Blueberry Recipes!

June is here and and my Mendocino county local food guide says blueberries are ripe for the picking! As most everyone knows now a days blueberries are plump full of anti-oxidants and are great for fighting those pesky free radicals. They also help keep our eyes and brain healthy, and could potentially protect our bodies from colon and ovary cancer. So, long story short - let's eat MORE of them!

Blueberries are easy to throw into pancakes, muffins, and pies. But, below are some not so typical recipes so you can try to incorporate blueberries into more foods. Try out a chicken and blueberry pasta, or a healthy breakfast bar to grab on the go!

Chicken Blueberry Pasta

• 1 pound boneless, skinless chicken breast, trimmed of fat
• 8 ounces whole-wheat fusilli or radiatore
• 3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
• 1/3 cup reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1/3 cup crumbled feta cheese
• 3 tablespoons lime juice
• 1 cup fresh blueberries
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated lime zest
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1. Place chicken in a skillet or saucepan and add enough water to cover; bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low and simmer gently until cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer the chicken to a cutting board to cool. Shred into bite-size strips.
2. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook pasta until just tender, about 9 minutes or according to package directions. Drain. Place in a large bowl.
3. Meanwhile, place oil and shallot in a small skillet and cook over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until softened and just beginning to brown, 2 to 5 minutes. Add broth, feta and lime juice and cook, stirring occasionally, until the feta begins to melt, 1 to 2 minutes.
4. Add the chicken to the bowl with the pasta. Add the dressing, blueberries, thyme, lime zest and salt and toss until combined.

Whole Wheat Blueberry bars

Crust

• 1 1/3 cups plus about 3 tablespoons whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup packed light brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Blueberry Filling

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
• 2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• Confectioners' sugar for dusting (optional)

Name that Veggie

Hopefully by now you've planted veggie starts in containers, your yard, or your community garden plot. Now it's time to dream about the bountiful harvest that will be coming soon. But, do you remember all the fabulous health benefits that each veggie brings? Take this quiz to test your knowledge... then pass it on so everybody will think about eating more veggies.

Recipe of the Month - Fava beans with creme fraiche and mint

I was at the Ukiah Farmers' Market this weekend and happened to see a vendor selling a sweet surprise - Fava Beans! I love fava beans and can never seem to find them in Ukiah, so I was delighted to see them being sold.

New to fava beans? I have to admit, they are a bit of a pain to cook with. Not only do you need to shell the pod, but you also need to peel off the skin around the bean inside the pod as well. I think that this extra work makes the fava bean an even more delightful treat, the extra work makes you appreciate this bright green been. Plus - the extra work is worth it. You are rewarded with a lovely buttery tasting bean that is great just cooked in some garlic, a great base for soups, or with some mint like in the recipe below.

Enjoy!

Ingredients

• 2 pounds fava beans in the pod
• 1/2 cup crème fraîche
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 1/3 cup mint leaf
  
• Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

To prepare the favas, split open the pods and remove the beans. Meanwhile, bring a saucepan filled with salted water to a boil over high heat. Place a bowl filled with ice water near your stove top. Drop the beans into the boiling water and cook for 3 minutes (this is longer than most recipes instruct because the beans are not cooked again). Drain the beans and quickly plunge them into the ice water. With your fingernail, pierce the skin of each bean near one end and squeeze the bean gently to pop free of the skin. Don't worry if the beans separate into halves. You should have about 2 cups beans.

In a bowl, whisk together the crème fraîche, olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Add the fava beans, mint leaves, and lemon zest and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours before serving to chill and allow the flavors to meld.

Taste and adjust the seasoning with salt and pepper before serving. Serve chilled.

New Preschool Garden

There's going to be a new preschool garden in town! The Gardens Project has been working with the Head Start Child Development Program of NCO to develop a new garden at the Orchard Head Start Preschool in Ukiah. The story is a classic one of how community gardens start, so read on if that interests you...

In the past three years, The Gardens project has worked with communities to help develop five preschool gardens. There is a plot of land adjacent to the Orchard Head Start Preschool in Ukiah that has been vacant for as long as anyone could remember. And so people started thinking, "Could it be a garden?"

Cassie Dillman, a staff woman at The Gardens Project, started investigating the land, headed to city hall to find out who the owners might be, and then contacted Jonathan Whipple and Peggy Agnew to see if they would be open to the idea of making a garden for the preschool on their land. They were!

