I was in the kitchen on Christmas day , and loving it , I cooked apple syrup glazed ham decorated with apple rounds and cloves and baked in the oven, turkey with a almond, dried apricots and sultana couscous stuffing, roasted potatoes, gravy, condiments, steamed asparagus and fresh peas , with a green salad on the side.Dessert was a lemon cheesecake, traditional fruit pudding with vanilla creme anglaise and a peach and blueberry salad , please dont hesitate to ask if you want the recipes there are photos over  in the blog roll , pop on over and have a look

I have been doing a bucket load of baking this week making gifts for people and also doing some baking for a cafe

the house has smelt amazing , i made things like shortbread, chunky chocolate chip cookies, peanut brownies, spice and raisen cookies, butter cookies, gingerbread, coconut ice and rocky road . Everything made from scratch with great new zealand butter

http://picasaweb.google.com/tessa.shoebridge/MoreChristmasBaking2007

I entered a food and wine matching competition at the Salon Culinare 2007 ….. www.salonculinare.co.nz This is a national hosptality competition with over 1000 competitors in most aspects of the hospitality trade. This was my first live competition in over 20 years and I won a bronze medal . I was so pleased , I was competing against people from hotels like Skycity and The Hilton so it was really a big deal for me.

The vineyard was Dogpoint Vineyards

The wine I chose was Section 94 Sauvignon Blanc and to go with it I made oven baked pork cutlets with a orange vinecotto and grapefruit marmalade , served with crackling, steamed asian greens and udon noodles done with garlic bolt and julliene carrots.

Here are some photos of the show, me with my medal and my dish which is in the last part of the pictures, all the other pictures are just stuff that i thought was amazing

http://picasaweb.google.com/tessa.shoebridge/Hospitality2007

I have gone back to school and am studying to be a Pastry Chef , Im so excited about it . Course started in the beginning of October 2007 and will go for 1 year then i hope to go on to a higher level and do another years worth of study.

I have been very slack in posting so hope to rectify that over the school holidays.

I have so much to write about , so much to catch up on so bear with me as it will all steadily be updated.

I am in a very international college , the students are mainly from china but also from afew other countries as well . In my class I was the granny of the class:O)

we did a restaurant project where in groups we had to design a restaurant from the ground up, which was a lot of hard work but it was really challenging , I will be talking about that in depth further down the track.

Next semester our practical classes start which Im really looking forward to doing , I will be changing classes to the mornings from the afternoons and will have to get to know a whole new class

http://www.nsia.ac.nz

This year I have made 17 christmas cakes for people for christmas. I have been doing cake decorating for a hobby now for about a year now , and just loving it

So here are some of my gifts , im still learning this amazing art , some are good and some not bad but each one was made with love

All of these cakes were deep rich fruit cake with plenty of brandy and then covered in marzipan and fondant icing , everything on the cakes is edible

here is a link to the photos http://picasaweb.google.com/tessa.shoebridge/ChristmasCakes2007