Grissini Bread Sticks

After enjoying a Brasserie Bread baking class so much I was quick to register Evie for a kids summer baking class.

At Brasserie Bread Summer Baking class

They learnt to bake grissini sticks and cornbread, she enjoyed it so much.

I love that they let 5 year olds cook and treat them like 'big kids'.

While it was still fresh in her mind we baked them at home.

We made the dough using our usual method I found at Crunchy Tiger.

Nate loved getting in on the kneading action.

The recipe is very similar just with the addition of a small amount of malt syrup and butter.

The dough after kneading is left in the fridge for an hour.

We then flattened it and allowed to prove for twenty minutes.

We cut sticks of dough.

Evie showed me how to stretch the dough, then flatten and pinch, worked a treat.

Even Nate became an expert.

The sticks are then baked at 210 C for twenty minutes.

Evie got very creative with curly ends, they were gorgeous and delicious.

We will be making these again soon.

Quinoa Crusted Open Vegetable Pie

I received a Donna Hay book for Christmas, Fresh and Light.

She is just a genius when it comes to food!

Her recipe for this quinoa crust is so healthy and simple - its crazy.

Combine cooked quinoa with egg white and press into a well greased pie dish.

Bake until toasty looking.

Fill with delicious ingredients. 

I roasted some pumpkin and zucchini with sage, verjus and honey.

Then topped with a few cherry tomatoes and mozzarella balls.

Then back in the oven it goes, until the tomatoes were bursting and the cheese melting.

I loved this dinner, the crust lost a lot of its crustiness on the bottom (impossible to serve as a neat piece of pie) but in terms of eating that was great. 

The crispy quinoa on the edge and the soft quinoa in the middle with delicious roasted veges and oozy cheese, yum.

Glazed Duck

This is my glazed duck I cooked at home.

Earlier last year I attended the Pork class at Restaurant Atelier in Glebe. 

It was so fabulous and inspiring that I was so pleased when I was able to attend a Duck class later in the year. 

This is the delicious duck Darren cooked in the class and we got to gobble up!

One of the many fantastic recipes Darren taught us was glazed duck, such a simple recipe that anyone could cook.

Firstly the duck is plunged into boiling water and then hung up to drip dry.

The duck is then coated a few times with a glaze (made by bringing equal quantities of malt extract, chinese caramel sauce and kecap manis to just a boil).

Once the duck is looking shiny it is kept in the fridge overnight.

Give the duck a new coat of glaze and bake covered for an hour then uncover for another thirty minutes.

Give the duck plenty of time to rest then enjoy.

It was a really beautiful way to cook a duck.

We have totally fallen for everything Restaurant Atelier has to offer - classes, dinners, spits on a sunday - you need to go there. 

We enjoyed our wedding anniversary dinner there in December, and it was amazing - from start to finish - perfect.

Our first course of the degustation - Kingfish.