What’s Cooking: Fresh from the Garden

Summer has been so much fun in the garden! We start each class learning about vegetables and then harvesting what we are going to cook with. In August we made pico de gallo in our salsa class, ginger pickled beets in our pickles class, and these green pancakes in our garden scavenger hunt class.  Pancakes are almost universally loved, and this savory green pancake packs in vegetables and is as easy as putting everything in a blender. We used soy milk in the class to make them dairy free, and you could certainly use different flours as well. Flipping pancakes is the most difficult part of this recipe, so we practiced! Each kid got a piece of paper with a circle on it, a cardboard coaster, and a spatula. They practiced flipping the coasters over in the circle before they did the real thing.

The garden still has plenty to harvest through September. At the end of this month we’ll focus on whole grains, then have our apple classes, and end October with our classes featuring orange foods while we learn about beta carotene! All classes are open enrollment, and proceeds support our hunger relief efforts.

Broccoli Head Chefs (9-12 year olds)

Apples Apples Apples! – Tuesday, October 16th, 2018, 3:30-5:30pm

The Beta Carotene Monster – Tuesday, October 30th, 2018, 3:30-5:30pm

Celery Sous Chefs (5-8 year olds)

Apples Apples Apples! – Tuesday, October 9th, 2018, 4-5pm

The Beta Carotene Monster – Tuesday, October 23rd, 4-5pm

The full schedule is available on our website and Facebook events page.

Green Pancakes

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

• 2 cups (475 ml) whole milk or soy milk
• 2 1/2 cups (325 grams) all-purpose flour
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon coarse salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 small onion, coarsely chopped
• 10 fresh chives, snipped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• Leaves from 10 parsley sprigs
• 5 large or 10 small Swiss chard leaves, center ribs removed, roughly chopped or ripped
• Neutral oil for the pan

To serve: Plain, thick yogurt mixed with a little lemon zest, lemon juice and salt, to taste

If you’d like to keep your finished pancakes warm while you cook them: Heat oven to 250 degrees F and line a baking sheet with foil.

Make the batter: Put everything except the Swiss chard and oil in a blender or food processor and whirl until the batter is smooth. Scrape down sides. Add chard leaves and pulse machine until they’re chopped to your desired consistency.

Cook the pancakes: Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat and pour in a a bit of oil. Spoon in about 3 tablespoons batter in per pancake. Cook until browned underneath then flip, cooking on the other side until browned again. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate, and then, if you’d like to keep them warm, to the foil-lined tray in the oven.

Repeat with remaining batter. Serve with lemony yogurt or another sauce of your choice.

Do ahead: Unused batter keeps in fridge for 3 days. Finished pancakes keep in fridge for a couple days, and will freeze much longer. Separate pancakes with pieces of waxed or parchment paper so they don’t stick together.

 

Host a Read for Seeds Fundraiser

This year we are thrilled to introduce you to our newest fundraising program for schools, Read for Seeds!

Each year Community Harvest Project farms fruits and vegetables to donate to individuals experiencing food insecurity. The produce we grow provides free, nutritious food for families in need who otherwise would not have access. We do so by using a neighbor-helping-neighbor approach, and engage volunteers each season to plant, tend, and harvest all of our crops. In 2017, Community Harvest Project hosted 8,456 volunteers who grew 271,509 pounds of produce for donation to food insecure individuals in Worcester County.

Many of our visitors are students, with over 3,500 elementary and middle school youth visiting our farms annually. After several years of working with local schools, we saw an opportunity to combine education and community service.  As you know, frequent practice is one of the crucial components of becoming a good reader. Similarly, frequent community engagement is an essential component of becoming a well-rounded individual. Our Read for Seeds program encourages students in their reading practice, engages them in community service, and raises funds for both our organization and your classrooms!

Here is how it works:

• Pledging – Students collect pledges from relatives, friends, and neighbors for 15-minute time blocks that they will commit to reading during a two to three week reading period; we call this the Read-a-Thon! During the Read-a-Thon, students track the amount of time they read on the pledge form.
• Donating – Once the Read-a-Thon is over, students follow up with their supporters to gather their pledges.  The pledges will then be split between your participating classrooms and Community Harvest Project.
• Growing – The donations will help support our farm operations and your schools.  All produce grown by Community Harvest Project is donated to those in who need it most throughout Worcester County.
• Celebrating – Participating classes will be invited to visit our farm in North Grafton to celebrate their hard work and see what they have helped accomplished!

Our team will support your classrooms throughout the entirety of the program with Read for Seeds materials, presentations, and more.  To sign-up for this program for the 2018-2019 school year, or if you have any questions, please contact me, Carolyn Ambrose, at 774-545-5409 or carolyn@community-harvest.org.  We look forward to collaborating with you!

Apple Season is Almost Here!

It has been a hot summer and we are looking forward to the cool, crisp fall days that so many associate with heading out to the orchard to pick apples! We have been gearing up for harvest season at the orchard and will pick our first apples at the end of August. This year also marks the first season we will harvest from our new high-density apple trees planted in 2015.

Last year, we had a very good apple crop, with the orchard producing over 260,000 pounds of fruit. Apple trees naturally have a cyclical pattern of “on” and “off” years, meaning that one year the orchard could have a bumper crop of apples and the following year the orchard will produce less apples. Some apple varieties are more susceptible to this phenomenon. This fact, combined with certain weather events means that we will have a lighter crop this year.

