A is for Accolade, En.

En Accolade - a technique of arranging two pieces of meat or poultry, by leaning them against each other. 

I have accidentally left my copy of Larousse at university, so the above definition is not a quote, more of a "what I can remember" from the definition.  To cover this, I made Ballotine of Chicken en Accolade.  "Ballotine" being the technique of wrapping the chicken around a filling, forming into a "sausage" shape by wrapping in cling-film and poaching in chicken stock to cook.

The ballotine is stuffed with  ricotta, spinach and nutmeg mixture, served on a bed of crushed potatoes (home grown, I might add. I think these were the best bit) with caramelised fennel, balsamic tomatoes and potato gnocchi. The sauce is a mixture of basil pesto and white wine.  Presentation was never my strong point, but maybe one day I'll get the hang of it.

It was OK. I personally don't think the result was worth the amount of time spent making it. The chicken was dry, although it was interesting to work out how to make a ballotine. And it needed more of a sauce.  But it's all good cookery practise.

Also, I thought I'd share with you the baked Spaghetti Squash successfully grown in my back garden last year.

Looks fine, baked fine, but tasted a bit... foul, really. This one was baked with a knob of butter, brown sugar and nutmeg.  I've never gotten the hang of how to bake squash - they always have a bitter aftertaste whenever I try it. This one, like so many others, was no exception to the bitter aftertaste. Not sure where I'm going wrong.

Yes, it's the Christmas Holidays. Two weeks at home. (Yay!) Revising for January exams. (Gulp). I currently feel very far behind with revision. Partly thanks to the increased baking opportunities of being at home. Also, partly because I have spent the past couple of weeks drooling over Pierre Herme's Ph 10 book, which my parent's kindly bought me as a joint birthday/Christmas gift. 600 pages, written entirely in French and weighs a tonne. I can't wait to try it out.