Day Four- Wish I'd Cooking Apples...

Hello :)

Here's the amazing view from outside kitchen three in Ballymaloe, the green grass is just perfection.

Four days down, feels like four months, it really does, but I love it. Darina has us signing up for everything so the next few weeks are going to be jam packed. Today, I got to make an apple crumble and was in charge of getting the veggies ready for lunch. It was meant to take me up to 10am, then I was meant to work on other duties but because I had no cooking apples, the tart was still in the oven by lunchtime... then our teacher had a nasty accident and was carted off to A&E... an eventful morning! I've put it down to being one of those mornings and was looking forward to the afternoon.

For lunch, my partner was working on a Casserole Roast Pheasant with Apple and Calbados (Vallee D'Auge):

Pheasant has a tough texture to it, I don't think I'll be cooking it anytime soon- more so because of the amount of work involved in preparing the dish! Morning practical was over, thankfully. I've put this morning down to one of those days whereby everything went wrong and was looking forward to 'Food Hero' aspect of today's demo and our new teacher- Rory O' Connell.

Once a week, Darina has arranged for a local producer, a 'Food Hero', to come and give a short talk about their business to us. This week it was the turn of Jane Murphy of Ardsallagh Goat Farm, an artisan goat cheese producer from Co. Cork. From humble beginnings of one goat 15 years ago, the herd has now grown to several hundred and Jane and her husband supply goats cheese right across Ireland. More information about Janes' business can be found here:

Ardsallagh Goats Cheese

Following Janes' informative chat, Rory O' Connell, the final full time teacher on the course was introduced to us by his sister, Darina- it's very much a family business in Ballymaloe which adds to the warmth of the school. Rory co-founded the school with Darina and worked as head chef in Ballymaloe House for over ten years. Rorys' knowledge of food is just outstanding and every dish he does is a work of art, throughout the demonstration Rory would discuss possible business ventures waiting to be discovered using his recipes. Rory demonstrated a number of different recipes, some of which were:

• Salad of Ardsallagh Goat's Cheese with Rocket Leaves and Lisanley Honey
• Winter Salad of Pomegranates, Persimmons and Pecans
• Chocolate and Hazelnut Tart (seriously, incredible)
• Mummy's Sweet White Scones
• Homemade Jam

More information about Rory can be found here:

Rory O' Connell

My housemates and I went to Castlemartyr in search of somewhere nice to eat, everywhere was finished food for the day so we headed to Garryvoe and ate there. Yummy! Went to the Blackbird in Ballycotton for a nightcap, so I'm mega tired now. Tomorrow is all theory, so no cooking tomorrow but I'm so looking forward to the weekend. I've lots of cooking to do and what a week it's been.


D :)