Taste of home as TNQ's kitchen heroes serve up best recipes


Remember the days of meals made lovingly in the home kitchen when you were a kid? Ever reminisce about tucking into a lovely lasagne or desserts to die for cooked by your grandma?

If so, then the Home Cooked Heroes event at the Cairns Showground on Sunday August 6th is sure to tickle your tastebuds.

The event's recipe for success is simple: attract home cooks from across Tropical North Queensland to put their best dishes to the ultimate taste test. Organisers hope the event reminds locals what a pleasure it is to indulge in healthy and simple food.


Event organiser Paul Furse said the Home Cooked Heroes event would bring together down-to-earth food and real people.

The event is calling for locals to get in touch to become cooks as well as judges.

“It's an event for people who love home cooked meals,” Mr Furse said.

“It’s not pretentious, we're not looking for people who wear cravats or pocket watches.”

Mr Furse said the time involved on the day would vary between about two hours for cooks and about four to five hours for judges.

Organisers say eating more healthy, home-cooked meals could help address the obesity epidemic. They also hope the event provides a counter-point to the increasingly complex culinary challenges offered on reality TV.

“The lady who won the first MaterChef, Julie Goodwin, cooked a roast chicken. Now everything they do is beyond the means and capability of most normal cooks,” he said.

“It is not what people in the real world, who are making the evening meal, are cooking.

“We want to revive home cooking and keep the real, down-to-earth style of cooking alive.

“People are eating out three to four times a week and there is definitely a link between obesity with eating at restaurants compared with the healthier options at home.“

And there is sure to be something on the menu to satisfy even the most hard to please tastes with lasagne, blue cheese gnocchi, one-bowl quiches, beef stroganoff and chocolate mudcakes among the entries.

More information on the event is available here.