We are looking forward to seeing many familiar faces, as well as new ones, to help with the picking and packing activities for our fourth harvest season at Prospect Hill Farm. It is hard to believe that in just a few weeks we will be boxing up apples to be shipped to our hunger relief partners. We hope to see you there!

Harvest Home 5K Registration Now Open

This heat has us looking forward to cooler fall weather – our Harvest Home Festival and 5K are right around the corner! Join us on November 4 for this fall festival, it’s the perfect way to celebrate the season and bring the community together in celebration of the harvest on our beautiful farm in North Grafton. All proceeds directly support CHP’s mission of building healthy and engaged communities through volunteer farming and nutrition education.

This year we are excited to announce a new course for our 5K Trail Run on the beautiful Williams Preserve and Grafton Land Trust trails. The 1 Mile walk and Kids Fun Run will begin directly after the 5K race kick off!

Registration is now open for this popular run, and we’re looking forward to another great year. Sign up at https://event.racereach.com/community-harvest-5k

Don’t forget that your race registration includes free admission to the festival! The family friendly festival begins at 11am and includes live music, food trucks, local beer, hay wagon rides, apple cannons, pumpkin catapults and more!

Introducing Our Wine Tasting Fundraiser!

Community Harvest Project is delighted to collaborate with Broken Creek Winery for an evening of wine tasting on Thursday, September 13^th at 5:30pm. Social fundraisers like these are a great opportunity for our nonprofit to partner with local companies.  Each ticket includes a donation to support our hunger relief efforts, all year long!

Broken Creek Vineyard & Winery is family owned and located on 41-acres in Shrewsbury. Attendees can walk the vineyard and learn about all the wines grown there. It is the perfect setting for sunset pictures. Gather your co-workers, friends and family and come sample Summer White, Vidal Blanc, Marquette, Special Reserve and Maddie’s Rescue Red . If you taste a wine you love, Broken Creek has bottles available for purchase.  We will also be serving delicious hors d’oeuvres and each attendee will recieve a 20oz etched wine glass to take home.

Tickets are $35.00 and available on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/wine-tasting-fundraiser-tickets-48593538582

Groups are encouraged to attend, and we hope to see you there!

Volunteers of the Month: Summer Youth Groups

For as long as we can remember Young Neighbors in Action has been a reliable source of volunteer support during the summer vacation lull.  These great teams come out to our farms and help us at a critical time in our scheduling while many of our volunteers are on vacation. Whether it is harvesting, planting or even weeding at both our Grafton and Harvard farms they put their all into their work and find ways to have fun while doing it.  We are lucky to have them on our side and would like to celebrate and thank our 2018 Young Neighbors Teams. Coming from near (St. Rose of Lima in Northborough and St. Gabriel in Upton) and far (St. Matthew in New Hampshire) we really appreciated their hard work this year.

In these groups we had several volunteers who chose to visit for the second year of their Young Neighbors program, adding a level of familiarity with the farm.  All three groups experienced the results of some of our crazier weather events while they were here. That meant wet clothing, sneakers and even a car interior that needed to dry out but that never stopped them from coming back with energy and drive to greet the next day.  It’s that type of commitment to helping community that these makes these students and their chaperones standouts who left a great impression of what is possible with us as they left.

Please join us in thanking and celebrating our volunteers from the Young Neighbors in Action Program.  Thank you for your continuing support and showing that anything is possible when you approach it knowing that you are making a difference.     

What’s Cooking: Out in the Garden

Summer gardens are overflowing with herbs right now. Even if you don’t have a huge garden space, a few herbs in pots are such a bounty in the kitchen. Soft herbs like cilantro, basil, and dill go to seed easily, and need to be reseeded throughout the summer to have a constant supply. Heartier herbs like oregano, thyme, sage, and rosemary can last the winter (either outside or in pots). Herbs are a great way to add flavor and nutrition to foods, but contain very few calories.

We used herbs in many kids cooking classes last month, including Rethink Your Drink (about sugar in beverages), Pesto Power (defining and making pesto), and Herbal Mania (learning about herbs and making herb-focused recipes). This basil lemonade is lower-sugar than your standard offering, but high in flavor and was a huge hit with kids.

This month’s classes all focus on the bounty of the summer garden.

Broccoli Head Chefs (9-12 year olds)

• Becoming a Pickle – Tuesday, August 14th 2:30-4:30pm
• Garden Scavenger Hunt – Tuesday, August 28th, 2:30-4:30pm

Celery Sous Chefs (5-8 year olds)

• Rainbow Salsa – Thursday, August 9th, 2:30-3:30pm

Pepper Pack (2-4 year olds)

• Tuesday, August 14th and Tuesday, August 28th, 10-11am

Basil-Mint Lemonade

Adapted from Vegetable Literacy by Deborah Madison

Ingredients

• approximately ½ cup of fresh basil leaves (regular basil, lemon basil, or Thai basil)
• 12 mint leaves
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• grated zest and juice from 2-3 lemons (½ cup lemon juice)
• 4 cups of water
• ice (crushed & cubes)

Directions

Using a muddler or a spoon, muddle the basil & mint leaves with the sugar until the leaves are crushed at the bottom of a pitcher. Add the lemon zest, juice and water. Stir well to combine. Serve over ice (strain if you please).