Back to Courses… The Designer Dinners course will boost your confidence, develop your culinary skills and knowledge of cooking, giving you the ability and inspiration to create masterpieces in your own kitchen for friends and family. Interested to know… When and how to use herbs and spices? How long to cook meat, fish and vegetables to perfection? How to get the size of portions right, how much food to buy and the quantity to cook for 8 people? How to cope with disasters? How to choose a dinner party menu with foods that complement one another in flavour, colour and texture? What you can prepare the day before? How to keep yourself tidy in the kitchen? Some different and more interesting ways to cook vegetables? How to bring out the flavour in foods? Which wines to buy? How to adapt and update classic traditional recipe favourites to suit contemporary trends? We will supply eighteen dinner party meal plans with detailed, foolproof recipes to get you started. All our recipes are quick and easy to follow, minimising preparation time and giving you the chance to enjoy the company of your guests. We will show you short cuts and pass on valuable tips of the trade to simplify and speed up work in the kitchen. We will demonstrate, with the use of clever presentation techniques, how to turn a delicious meal into a jaw dropping designer dinner that looks almost too good to eat. The course is intensive, enabling you to get the best out of your time at The Orchards. Every evening we have a dinner party, each course cooked by two students giving everyone the opportunity to practise hosting the perfect dinner party (don’t panic, lots of personal tuition and encouragement makes the whole experience surprisingly easy and enjoyable). On Wednesday we conclude a little earlier to give students the opportunity to go to The Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford, or to simply relax for the evening. For theatre ticket information click here or telephone 01789 403 444. The course is suitable for everyone, from gap year students and newly weds, to the retired. Remember girls, the best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach and boys, girls are seriously impressed with a chap who can cook and will do anything for the ultimate chocolate experience!