Home Cook Recipe Challenge invites amateurs to test skills

YOUNGSTOWN

For the past few years, Meridian Community Care’s annual benefit event, “Our Valley Cooks,” has brought celebrity chefs from the Food Network together with local chefs and culinary experts for a celebration of great food.

However, now any local resident can also get his finger in the pie through the Home Cook Recipe Challenge, which will be a part of this year’s Our Valley Cooks event.

Any resident of Mahoning. Trumbull, Columbiana, Mercer or Lawrence county who is not a professional chef is encouraged to enter his or her favorite meat, fish, pasta or vegetarian entr e recipe into the competition. Multiple submissions are permitted, and there is no fee.

Judges will select three finalists from among the entries, and those people will appear on the WFMJ “Morning Show” in early March to prepare their recipes. The three finalists also will prepare their recipes at the Our Valley Cooks event on March 19.

The grand-prize winner will be named at the conclusion of the event and will receive a cash prize of $500.

Recipe competition entries will be accepted through Monday. Complete contest rules, as well as printable and online submission forms, are available at www.ourvalleycooks.org. Written applications also are available at Catullo Prime Meats in Boardman, a sponsor of this year’s Home Cook Recipe Challenge.

Among the many other events taking place at our Valley Cooks is a Food Expo. For those interested in exhibiting at the event, exhibitor applications can also be found online at www.ourvalleycooks.org.