On the last weekend of August I hosted a food styling and photography workshop at my accommodation in Taranna on the Tasman Peninsula. As well as a great learning experience for  the cookbook authors, bloggers and food lovers that came it was a really fantastic  and fun childfree weekend of good food, amazing wine, lots of laughs and great company!

I invited Jennifer Jenner a food stylist and photographer whose work I just love, to teach the workshop. She did a amazing job but more about all that in another post.. .now to the food!

I loved planning the menu and preparing the food and one of my Thermomix cult buddies Arwen came and was really helpful with all the cooking and the three thermies we had on the go for most of the weekend were pretty busy too!! When I find time as soon as I can I will add the recipes that are not already on this blog.

THE MENU

Day 1 Arrival Morning tea: fresh fruit, apple crumble cake and Tatzaki dip, pea dip and homemade lavosh crackers

The lavosh cracker recipe is here: https://eloiseemmett.com/2015/09/03/sesame-and-oregano-lavosh-crackers/

And you can find the crumble cake recipe here: https://eloiseemmett.com/2015/02/24/apple-crumble-slice/

Lunch: Platters to share of smoked quail, walnut, blue cheese, pear and honey mustard dressing. Smoked salmon with a potato, egg, caper and green bean salad. Pickled octopus on a greek style salad. Fresh baked and local olive oil. Bream creek Riesling. Gillispies ginger beer . ruby chai

In the afternoon I was given the  challenge of creating a beautiful 3 layered sponge with ganache, berries and crème patisiere. I made Thermomix sponge x 3, creme patistere (all ingredients thrown in the thermomix worked perfect!) and the ganache was made in the thermomix too

Pre dinner McHenrys gin and tonic

Dinner: Camerons oysters natural , Salmon poached in mushrooms, cream and thyme sauce with handmade fettuchini. Quail roasted with proscuttio and a preserved lemon stuffing with roast pumpkin smashed with brown butter and sage

Bream creek pinot noir, bream creek cabernet sauvingon
Breakfast smoked salmon, poached eggs, greens and hollandaise homemade brioche French toast bake jjs Green smoothie

Then for morning tea we had a really informative and fun tour of Camerons Oyster farm in eaglehawk neck, and we all gorged ourselves on freshly shucked oysters with Bream Creek Sparkling (props.. really).

And I have to share again The shuck off between Daniel and I

We planned to have a picnic Lunch on the final day but unfortunately the weather was not great it was set up briefly out the front of my place, I had picked a gorgeous spot at the Taranna jetty but it ended up set up on the floor inside, still good fun. For lunch we enjoyed a goats cheese pumpkin tart. Bruny island cheeses pan-fried otto and tom, ham, fresh baked bread, dips, more salmon, summer berry pudding (yes I know its not summer and the berries where not very local, but Australian, it is such a pretty dessert I had to make it!!)

And if any one is wondering Brendan did a pretty good job of looking after the kids for the weekend, apart from a small laundry mistake of putting the babies bum wipes away with the face washers (they were all clean). They ate mcdonalds with COKE! Ate Pizza and sat around watching footy (no scheduled craft hour??) and at the end of the weekend the kids were actually excited to see me for once!

We are planning on running another workshop this year in late November and again in March. After experiencing this workshop I can see why they are so popular on the mainland. Make sure you sign up to my blog if a workshop like this is something you are interested in so you will not miss out when the dates are confirmed, I have heard  lots and lots of ‘I wish I had known it was on’ since hosting this one.