The other night, I was invited to the Fresh Awards. The Sydney Markets Fresh Awards recognise and celebrate excellence in fresh fruit, vegetable and flower retailing, growing. The awards bring together Sydney Markets’ long running retailer excellence programs – the Greengrocer and Florist of the Year Awards, as well as the Fruit & Vegetable and Flower Grower of the Year Awards, and a new category for bloggers.

Building on the past success of the retailer and grower programs, the Fresh Awards are a platform for encouraging and recognising best practice and innovations in fresh produce and flower growing and retailing, as well as a showcase for the broader NSW and ACT fresh produce industry.

It was wonderful to recognise some of the finalist, who were from Canberra – but also to see the wonderful things that growers/retailers were doing closer to home {here in Sydney}. I might have had to avoid the champagne and any of the raw seafood, but it was a lovely night out {just me and the bump}. And I look forward to growing the friendships that I struck up with people on the night.

This moroccan carrot and cauliflower salad was inspired by the beautiful fresh produce wall that they had on the night. We got to take home a lovely basil plant, but I really wanted to get my hands on some of those baby carrot bunches.

MOROCCAN CARROT AND CAULIFLOWER SALAD

250 grams of baby carrots
1/2 head of cauliflower
1 red onion
10 grams of coriander
1 long green chilli
1 clove of garlic
1 tsp of cumin
1 tsp of sumac
2 tsp of honey
olive oil
salt and pepper

Bring a medium saucepan of salted water to the boil. Trim the carrots and cut the cauliflower into florets. Cook the veggies in the boiling water for 3 minutes or until slightly tender.

Slice the green chili in half, remove the seeds, and finely chop. Finely chop the garlic and the red onion.

Heat a drizzle of oil in a frying pan, cook the carrots and cauliflower for 1 minute, add the chilli, garlic and the red onion and cook for 1 minute or until fragrant but not coloured. Add the honey and toss until everything is well glazed. Season with cumin, sumac and salt. Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before serving.

Have you ever whipped up a recipe from my blog? I would love for you to let me know…So I don’t feel as if I am just writing all this stuff down for nothing… If you choose to whip up one of my recipes , then I would love for you to share it on social media, and don’t forget to use the hashtag #goodfoodweek.