House of Mannanan

After a quick turn-around after cookery school it was down to Peel to do a dinner at the House of Mannanan. The only small problem being that there was no kitchen to from and initiall...no lighting! You can see me working in the dungeon once we got some lights hooked up


Candy from Finishing Touches had the table all set up.....ooh doesn't it look lovely. Candy was also very helpful with the 'no kitchen' issue. Her house is just round the corner so I finished cooking the main (Lamb Tagine) in her oven and then ferried it to the job where I had a hot cupboard. Easy!
Mmmm canapes. I love canapes!!! I love making them all cute and pretty.......oh and eating them of course. Here we have frittata with roasted tomatoes and wild garlic flowers. I got the idea for these as I was driving home on Thursday and saw the flowers absolutely everywhere. Aren't they gorgeous?

Starter was big sharing platters of hot and cold smoked salmon with pots of dill + mustard mayo and lovely crusty bread. Mmmm mmmmmmmmmmm

Day 4 @Ashburton - Ham hock tartlet with salad

Lurking under the garnish is a beatifully crumbly tart with a very rich filling of ham hock, spring onion, cheese and plenty of cream. There is no chance of Devonshire dairy farmers going out of business whilst this cookery school is in operation.

The tart was garnished with salad leaves and a simple vinaigrette

Vichysoisse

Vichysoisse = Posh leek and potato soup
Here I am making mine look even posher with a lovely cream finish. You make it posh by cutting up your veg lickle-ickle and then blending it so it is super smooth

This was absolutely delicious. Key to getting the flvour in was taking the time to sweat the onion, leek and potato, plus using your homemade top-notch chicken stock (which we did on Day 1). And yes those are my perfectly formed buns lurking in the background ;o)

Antipasti plate

Mmmmmmozzarella, it is so delicious. We're ecking the remains of the food we have left in at the moment because I'm going away for a couple of weeks on Sunday. It is nice to see that we can stil conjure up a decent meal despite not going to the shops since Saturday. Where am I going on Sunday? I'm sure you're dying to know. Well I'm off to do two weeks of cookery training at Ashburton Cookery School www.ashburtoncookeryschool.co.uk can't wait! I will post and take pics while I'm there so expect some beautiful food on here from Monday (and if I mess up my dishes I can always pretend other people's are mine hehehe).

So ......back to dinner.......pepper and baby tomatoes go into a baking dish, brush with olive oil, add salt and pepper. Roast at 160 degrees fan..........fall asleep on sofa.........wake up and stumble to oven to find slightly overdone vegetables. Tear mozzarella and basil and arrange on plate with remains of vegetables. Drizzle with olive oil and eat

No chocolate cookies tonight......I miss them :o(