What a great day!

What a great day I had yesterday on my vegetarian cooking course. I arrived at a lovely large house on a village green. Six of us were taken into the dining room for a cuppa with homemade biscuits and a chat about the course. We were then given a pack of recipes to look through. We were split into two groups of three and had to pick a starter, main and dessert to make together in our group. Hilary, our tutor was going to demonstrate a dessert. Both groups decided they were not pudding eaters so we all decided to make an extra savoury instead.

My group settled on  Starter - cheese & asparagus roulade
                                  Mains - Nut loaf & a Tomato sauce
                                               Tart tatin with red onion

The other group       Starter - Double baked cheese souffle
                                 Mains - Risotto with roasted butternut squash & garlic
                                              Mushroom Gougere

We had a demonstration of little nibbles we could make and we ate these whilst doing our cooking to keep us going. Then it was all hands on and getting stuck in to some cooking. We had a great time and it was lots of fun. We all got to know each other and all worked well as a team. We did not even have to do any washing up, Hilary and her staff did all this. Finally at about 2.15pm we had made everything and were ushered into the dining room to a lovely set table to eat our creations. Hilary and her staff served us and we had soft drinks and wine to enjoy with our meal.

This was the roulade we made. Half was left cold and the other half was sliced and topped with applewood cheese to be put in the oven to reheat just before serving. We also ate the double baked cheese souffles.

Sorry the pictures are not that good. We enjoyed a taste of all the mains with an accompanying salad. We then finished with the dessert and coffee. We chatted and had a lovely time over our meal and finally left at around 4.30pm. We were presented with a leaving gift of the recipe booklets, pen and a tea towel  of the cooking school and a doggie bag of any leftovers we fancied. I can tell you I left STUFFED!  I had a great day doing something just for ME. Don't think we make enough time for ourselves when we have families and busy lives. It's definitely a treat I would like to repeat again.

Have a good day