New Beginnings

Stop press. After years of wanting to go to Leiths School of Food and Wine, I start on Monday. I have my uniform, books, and equipment, now all I need is my timetable.

Text books for Leiths

Being completely honest with you, I don't know what form this blog will take while I'm studying there. I know I've been remiss in not posting much during my final year at Manchester, however, I hope that being surrounded by food will make it easier to write a quick post than when I was besieged by French essays. If you want more regular updates then check out my Instagram @GorgeousGateaux where there'll be lots of photos of my daily life.

Mustn't let my hand cramp

Just after my exams ended I attended the wedding of my friend Malyha and was honoured to make her wedding cake. It was a nerve-wracking exercise but, with the help of her family, I think we pulled it off and the cake made it the journey to London in one piece.

The Last Month (Time Has Flown)

Last Sunday it was the first anniversary of this blog and I realised I hadn’t posted for a while due to a busy summer. Well, I’m going to rectify this today with  a catch up of my holidays. This might not be posted for a few days as I currently don’t have reliable internet but as soon as I can I promise to upload this! 

I last posted when I was in Sweden. We had a fantastic two weeks there and the food, well, it was brilliant. If you ever go to Stockholm then I recommend you eat at Oaxen Slip, which is on the same island as the ABBA museum (also worth a visit for the hilarity of it all. And the chance to pretend you’re part of the band). The menu is intended to be shared but you could quite easily have a plate each and just share the sides. We each chose a dish and then tried each others’. I had pork with spring onion butter and a charred lemon, so simple yet full of flavour. My family chose cod with hazelnuts, Swedish beef sausage, and a steak. All tasted fantastic. For me, the anticipated dessert, and the reason I chose the restaurant, having spotted it on Rocket and Squash’s instagram, was a salted caramel brownie with ice cream and sour cream. Boy, did it live up to expectations! The warm brownie was light and gooey with the sour cream being a perfect, if unusual, foil to the chocolate sweetness. 

School's Out For The Summer!

I'm a cook!!

I have a job! And a flat in France! And it's summer! And Very Hot! As you can probably tell, I'm excited and busy. First things first, I am moving to Poitiers in September for a year, as you may already know, and I went there with mum a couple of weeks ago to find somewhere to live. Well, we expected it to be really difficult but by some miracle we loved the first flat we saw and got that one. It's lovely and spacious and right in the centre of town. The weather on the weekend we were there was gorgeous, and there were some amazing markets that are on every day/week so I won't be short of ingredients for new recipes to share with you. You can see in the photo below what it was like.

Poitiers

Pizza Party

I'm packing up my flat at the moment, ready to move back home for the summer, but I thought I'd take a break and quickly write a new recipe for you. I'm going to really miss Manchester when I leave, which, for those of you who knew my feelings before I arrived, is quite surprising. Coming from a small town and then a very safe big city (Singapore) I thought crime ridden Manchester would leave me refusing to leave my room apart from to go to lectures to stay safe. Well, one thing I learnt quickly is that Manchester and Greater Manchester are different and if you're sensible and somewhat cautious (not waving your phone around on street corners etc) then it's a great place to live and study. Summer is looking very busy and then my next adventure begins - I am studying in Poitiers for a year so you will have some French produce orientated recipes to come, as well as many of my favourites.

 

A Long Awaited Recipe!

* Argh! This was supposed to go up at the start of this week! I'm so sorry it's late. I've just finished my last exam and I'm packing for a trip to London and then home for mum's birthday. I hope you enjoy this recipe and forgive me for the delay.

I only have one exam left! Whooooo! Unfortunately it's also the longest/hardest but we'll skip that for now.* Today I am going to share with you a recipe for Thai Green Curry so that you can finally put that curry paste recipe from last month to good use. I don't know why it's taken me so long to post this - I think I just always thought I already had, as it's one of my favourite meals. It's really easy to make and if you don't want to make your own paste then I'd probably recommend Mae Ploy as the paste to use - you can buy it from Tesco and Asian supermarkets as well as probably others. It's a large pot and will last for ages but once you've made your own curry pastes then I can promise that you won't go back. 

A Taste of Summer

Baby it's cold outside, but the food is so delightful. I know it's freezing and there's been a fair bit of snow around here but these tarts are scrumptious and will make you feel like you're in the med (provided you're heating's turned up!) wherever in the world you are - hi to the people who are reading my blog elsewhere in the world - it's very exciting to see that people in New Zealand, Canada and Germany amongst other places are perusing my blog. What do you think of it?

A few days ago I showed you how to make pesto from scratch. There was a reason for that, other than the fact that it's delectable. I found a recipe in delicious. for pesto tarts that I thought would be perfect for a light lunch with my friends whilst we revised (especially if you serve it with a salad). Alternatively you could make individual ones for an elegant starter at your next dinner party. If you're going to make them individually then you will have left over puff pasty that I suggest you cut into little shapes and top them with something like sundries tomato paste or cheese and serve as canapés so that it's not wasted. One 320g box of ready rolled puff pastry will, with careful fitting, make 14cm circular tartlets (I used a small breakfast bowl as a guide). The way that I'm suggesting you make it should serve 3-4 people as a light meal and makes sure that nothing is wasted.