Thirty-four cooks across the city took up the Eat Local Challenge and Branxton’s Cecily Lenton has been named the winner. 

When Cecily Lenton first took a look at the ingredients she wasn’t sure how she would turn them all into meals that her partner Sasha and six-year-old son Xander would enjoy.

But she soon found her feet and created 14 dishes that caught the judges’ attention. 

“Cecily used the ingredients to make a cohesive meal where the flavours were all very well balanced, while most of the others used the ingredients to make something,” Slow Food Hunter Valley leader, and chef, Amorelle Dempster said. 

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“It was very hard to pick a winner because each of the finalists showed they had made the leap into eating seasonal food.

“We’ve made a quantum leap, we are moving away from meat and three veg, we are finally tumbling ingredients together to make a gorgeous flavour composition.”  

Ms Lenton focused on dishes that would feed her family over a few meals.

“It was a good way to think about how other people are using these ingredients so you’re not cooking the same thing over and over again,” she said. 

“It was great to be able to cook with ingredients that you’ve never used before, the challenge made you appreciate different types of food a bit more.

“I enjoy cooking, but I don’t want to be stuck in the kitchen for hours. What I did was simple cooking.”

Ms Lenton enjoys shopping at the Slow Food Earth Market in The Levee, which is held on the first and third Thursday of the month. 

She has always enjoyed cooking. 

“I used to help my mum cook from an early age, she taught me a lot of what I know,” she said.

“I’ve always helped out with cooking and baking cakes, sometimes life gets a bit busy and you don’t have the time to spend in the kitchen, so I like it when I have a little bit more time.

“I like to cook with what is in season and I try to grow my own fruit and vegetables as well.

“I look at what I have available and make a dish out of it.”

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