Puff pastry, Sausage roles, Tunisian cak

The week just flew by. It started on a very humorous note. Before the practicum starts at 9 am we are allowed to do little projects in either the bread shed or the fermentation room. You may remember Maria the holistic/naturopathic fermentation expert from last week. One of my co students is Kevin from Cork who drives down daily. Sauerkraut is a fermentation product of cabbage. Kevin brought one down for us to make the sauerkraut. Unfortunately Maria was horrified when Kevin showed it to her. Ballymaloe is the centre of organic food in Ireland. She quickly ascertained that he had brought in an aged non organic cabbage from Tesco. She chastised him for his folly. Doug, Bryan and I found it very amusing. He took it all in great stride. The Irish have a good sense of humour.

On the cooking front I kept very busy. Monday I did a Tunisian Orange Cake, Puff pastry and spiced aubergine. The puff pastry was a challenge and I had to get a lot of help from Benita the instructor. Puff pastry is a way of folding butter into pastry and creating a multilayered pastry. It's used in croissants and various pastries. Bakeries now have automatic laminators to make it as it is quite difficult. My pastry was a little too moist so the pastry was sticking. That was partly Benita's fault. The danger is that the butter will start oozing out from the pastry. It wasn't pretty but we got it done. The orange Tunisian cake was easy super moist and very tasty. I enjoyed making it. The eggplant dish went well. You don't have to salt eggplant you just have to fry it in lots of oil so the eggplant doesn't touch the bottom of the saucepan. Tuesday I made sausage rolls using the pastry and also making the sausage. Wednesday we had a talk and tour of the farm regarding organic/sustainable farming. Wednesday I also went into the production area where they make food products that they sell in the shop and in the region. I met some high school students there doing a job shadow and they were from Galloway. I convinced them to sing the Galloway girl with me. It was very touching. Sorry no video or photos. Thursday I made a chocolate souffle cake. with chocolate sauce. It turned out well but they gave us the wrong pan and a third leaked out of the container. I made a courgette recipe. Courgettes are what they call Zucchinis. We are making a lot of these zuchinni recipes as there is an abundance of them. Friday was an easy day. I made roast Kessler and devilled eggs and a loaf of white yeast bread. I can't remember the last time I boiled an egg. Other than Friday, the meals are becoming more complex.

Other than the cooking, we continue to walk down to the beach after the afternoon demonstrations. Doug is a regular and we can usually get some of the other guys to come
We have moved one beach down to Garryvoe as it has a better beach with lifeguards and saunas that some people have been availing themselves of. At 32 CDN, it is a little too expensive. I can only handle a sauna for 10 minutes. Nils the Dane loves these saunas
One night I was walking back by myself and it started pouring rain. I sheltered under a tree. A young woman stopped and offered me a ride. The car was full of stuff as she was moving so I had to hold a bottle of rum and an orchid on my lap while she drove me home. Only in Ireland. Sorry no photo. The only other exciting thing that happened this week was a fox got into the henhouse and killed 25 of the chickens. The door to the chicken coop is controlled electronically and failed. The surviving chickens seem quite traumatized.Read more