The Gardens Project staff drafted an agreement for the property and the preschool community started getting excited. Orchard Head Start is fortunate to have some teachers who are very passionate about the garden, and this helped catalyze the community's resources to make the garden happen. The father of an assistant teacher connected the preschool with a tractor from the vineyard he works at. They came and disced the land and then went the extra mile and disced it again and amended it. Dark Horse Ranch and North Cal Wood Products chipped in with donated and discounted fencing materials. The facilities fellows at Head Start and parent volunteers put the fence up. A teacher's father is building raised beds and an arbor, and the community is working together to design the garden, which will feature an exploratory space for the children as well as production oriented space for the kitchen and parents.

It's all coming together.

Plant Starts On The Move!

Thanks to the wonderful donations of local nurseries and gardeners, hundreds of organic veggie starts are going to our local preschool and school gardens. For the third year in a row, Kris at Lovin' Blooms Nursery in Anderson Valley has donated an abundance of organic veggies starts. Our other major donors continue to be the Mendocino College Agriculture Department and the Master Gardeners of UC Cooperative Extension.

As State resources for our local school gardens continue to dwindle, The Gardens Project of NCO has teamed up with our local resources to bring these veggie starts to the K-12 school gardens and the Head Start and State Preschool gardens of Mendocino County.

Here, Kris from Lovin' Blooms brings his happy greens and Terry Nieves from the Garden Enhanced Nutrition Education Program of Mendocino County Schools happily takes them for the school gardens. Keep supporting our local resources and contact The Gardens Project if you have starts or seeds that you wish to donate to our local schools.

CCC Members Help Again!

An enormous thank you to the local California Conservation Corps (CCC) members who helped out Plowshares garden in Ukiah and Brookside garden in Willits this past Earth day. The CCC was a huge help to the Plowshares garden who is expanding their garden for this summer season to include the front side of their property. The members were essential in digging new beds, installing irrigation, and digging trenches for the expansion. The members at Brookside also helped to harvest food, dig new beds, and mixed in compost into existing beds.

The CCC is an essential assest to our community and our gardens - and as always they do an exceptional job and work hard. Thank you CCC for volunteering your time and helping The Gardens Project celebrate this years Earth Day!!

Tomatoes... Coming Soon to a Garden Near You

Human Race was held this last Saturday. I sure hope you were able to come out, enjoy the spring breeze, take a walk or run, and stroll through the Saturday Ukiah Farmers' Market.

I know that there were lots of folks stopping by our Gardens Project/BEANS booth to chat, add their name to our email list, buy our fabulous t-shirts, and to grab a healthy tomato recipe for homemade Mexican Pizzas.

Speaking of tomatoes, I have recently done a cost estimate comparing the cost of store-bought tomatoes and home-grown tomatoes. Now, it's a given that home-grown tomatoes taste sooooo much better, but did you know that per tomato, they're a quarter of the grocery store price? That's even assuming that you are buying a bag of potting soil and compost AND a small tomato plant from the farmers' market!

I would encourage all of you first-time gardeners to get your feet wet... get a container, some soil, a tomato plant, and keep it watered and in the sun. You'll love the fresh tomatoes all summer long!

Gardens Project and Story Corps

Over the past couple of years NCO and The Gardens Project has become a clearing house for food issues - and as a result of that we have come to meet some really great farmers, gardeners, food movers, food enthusiasts, and in general, some really inspirational people. Right here in Mendocino County. The local food movement in Mendocino County is strong and you all are doing some crazily innovative things here, and we really think that it needs to be documented- which is why we're so excited about being made a community partner with StoryCorps, a non-profit that documents peoples stories.

StoryCorps' mobile unit is in Ukiah until May 21st, and will be collecting peoples stories in their funky airstream trailer parked at Clay and School street (right across the street from the Farmers' Market - need I say more??) We have two slots left and we're looking to fill them up with people who are working to create a local food economy - which (in or opinion) includes pretty broad spectrum of people. If you are someone (or know someone!) who gardens in a community garden, a farmer, a pre-school teacher who incorporates food from the garden into the classroom, someone who advocates for healthy foods, someone who is donating land for a farm or garden, or someone who has a story to tell about food then contact us!

If you're interested in learning more about StoryCorps or want to book an appointment with them, contact them here.