Farmers Against Hunger Culinary and Nutrition ProgramIn 2014 Farmers Against Hunger received a grant from the USDA which allowed us to create a cooking and nutrition program. Produce Coordinator, Brian Strumfels, who has a culinary background, and Gleaning Coordinator, Elyse Yerrapathruni, who has a nutrition background, were ideal candidates to create this program. That year we partnered with several of our recipient churches and conducted five cooking and nutrition seminars. We had anywhere from 15 to 30 people attend, where we cooked three meals, discussed nutrition and handed out our own cookbooks focused on NJ produce. In 2015 we conducted several more seminars, including follow-up classes to measure results from the previous year. In 2016, we are partnering with our sister program, Learning Through Gardening and teaching nutrition and culinary education classes targeted toward elementary school children. We will conduct educational food tastings throughout the year with our recipients and we are also planning a contest, open to the general public, which entails purchasing produce and other "specialty crops" from NJ farms and farmers markets throughout the season. We are very excited about all of this and we hope it becomes a staple in FAH's programming for years to come.
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Our presenters shared excellent information on various fruits and vegetables. This encouraged me to utilize them more frequently. Kudos to our presenters! |
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Cookbook and Nutrition InformationIn order to help encourage people to cook more often using New Jersey produce, we put together this cookbook. It contains roughly 50 recipes: soups, salads, sides, mains, and desserts, They all incorporate NJ produce and are all fairly quick and easy to prepare. Every year we hope to add more recipes to the book, which is accessible using the link below. If you have a recipe using NJ produce that you would like to submit, follow the link below as well. In addition to the cookbook, we put together a wealth of nutrition information and general cooking guidelines for your meal planning. Happy Cooking!
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