Gourmet Garden Blogger Cook Off, Noosa - Day 2 + Grand Final

 

 

Further to my last post regarding my lovely 3 days away in Noosa last week, on the Thursday we all woke early from either a bad night’s sleep or missing our kids or bad mattresses (I’ve become a real homebody and love my bed at home). I went for a ‘little’ walk along the beach and watched the sunrise before having a lovely hot cup of chai tea and toast. I then went back to my accommodation to get ready for the day. Breakfast on both days was provided at the nearby Hard Coffee which had excellent coffee and great food.

 

 

And here we were, us Queenslanders, gloating about our beautiful autumn weather and what a day we had. It drizzled rain all day, quite heavy at times and it was freezing cold. And what did we get up to today? We went to the SjW Mushroom farm in Woodford and for an outdoor lunch cooked by Sammy and Bella Jakubiak (of My Kitchen Rules fame).

 

I’ve never been to a mushroom farm before and I found this really interesting. There’s quite a science to it and Steven Willemse, a third generation mushroom farmer, explained the various processes and quantities these rooms of mushrooms produced. Up to 8 tonnes of mushrooms can be harvested from one of these temperature controlled rooms over a 3 week period.

Lunch was soon to be served so we were soon ushered outside to a shelter where we were served Moët champagne, fine wines and other beverages and seated at a beautifully decorated table with bouquets of roses and mushrooms and little Belgian mushroom chocolates.

After a lot of drinking and great conversations about food and family memories, we tucked into a beautiful three course, mushroom inspired lunch cooked by Sammy and Bella. Entree was a Peking Duck Broth with duck and Swiss Brown mushroom stuffed wontons garnished with crispy duck skin. Main course was a Thai egg net  filled with mussel and Asian vegetable salad and topped with steamed pork belly and drizzled with a caramel chilli sauce. The meal was topped off with a beautiful dessert of mushroom shaped meringues, a spicy dark chocolate and orange ganache, ginger cream and a gorgeous tasting ‘dirt’ which was a biscuit crumb cooked with mushrooms and blitzed to serve and dressed with native violets. Just beautiful.

The day finished with a tour of the Gourmet Garden plant and presentation by CEO Nick White. The weather was dark and dreary but the day was informative, delicious and everything was an absolute delight. A quick dinner out to Season on Hastings Street for a White Rock veal cutlet cordon bleu, parsnip mash, pickled beets, green beans and then we were off to bed and a good night’s sleep before the cook off grand final tomorrow.

We woke to an absolutely glorious day and headed off to Spicers Tamarind Retreat in Maleny for the cook off grand final. We were broken up into groups of 4 to cook. It all seemed very casual except for Sammy and Bella, the judges, asking us the odd question. I resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn’t win so I felt quite relaxed and knew that I was amongst friends but very stiff competition. Some absolutely amazing dishes were created so I was well out of my league.

The lovely Amanda from Cooking for Busy Mums cooked really yummy fish tacos and made her own tortillas within the 45 minute time frame. She has some totally amazing recipes for busy mums on her blog.

My dish of a Pear, Thyme and Ginger Cake with Ginger Custard and Walnut Praline worked out really well I thought. Everyone said it looked nice and tasted pretty good, including the judges who said they’d happily pay for it in a restaurant. I was happy with that. (Recipe to come.)

It wasn’t long before the competition was over and it was time for a quick bite for lunch and to wait for the judge’s decision.

 

 

The winning dish was this beautiful brunch consisting of an individual zucchini quiche cooked in pancetta with mushrooms and salsa created by Laney of Crash Test Mummy. A well deserved win. The overall winner between Laney, Filipa (from Gourmet Mum in the UK) and Alberto (Mucha Vida in Spain) was Filipa with a Piri Piri Chicken and Sweet Potato Chip dish. I can’t wait for the recipe. 

