Food Revolution Day

Nancy and Cindy enjoying the bountiful offerings of delicious food

Saturday was Food Revolution Day, a day to celebrate real food,  cooking and eating it. It was an event held in 62 countries and 664 cities, promoted by Jamie Oliver through his Food Revolution Foundation. School of Eating Good (aka Boulder CO Food Revolution) held a Potluck/Food Improv. Everyone brought some delicious food - brie baked with blueberry preserves, a colorful fresh green bean salad from the Moosewood Cookbook, mashed potatoes and cauliflower with an onion gravy, prosciutto wrapped pears, little peppers stuffed with curried chicken salad, and more. All wonderful food!

Donna and Jim's contribution - how can you go wrong with prosciutto?

All the guests also brought an ingredient for the Food Improv. I didn't use everything, but I sure tried! We had eggplant, artichokes, fennel fronds, maple syrup, broccoli, and goat cheese. What did I make?

Braised artichokes. Meltingly tender and tasty.

• Thai eggplant in a spicy green curry. Didn't make the curry paste - canned green curry paste is good stuff and it packs quite a punch! No coconut milk in the house (shame on me!) but heavy cream works nearly as well.
• A very simple broccoli and lemon soup made with chicken stock.
• The most challenging ingredient, fresh artichokes were braised with the fennel fronds and some lemon, white wine, garlic, onions, and olive oil. I used the pressure cooker to speed up the cooking some.
• Another challenging ingredient was maple syrup. With mostly vegetables, I had a hard time figuring this one out. But, one more guest showed up with plain mild chevre and I knew there was something to work with. I spread the goat cheese on amaretti cookies, sprinkled on some toasted walnuts and drizzled with a little maple syrup. Really simple and a great way to end a meal packed with real food.

Amaretti cookies with chevre, walnuts, and real maple syrup from the Lehman sugarbush in W. NY State

School of Eating Good is proud to provide food education to young adults (and other folks too) as part of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and we hope that our guests learned a little something watching me frenetically put together something tasty from the ingredients that showed up. I know everyone enjoyed a delicious meal full of real food!