Chez Froggy Ducky is the name of our 10-year-old’s monthly pop-up restaurant. It’s a fun little creative outlet, and we’re able to control the mess a little bit, so why not?
The rules are simple: Abi takes stock of what’s in the kitchen and creates a menu, we help her make it, and we sit down and eat it as a family. We had a friendly competition with the plating (don’t tell Abi, but I totally won).
Today’s fun: Spaghetti Squash Salad with Dark Rye Crouton, Lemon Segments, Brown Butter and Sage, followed by Granny Smith Apples sautéed with Rosemary and Cinnamon. The Rosemary was all Abi, and it worked…well! We’ll have to steal that for a menu.
Here are the Recipes, along with some pictures of the action:
Spaghetti Squash, Brown Butter Sage Salad
Ingredients
1/2 Spaghetti Squash, steamed until it falls apart easily, then lightly salted
125g Salted Butter
1/4 Loaf Dark Sour Dough Rye, broken into irregular cubes, and fried in half the butter
1 Lemon, segmented, cut into tiny pieces, leftover juice reserved
2 Sprigs Sage fried in half the butter, reserve the butter
3 Scallions, thinly sliced
6 Salad Burnett Sprigs
3 Slices Brie
Method
Add reserved lemon juice to reserved brown butter to make a dressing that can be drizzled over everything.
With your ingredients pre-cooked, and at room temperature, it’s just a matter of pretty much straight assembly.
This is what makes it fun, as everyone can be really creative when it comes to plating.
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At the opulent Langdon Hall Country House Hotel and Spa in Blair, Ontario, the kitchen behind the province’s only five-diamond restaurant never closes. At 2 am, you’ll find Pastry Chef Rachel Nicholson starting her shift, ensuring all the savoury breads for the day are freshly baked.
Nicholson graduated from the pastry program at Northwest Culinary Academy of Vancouver in 2006 and has led a devout pastry team of 12 at the Relais and Chateaux property since 2013. In 2016, Nicholson accompanied Langdon Hall’s Executive Chef Jason Bangerter to Cacao Barry’s Or Noir lab in Paris, France, to create the hotel’s signature decadent chocolate, “Terroir.”
