Friday, August 28, 2009

Wrapping up our family program

Growing Food ... Growing Together is our fifteen week gardening program for DC families. Families come together in the youth garden every Saturday morning to tend communal vegetable growing areas and take home a share of the harvest, CSA style. Throughout the course of the program, we've also had visits from health counselors, beekeepers, chefs, food historians, and local gardening experts (see past blog posts).

As is tradition (this program is 7 years old), GFGT ends with a big harvest festival and cook-off. Each family acts as a team, having to cook a delicious dish out of what we harvest from the garden. We bring brown rice, couscous, quinoa, and pasta as a base. There's also a secret ingredient that is unveiled right before the start that each family has to incorporate into their dish. Our garlic crop was so great that we decided to make garlic the ingredient this year (and everything tastes better with garlic anyways!).

We had an impressive array of dishes: stuffed peppers, pasta ratatouille, spinach and veggie stir fry, savory veggie couscous, brucshetta, cucumber and tomato salad, etc. But our winner, decided by voting, was Pat and CJ's curry okra. This makes the Ragland family the youth garden cook-off winners two years in a row!

Last days are always sad, but we had a great celebration before parting ways till next summer. Thank you to all of the families who participated in the program this year. We hope to see you again soon!

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