Cooking at the Sunshine Coast Show

I love agricultural shows and the Sunshine Coast  puts on a spectacular one



We had just had days of rain and muddy weather and then the first day of the show was glorious sunshine and blue skys!
It felt like all the Sunshine Coast must be smiling, (and especially all the hard working show organisers and exhibitors.)

I had been invited out to the show to do a live cooking demonstration on the Saturday, for which I cooked the very first recipe I created for the Maleny Supa IGA and their recipe cards,
the Buffalo Haloumi Cheese & Spelt Sourdough Bread Salad, served with the ever popular Pomodoras dressing.

All ingredients that I cooked on the day were generously sponsored by the Maleny Supa IGA
And I was also able to give away gorgeous local olives, chocolate and ginger products as prizes just for being there and watching me cook too!

I was cooking in the rotunda next to the most amazing spice stall and an organic fresh hot coffee stall  ( yes I had one - thank you Rob!)
I was delighted by the response of those that did make it to my cooking demo and the interest in local foods and local food producers.
What a great, interactive audiencethey were, I loved meeting you all.

It is just so great to cook and serve straight to an audience. You know they are honest and have no bias (like family and friends sometimes might :) so when they tell you that somethings tastes great, you know they mean it.

< I even had the lovely Rob from Maleny Supa IGA
using his culinary skills to chop the fresh tomatoes!
The audience loved having him there and being able to ask him questions directly about his Maleny IGA supermarket and their product lines and range of local products and how they now home deliver across the Sunshine Coast, on ice for $10! Yes as you can tell I am very much in love with this time saving service they offer.

It is always really exciting for me to be able to promote and talk about our fantastic local products produced right here on the Sunny Coast and I have loved working with Maleny IGA.
At the show I was able to showcase the Cedar Street Cheeserie buffalo haloumi which is a really exciting product.
Normally gourmet products like this one go straight to restaurants but due to a special relationship with Maleny IGA you can buy this cheese in family sized portions from the store > my tip though ring ahead if its a bit of a drive for you to make sure there is some in stock when you visit. If your on the Sunny Coast or you visit sometimes, it truly is worth the drive up to Maleny, through the scenic hinterland and Mapleton and Montville with a visit to the Maleny Supa IGA, you will be amazed at the gourmet, gluten free and local product ranges in that store and you can even make a day of it, visit Maleny Dairies or the Mary Caincross National Park and see that famous view of the Glass House Mountains...

After the cooking demo we had a lovely family time at the show.


It really does have something for everyone, the kids of course loved the rides and the show bag grandma bought them.They marveled at the old cars, the chickens and the stalls.They were also very impressed that they found a shark!

They got to ride real life pony's - yep, they are still talking about that!

And they were thrilled to watch the professional horse jumping too!

Little Violet was most upset to be too little for a very scary looking ride that she thought looked marvelous (and what a relieved mum I was that she was- not a fan of scary rides! Haha)
This was the ride (below) of everything she saw in the show that Violet wanted to go on and
thought was fantastic! Trust her.

This one below is much more mummy's pace hehe

My favourite part of course was all the gorgeous produce,

 plants and baking in the pavilions!

Look at those lovely custard apples! All I could think was imagine the size of the
healthy custard apple coconut crumble I could make with them! Haha

Yandina Community Gardens
had a gorgeous display!

Pineapple art!

Fruits and vegetables showing how beautiful they truly are.

Naturally both my kids LOVED the honey stall.

Lily was fascinated by and has instructed me to put with this blog that she learnt while there that to make 1 kilo of honey for bee's is 200 days work and 4,000,000 flower visits!

We were all very impressed with these super cute creations
by some very clever kids!

 And I cannot say enough how delighted I was to find this message at the Sunshine Coast Show

It really gave you such a positive message to take home with you.

 I really enjoyed being a part of the Sunshine Coast Show 2013

and wish to thank the organizers for inviting me and the Maleny Supa IGA for supplying all the ingredients.

Thanks for reading.

Happy Cooking
& Eat Local!

Rebecca XX