By Cristal Benton and Casey Paige |
For those of us who attend school in New England, were familiar with how difficult and expensive it is to eat fresh vegetables and fruit when they are out of season. Since our growing seasons are shortened because of our seasonal changes, it can be challenging obtaining fresh, sustainable ingredients for our food. Some alternatives to eat sustainably when the ingredients you want aren’t in season are…
1. Eat frozen vegetables
2. If buying food from store, find out where the food came from, and how many miles it traveled to get to that store. The more days the food spends on a truck traveling, the more nutritional value it looses each day.
3. Find what’s in season in your area http://www.sustainabletable.org/
4. If you don’t already have a freezer, invest in one. Having freezer space will make it easier to buy a large quantity of things you want when they are in season and at the cheapest prices. Freezing them to save them for the future. Freezing them keeps their nutritional value from decreasing.
Although eating organic foods is encouraged, it can be difficult to find the foods your looking for and very expensive. An alternative to buying organic and still eating sustainably is to buy food that is well-grown and grown in healthy soils. Healthy soils are soils that have been nourished by organic matter rather then synthetic fertilizers.
Try to find local farmer markets near you, there are currently 4,700 U.S.D.A established farmers markets. They are the fastest growing food segments in the market.
(http://www.ams.usda.gov/AMSv1.0/farmersmarkets)
Another option that is growing more and more popular each day is community-
supported agriculture. There are nearly 1,500 community supported farms, and the
number is increasing each day. Community Supported Farms are when consumers pay
an annual fee and in return get a weekly box of produce delivered to them throughout
the season.
For those of you who want to eat more sustainably but don’t know enough about what
ingredients are sustainable and things you can make, below is a recipe for Farm Fresh
Rhode Island Cabbage Wraps.
Farm-Fresh Rhode Island Cabbage Wraps
Makes: 4 Servings
4 wraps per serving
Ingredients
16 leaves of Green Cabbage (About half a head) $ 2.00
16 leaves of Purple cabbage (About half a head) $ 2.50
4 Tablespoons of Ginger $ 0.53
8 teaspoons of Garlic $ 0.25
4 oz of Soy Sauce (You won’t necessarily find this at the market) $ 0.73
8 Tablespoons of Scallions $ 1.71
16 oz of Steak (Doesn’t have to be one big one) $ 6.11
Approximate Cost for your meal: $ 13.83
Tools:
A Large Pot
Cutting board
Knife
Mixing bowl
Small pan
Tongs
Directions
1. Wash off the green cabbage leaves in cold water. Fill a pot half-way with water. Heat it on the stove, covered, to quickly bring it to a boil. While you’re waiting for it to boil, you can do step 2.
2. Slice the leaves of Purple cabbage into long, thin strips. Chop up the ginger as small as you can get it. Peel the garlic and chop it up like the ginger. Mix these three ingredients together in a bowl with the soy sauce. Add a big pinch of salt, and a smaller one of pepper. Let the ingredients just sit in the bowl while you do the next two steps.
3. Cut up the green parts of the green onion and set them aside.
4. Cut your steak into small strip – about taco size. Season with a little salt and pepper. Heat up a small pan on the stove top. Add a little oil and wait until it’s nice and hot. Use the tongs to gently set each piece of meat in the pan. Turn the pieces over with the tongs when the meat looks about halfway cooked. Let it cook a little longer. Take a piece out and cut it open on the cutting board. When the inside color is starting to dull, take out all the pieces of meat and set them on a paper towel to cool slightly.
5. Go back to your pot from step 1. While it’s boiling, use the tongs to put the leaves in a few at a time. Once the cook for 1 minute, take them out and put in the next few. The Cabbage leaves will be softer, but they shouldn’t fall apart.
6. Now you have everything to assemble your wraps! Take one of the green cabbage leaves and fill it with purple cabbage and a few pieces of steak. Roll it up and enjoy!
7. There’s no limit to the combinations of meat and veggies you can put inside this wrap! You can try chicken instead of beef (just cook it in the pan until ALL the pink is gone); you can try carrots instead of purple cabbage (just use a cheese grater to make it easier). If you want a more filling wrap, try cooking some ramen or rice and roll it up inside! Explore your local farmer’s market! There are lots of new flavors to try!
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Thanks to http://gogreenri.org for the use of their picture.
Breaking Green Boundaries 