We’ve just finished a huge weekend hosting and cooking a Weekend Cooking Retreat. The guests arrive at 2pm on Friday and we started cooking with drinks at 5 PM and then spent the weekend cooking Friday dinner, Saturday Breakfast lunch and dinner and Sunday breakfast. We made everything from scratch, we shucked oysters, cleaned occy, filleted fish, smoked fish and our own stocks. We made pasta, pastry, croissants and sourdough and more. A fun and delicious weekend cooking around 30 recipes, favourite dishes from the bistro and cookbooks. And cooked new recipes from books in production. 

We cooked and enjoyed 

Starting with some snacks we had ready:

Smoked quail
Fish pate
blue and brie cheese
quince paste (recipe from Tasmania Pantry)

FRIDAY DINNER

Sour dough 
oysters 
bay trumpeter crudo
grilled quail, white bean hummus and bush chimichurri 
Seafood Paella (recipe celebrate cookbook)
Thai dressed crispy Boarfish
venison spiced baked quince and mulberry lavender relish (recipe Lavender Cookbook)
apple and blackberry pie (Tasmania Pantry cookbook)
ricotta, lavender and chocolate pie (Lavender Cookbook)

SATURDAY BREAKFAST

Sourdough fruit loaf with ricotta, apple and cinnamon 
Eggs baked in romesco sauce with chorizo and halumi cheese with sourdough

SATURDAY LUNCH

herb and garlic pull apart (Tasmania Pantry 2)
octopus, proscuttio, bean soup 
smoked fish pate 
baked Leather jacket 
Vietnamese Quail salad 

SATURDAY DINNER

Cob Loaf (celebrate cookbook)
pickled occy salad (seafood Everyday)
duck confit (Tasmania Pantry 2)
Hong Kong Parrot fish (Tasmania Pantry 2)
Beef cheeks with fresh pasta 
apple, herb stuffed mutton birds
rhubarb and lavender cream brulee (lavender cookbook)

Sunday Breakfast
croissants and scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and Brie

And Arwen whipped up a lavender and lime Basque cheesecake to finish with.