Last week Kaelyn and I stopped by to visit one of our partners, the Young City Growers (YCG) and pick up an overflowing basket of produce! 

Here's everything that was inside:

            

YCG is a great initiative that has created urban agricultural opportunities for youth in the Waterloo region. This provides an experience for youth to expand their knowledge on environmental issues in addition to learning practical agricultural skills. Furthermore, this project fosters youth leadership, and builds a community to address local food security issues. This is indispensible, given the need for local and sustainable agricultural projects, against corporate control of agriculture, which has only led to increased food insecurity and environmental degradation.

             A report on Household Food Insecurity in Canada, 2011 revealed that a shocking 1 out of 8 households experience some level of food insecurity, in Canada. Food insecurity refers to an inadequate or insecure access to food and proper nutrition due to financial constraints. This is a growing social and public health problem in Canada, which demonstrates how alternatives like YCG are essential against growing global dependency on agribusiness.

            But facts and reports aside, Kaelyn and I spent an afternoon making delicious food using our CSA basket! Eating locally grown, healthy food is not always easy on a student budget, but at only 15$, this bountiful bundle of produce was a double win.

Here are the end products we made, using only YCG produce, and a few other ingredients I had lying around my kitchen...

Foreground: Mixed bean salad using green, yellow, and purple beans, cilantro, tomatoes, beets, and parsley to garnish (our own recipe).

Back right: Pesto bruschetta (simplified pesto recipe, using onlybasil, lemon, olive oil and garlic)

Back left: Beet chips (Thanks Martha!), and pesto mayo for dipping.

Overall, we had a fun afternoon, learned some new recipes, ate some yummy food, and got to support one of our awesome partners in the process :)