Tips for a Veggie-Filled Life

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Tips for a Veggie-Filled Life:

  1. Rule of thirds – It can help to separate your plate into three sections. One for grains, one for veg, and one for protein. Ideally, the vegetable section should be the largest, then the protein, then grain.
  2. Make veggies delicious – Find a blog you love, and try some of their recipes. If you enjoy the way vegetables taste, you’ll be more likely to eat them! Try Love & Lemons and Cookie + Kate.
  3. Fit it into the schedule – Feel that you’re way too busy to shop & cook? There are plenty of meal-order services out there that will deliver dinner to your door, and all you have to do is put it together. There are also incredible options for prepared, plant based meals that can arrive at your home ready to eat. Sakara Life & Define Foods are great examples.
  4. Plan ahead – What happens when we’re really busy but also want to cook each meal? Sauce is the savior here. If you prepare a couple different sauces at the beginning of the week, you can use them over whatever you make, transforming regular vegetables, grains, & proteins into delicious meals.
  5. Sign up for a CSA – Your local farm probably has one of these, where a basket or box of vegetables will be available for pickup or delivery every week. It’s a great way to get local veggies without the hassle of going to the store. Plus you’re sure to have the epitome of whatever is in season for your area!
  6. Make it a habit – eventually, it will become second nature to have vegetables at every meal, and you’ll feel odd not to incorporate them!

Meet Our Favorite Farmers

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Some Favorite Farms We Follow:

Kneehigh Farm is a woman-run vegetable farm in Chester, PA. Growing over 150 varities of naturally grown produce.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Steadfast Farm in Mesa, AZ is a two acre bio-intensive market farm growing organic fruits, vegetables, and flowers alongside poultry & eggs.

We’re Half Way Through!

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Hello Summer VegOut! Enthusiasts,
We are excited about spotlighting small farms this month hoping to inspire you to buy local while eating your 30 different veggies in July. Did you know that you can earn badges for supporting local farms?  The kids will love that!  Will you please share your farm discoveries with us on social media with the hashtag #vegout2018—and we will tell the world. In the meantime, here are a few of our favorites around the country.

Brooklyn Grange is a 1.5 acre rooftop farm in Brooklyn, NY. They produce over 50,000 lbs of organic produce a year, and have a long waitlist for their CSA. They also host weddings, farm dinners, tours, and many other events throughout the year with the goal of expanding awareness & understanding around food sources.

Under a Tin Roof is a small family homestead in Wellman, Iowa, offering a CSA of vegetables, meats, and home goods all made on the property. They also have a u-pick market on Fridays.

Working on 20 acres in Encinitas, CA, Coastal Roots Farm is a non-profit growing food for their give-what-you-can farm stand, supporting members of the community who cannot afford organic, healthy food.

Hope Farms Stand
If you live in the Houston area, come visit us on Saturday mornings from 9 to noon at 10401 Scott Street! We’ve got squash, melon, onions, amaranth, tomatoes, eggplant, cucumbers, peppers, & more!

 

What’s in Season?
Don’t know what is in season where you live? Here‘s a great guide to seasonal summer food all over the country. Whatever is in season, bought locally from an organic producer, will always taste better than what you’ll find in the grocery store.

Summer Recipes

Our culinary director, Paola, and her daughter come out to Hope Farms on Saturdays and cook during the Farm Stand. It gives shoppers a chance to taste the produce prepared in ways they may not have thought of before. Want to try what they’re cooking? Here’s the recipe for Summer Veggie Paella:

      Servings Prep Time
      4 people 15 minutes
Cook Time
1:15 hour

 

Ingredients:

4 cups chicken stock
1 pinch saffron
5 sprigs thyme
2 tbsp olive oil
1 small yellow squash cut into 1/4″ coins
1 small zucchini cut into 1/4″ coins
1/2 eggplant cut into 1/4″ coins
1 oz dried chorizo finely chopped
1/2 onion finely chopped  …read more

 

#VegOut2018, the July Edition!

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In many parts of the country, July is when farms are ramping up production, and farmer’s markets are full of all the beautiful produce winter dreams are made of. What better month than to take the Veg Out! 30 ways in 30 days challenge? Our focus this month is on small farms – so register online & download our app, visit your local farm, and start tracking! We’ll be vegging out as well, and you can follow us on Instagram & Facebook to see what we’re eating, cooking, and where we’re going. We’re lucky enough to have Hope Farms as part of our foundation, where we can get produce every Saturday morning (and you can too, if you’re in Houston!). For those of you not in our city, we’ve got a list of helpful informational sites to visit, more information on Hope Farms, and a feature on one of our favorite Houstonians.

Hope Farms
In the Sunnyside neighborhood of Houston, we’re growing a 7 acre farm, with the goal of delivering fresh produce to the neighborhood, which is a food desert, at an affordable price. We do this at our Saturday morning Farm Stand, which is open from 9-noon every week, and is located on the farm, at 10401 Scott Street. We also have a weekly Farm Share, where freshly picked produce is delivered to those who live inside the loop. To find out more about it, and our veteran training program, visit http://hopefarmshtx.org.

#VegOut Spotlight: Marcia Smart
Marcia has been a long supporter of Recipe For Success and our work in the schools, often coming out to talk & demo in our classrooms. We were delighted when she decided to run a fundraiser during this #vegout2018 month! She’s hoping to raise enough money to provide Reynolds Elementary, which is just a few blocks away from Hope Farms with our  Seed-to-Plate Nutrition Education™ program. You can contribute to her fundraiser here.

Finding Farms in Your Area
Check out these helpful sites for farm & market listings in your area!
Local Harvest
National Farmers Market Directory
ATTRA Sustainable Agriculture
USDA Local Food Directory

Share your July #vegout2018 journey!
Tag @r4sfoundation in your posts & use the #vegout2018 & #vegoutwithrfs for a chance to be featured!

A New York Chef’s VegOut! in the Big Apple

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Chef Heather Carlucci
Chef Heather Carlucci

We asked award-winning NYC pastry chef Heather Carlucci to share her VegOut! 2015 adventures and her list of favorite VegOut!-friendly Manhattan restaurants. Heather, who serves on our Board of Directors, is also co-founder of Pig Mountain: Pig Roast and Veggie Fest, a charitable feast involving an army of chefs roasting what seems like a whole herd of pigs, plus delectable side dishes, held in upstate New York each August, and she is a member of the James Beard Foundation Board.

Carlucci says she joined our VegOut! Challenge because she wanted to support Recipe for Success Foundation’s effort to bring attention the role that eating produce plays in our overall health. She also says she enjoyed the challenge of cooking specific vegetables at home throughout each week. “I had fun keeping up with the vegetable of the day at home,” says Carlucci.

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