 

An absolutely wonderful couple of days spent with like minded people in beautiful surroundings. Something I’ll probably never get the chance to do again but one I’ll remember for a life time. It was really cute that on my return, the kids asked me if I’d won. That meant more to me than anything that they must’ve been thinking about me. Thank you to Gourmet Garden for a year long of behind the scenes organising, coordinating, liaising and a very generous event. It was truly appreciated. If you get the chance, you really should enter should the competition be held again.Disclaimer: I was gifted an all expenses paid trip to Noosa as the prize for winning my heat of the Gourmet Garden Blogger Cook Off at the Good Food & Wine Show. All thoughts, photos and opinions are my own.

Gourmet Garden Blogger Cook Off, Noosa - Day 1

 

 

You know when you hear people say they have never won anything? Well, except for a couple giveaways within the last couple of years from people’s blogs, I was one of those people. That was up until last November when I happened to win my heat of the Gourmet Garden Blog Off/Cook Off at the Brisbane Good Food & Wine Show. It didn’t take long for May to come around this year and us three contestants from Brisbane, plus 3 from New South Wales, 3 from Melbourne, 1 from the UK and 1 (a guy) from Spain all gathered at Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland for 3 days of informative guest speakers, fancy food, fine dining and the ultimate grand final last Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.

 

 

After an early rise, I drove north (via the roadside coffee shop where I met up with fellow contestant, the lovely Amanda from Cooking for Busy Mums) and checked into my accommodation before we were ‘whisked’ (pardon the pun) away to Freestyle Escape at Dulong in the Sunshine Coast hinterland. An absolutely gorgeous accommodation, cooking and art class venue with views out to the Pacific Ocean.

 

 

 

Martin Duncan, the owner (and also owner of the famous Brisbane “Freestyle Tout” restaurant) gave us a quick tour of the property, showing us various art works and exotic fruit and vegetable species, some of which had been planted by visiting chefs. We headed back down to the beautiful outdoor kitchen and heard the very inspiring Jody Allen from Stay at Home Mum talk about her successful web site. 

 

 

Jackie Passmore, cookbook author and food stylist gave us all a quick lesson on food photography and styling, something I need a lot of help in. I hope to put her tips to good use.

 

 

Effervescent and bubbly Kim McCosker, leading recipe creator and cookbook author of 4 Ingredients fame, led us into cooking lunch for the hungry crowd. Her selection of recipes included dips, marinated chicken wings, salads, prawn and chorizo skewers and a vegan chocolate mousse dessert which I helped put together with Amanda from Cooking for Busy Mums.

 

 

After a gorgeous lunch, we heard Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella speak about her experience launching her new book. It was lovely to meet Lorraine and you can check out the review on her short visit to Queensland on her blog here. Next up was Edmund Pelgen from Traffika who gave us a lot of information on search engine optimisation which was all a bit technical for me but very interesting. I’d love to find out more and will study Edmund’s notes thoroughly when I get the chance.

 

 

By the time we got back to our accommodation, had a quick shower and a cuppa, it was time to go out for dinner. We had a lovely dinner at Gaston and it felt so nice to go out for a meal where you didn’t have to worry about ensuring the restaurant served hot chips for the ‘fussy one’ and making sure there was a kid’s play room.

 

Crispy skinned barramundi served in a Thai red curry broth and a mint and green papaw pickle

The food was great, the company awesome and the night late before we all decided to call it a night and prepare for the next day’s activities. We were all ready to hit the hay. Stay tuned for Day 2 of the Gourmet Garden Blogger Cook Off this week on the blog. (Oh, and if you see a couple of gorgeous looking guys in the background of all my photos, that’d be the lovely Sam and his offsider from Wild Bunch Media who were on hand to catch every moment on film. I’ll share any footage with you once its produced.)

 

Disclaimer: I was gifted an all expenses paid trip to Noosa as the prize for winning my heat of the Gourmet Garden Blogger Cook Off at the Good Food & Wine Show. All thoughts, photos and opinions are my own.