The program, called Nourish Cooking, takes food that has been grown on local farms and transforms it into meals that are delicious and nutritionally balanced.

"Each dish has so much colour and flavour and we put a lot of techniques into the vegetables rather than focusing on the meat aspect of the dish like people do when they have meat and three vegetables," Ms Dempster said.

We are teaching people how to put all of the flavour into the vegetables so people don't need much protein. We use a lot of lentils and pulses and grains into each dish to build up the protein levels."

The program offers Four + One, My Sri Lankan Heritage, Vietnamese Cuisine and Pastry for Home Cook classes on various dates.

"You can send people to the Slow Food Earth Market Maitland in The Levee but people really want to learn how to use what they buy, and, they are reluctant to use a variety that they don't normally use," Ms Dempster said.

"When you cook up four different types of pumpkin, for example, and they can taste how each variety is different they become curious and realise how they can use them in their own cooking."

Ms Barber offers a nutritional point of view and tells participants how they can add extra ingredients to create a meal with a higher protein level.

She also teaches them how to use food for nutrients.

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