I suggested paella and we’re doing it, so I’m pleased about that.
Reports on the wine exam when it’s over. I’m sure it’ll be fine…
p.s. The picture above is one of the chickens sitting in the chicken food skip, see how many disgusting things you can spot. There is definitely a carcass of some description.
The birthday girl and her cakes
A treasure chest of sandwiches (ridiculous, but in a good way)
Elderflower champagne
Absolutely insane people (I did not join them)
It’s the end of week 9, which means I only have 3 weeks left – only 2 of which involve lectures and cooking as far as I know – eek! I don’t feel very prepared for exams in a couple of weeks.
Week 8 was pretty uneventful, up until Thursday when Dunc and some of my friends came to stay. I spent the entire week being very impatient (not helped by 2 theory days in a row). We had a really good time when they finally got here and it was awesome to see them all (Dunc especially). It was my birthday on the Friday, so I took the afternoon off school and we had a really nice afternoon on the beach.
I got some very nice presents (including a new DS lite from Dunc with Zelda – woop!) and made some very good ice cream, so all in all it was a good day. We went to the pub in the evening and then came to the school for pizza on the Saturday. The rest of the weekend was pretty quiet – it was Helen’s birthday on Sunday so I cooked birthday tea of veggie chilli and mixed berry fool. I completely blagged the quantities for the fool but it turned out pretty well in the end.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t pursuade them all to abandon their jobs and come live here for the next 4 weeks, so they’ve all gone home now. I had a minor sulk about it, but it’s only 3 weeks now until I get back so I’m not too sad.
Week 9 went well, although it got very hectic. I’ve developed a bit of an addiction to thai rice noodles in soup after eating them on Monday. Noodle soup is definitely one of the best foods ever. I cooked an incredibly sickly toffee meringue, some granary bread and brown yeast bread, a thai red curry and some laksa. I also made ciabatta. I’ve started my ciabatta tonight by making a biga, which is a bit like a sourdough starter. You mix a tiny bit of yeast, water and flour and then leave it to rise over 12-24 hours. Mine turned out really well, although I should have given it another 5 minutes in the oven. Unfotunately I won’t be able to make it at home; the dough is so sticky that you can only knead it in a mixer (a Kenwood/Kitchen Aid type) and I don’t have the necessary funds to buy one at the moment!
We seem to be getting to all the exciting breads now – we’ve learned brioche, ciabatta and croissants in the past couple of weeks. They all take two days, but it’s definitely worth the effort – they’re so much better than the shop bought ones. We’ve also done some really nice Indian breads. I especially liked poori.
This weekend has gone by very quickly. Went to the pub on Friday in Ballycotton. They had a DJ in who seemed to be a fan of 90’s pop which was very bizarre. Needless to say I spent most of the time sitting outside because the place was packed with people dancing. VERY strange. On Saturday, 3 of the boys put on a really great meze style barbeque for Glenny’s birthday. We had lamb kebabs, home-made pittas, loads of dips and salads made by various people and of course some lemon and orange fairy cakes made by yours truly. It was a really fun night and the food was amazing – I’m definitely going to miss nights like that when I leave!
Next week looks like it should be interesting – we’re doing rack of lamb, mussels, lots of salads (Ballymaloe House buffet-style) and the sushi demo I came to see last year. I’m looking forward to seeing it again as a student.
3 weeks to go! I’ll try to post more regularly, but I think I’m going to have to start revising at some point soon so might be a bit busy. Apparently my wine exam is in a week and a half – pretty sure I’m going to fail but you never know. Eep!
p.s. Here’s a couple of pics of my house – a bit late but never mind!
