Sunday Cookfest great success

I had an idea a few months ago after a really fun night with our friends. I was about to start cooking dinner on a sunny Sunday afternoon when I got a call from my friend asking us to come over. Not surprisingly, I had already decided what was for dinner that night and started preparing it. I decided to take all my ingredients to my friends house. We cooked a few delicious meals, including spicy sausage pasta, roast fennel risotto and sticky date puddings. We discovered we would have enough to share a few meals for the coming week. As working parents, this was a huge relief and very exciting. Most working families struggle to organise their week on Sunday afternoons, with the main task to decide and organise meals for the week.

This idea turned into my Sunday Cookfest project. The first ever Sunday Cookfest event was held in the afternoon on Sunday 28 October 2012. I held an event at my house and other people organised their own with their friends and families. The intention was for working families and friends to cook together and get ready for the coming week! Each family brought ingredients to cook a large portion of their favourite dish and demonstrated how to cook it.

In the end we all took home a variety of different meals ready for the week. I was still eating the last of the food today!away a few containers of meals for the coming week. It will also give busy families a chance to slow down and catch up and will ease the burden on working families to rush home and cook after work/school/traffic every weeknight. Kids can play together while parents catch up. You can do this at your house with your family and friends or you can come to my Sunday Cookfest. Just don’t forget ingredients for your favourite dish and containers. Remember, you can do this every few weeks with your family and friends and share this idea with your family and friends all over the world. It gave us a chance to slow down and catch up and really made a difference to the usual after work rush home to cook after being stuck in traffic for over an hour. here is my friend Deb with her containers of meals to try!



We swapped recipes and learnt some delicious dishes. My mum made vine leaves and an amazing cheesy dessert that was rolled out and eaten hot from the kitchen bench.



My auntie demonstrated a beautiful dumpling warm salad with plenty of garlic and olive oil. Here is my husband making his now famous honeycomb.



My dad made a favourite dish from my childhood – chicken rice. My friends made two very different delicious soups!

We did cook alot for this one and had some great dishes to eat but the best part was the sharing of love, ideas, food and stories from my childhood. I also realised that my passion for food and cooking comes from having a family who loved food and cooking. I was able to share my parents love for food with my friends and show my three and a half year old son how fun food can be!
Look out for all the recipes, which will be posted on the hidden foodie soon and hold your own Sunday Cookfest with your friends and family and discover how fun it can be!

I am the hidden foodie

I am the hidden foodie. I am a mum and I have a day job but I am obsessed with food. I read about it, I dream about it, I cook it and I try every new cuisine and restaurant I can.

At the ripe age of 34 I have decided to give in to what my family and friends have know for a long time. My obsession with food! I have many early food memories of cooking with my grandmothers in their village in Lebanon. I remember waking before dawn to watch my dad's mother and my aunties prepare and bake Lebanese bread in the outdoor wood fired oven in the middle of their small village. I remember my mum's mother frying eggs collected from chickens in butter she had made on a small portable stove that sat on the floor. I remember the food I loved to eat then and still love being the simple peasant dishes, often vegetarian, with a few fresh seasonal ingredients and a lot of love.

This blog will be a collection of interesting foodie finds - small corner shops, restaurants that make great food but are not yet famous, dishes to cook and share and my favourite food related things.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I will enjoy writing it for you!