Favorite Plant Forward Recipes from Cville Groups!
Did you know that if 100 of our followers skipped one meat meal per week, we'd reduce our impact by 20 tons of CO2e? So C3 put a call out to some of our favorite community nonprofit partners. Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry, the PB&J Fund, Cultivate Charlottesville, the UVA Office of Sustainability, and Agnor Hurt Elementary School teacher Mia Shand shared these favorite planet and planet forward recipes with us! Hope this helps you stock up on your #MeatlessMonday meals this fall.
Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry
Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry provides approximately 100 pounds of free groceries, including fresh fruits and vegetables, milk and eggs, frozen meat, baked items, and shelf-stable foods two times each month, to anyone seeking food assistance. Since March 17, 2020, Loaves & Fishes has safely provided more than 800,000 pounds of healthy groceries to 21,000 area people, many of whom had never been to a food pantry before.
Our nutritionist, Monica Davis, has developed the following two simple recipes for Loaves & Fishes’ clients to make with the food they get at the pantry. We hope you enjoy! -- Monica and Jane
Monica’s Simple Chili
2 Tbsp vegetable oil
½ c. chopped onion
Two sweet peppers (red, green, or yellow), chopped
1 15oz can diced tomatoes
1 15oz can tomato sauce
1 15oz can each kidney and black beans, drained and rinsed
½ tsp garlic powder or 2 cloves minced fresh garlic
1 tsp cumin (more or less to taste)
1 Tbsp chili powder (more or less to taste)
Salt to taste
In medium pot, sauté chopped onion in vegetable oil. Add peppers and cook until slightly soft. Add can of diced tomatoes, tomato sauce, and rinsed beans. Add spices. Stir until blended and heated through, about 30 mins.
Serves 4.
One Pot Pasta with Spinach and Tomatoes
1 T olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
6 garlic cloves, finely chopped (or 1 tsp garlic powder)
1 14.5oz canned diced tomatoes, undrained
1 ½ c. vegetable broth or stock
½ tsp dried oregano
8 oz whole-grain spaghetti or linguini
½ tsp salt
10 oz. fresh spinach
¼ c grated parmesan cheese
Heat a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil; swirl to coat. Add onion and garlic to pan; sauté 3 minutes of until onion starts to brown. Add tomatoes and stock, oregano and pasta, in that order. Bring to a boil. Stir to submerge noodles in liquid. Cover, reduce heat to medium-low, and cook 7 minutes on until pasta is almost done. Uncover, stir in salt. Add spinach in batches, stirring until spinach wilts. Remove from heat; let stand 5 minutes. Sprinkle with parmesan cheese.
Serves 4.
PB and J Fund
Beginning in March, the PB&J Fund shifted all operations and funding to provide weekend meal bags to families in partnership with Charlottesville City Schools. This program provided more than 330 families with bags of shelf stable food and produce for 24 weeks. In total, we distributed 8,250 bags of food or approximately 132,000 meal servings.
A favorite last fall was their Veggie Low Mein. Bon Appetit! - PB&J Fund Crew
Cultivate Charlottesville
Cultivate Charlottesville engages with youth and community to build a healthy and just food system believing that together we can grow, share, and advocate for food equity. Here is a recipe to help you get rid of some of those prolific backyard cherry tomato plants and zucchini. :) —Jordan Johnson, Program Director for the City Schoolyard Garden
Roasted Zucchini and Cherry Tomatoes
2 zucchini cut into 1/2-inch chunks
2 cups halved cherry tomatoes
1/2 onion, minced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh basil
splash of red wine vinegar (optional)
Prepare zucchini, tomatoes, onion and garlic. Place prepared ingredients in a bowl and drizzle with the olive oil. Add salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. Toss to coat. Place on a lightly greased baking sheet and bake in a preheated oven to 450 degrees F. Roast for 15 minutes. Remove from the oven once veggies are soft and golden; top with basil. (optional: Add a splash of red wine vinegar to finish.)
UVA Office of Sustainability
We are excited to be working with City and County partners toward our goal of reaching Carbon Neutrality by 2030. We will need the help of every employee and student at the University, so encourage any ‘Hoo that you know to visit sustainability.virginia.edu or follow us @SustainableUVA on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn. — Dana Schroeder is the Sustainability Coordinator for Outreach & Engagement at UVA.
Stale Bread Salad (AKA Panzanella)
Squash (zucchini, summer, or pattypan)
Cherry tomatoes
Baguette or other firm bread (a little stale is best!)
Mini mozzarella balls
Chopped nuts if you’d like (walnut, pine nut, etc.)
Garlic, minced
LOTS of basil, torn or cut into strips
Olive oil
Balsamic vinegar (just a touch!)
Salt and pepper
Cut the squash (set aside), then tomatoes, bread, and mozzarella balls into equal sized pieces, being sure to at least cut the cherry tomatoes in half to let all that juice out! Place squash in a pan with olive oil over medium heat until slightly soft, or to your liking. Combine squash with all other ingredients in a big bowl, stir, & let sit for 10 minutes so the flavors can meld and the bread can soak up the juices. Enjoy on the porch, preferably.
Agnor Hurt’s Elementary School - Go Gaters!
Mia Shand is an Albemarle County School educator and a member of C3’s Green School Alliance. And when we put out the call for her favorate plant-based recipe to share, she gave us this family recipe. “MANGIA” which means eat up!! -- Mia
Mama Mia’s Stuffed Vegetarian Peppers
4-6 Red, yellow or orange peppers
As many cloves of garlic minced as you can handle LOL
Red medium onion diced
Cilantro chopped 1/2 cup
Spinach chopped amount up to you (2 cups)
Mushrooms diced or sliced
2 tomatoes diced
2 cans of low sodium diced tomatoes
1 can of low sodium kidney beans(or black)
1/2 jar of your fav pasta sauce
Mozzarella
Olive oil
Kosher salt
Pepper
Red pepper flakes
Curry optional
One cup of rice cooked (or more if you like it on the side, too)
First, start the rice cooking, so it’s ready when you’re done.
Cut the heads off of the peppers and clean out the shell. Dice up the heads and save. Don’t waste any part of a vegetable! Use it all! Take the shells and put on baking pan with water covering the whole bottom. Cook at 375 for 10 minutes.
Dice up the remains from the peppers, the red onion, the 6-8 cloves of garlic (minced), cilantro, spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes. Now fill the bottom of a sauce pan with olive oil and let it heat up with one little piece of onion in it to know when it’s ready. You don’t want to put the veggies in when the oil is cold.
Time to start putting things in slowly! Usually it starts hard too soft. Add the onions, garlic, salt, pepper, red pepper flakes, and curry. Let it simmer for 3-5 min. Add the spinach and cilantro last. Once you add the two cans of low-sodium diced tomatoes and one can of low-sodium kidney beans, fill up a can with water and pour in a little at a time to your own liking of consistency. You can always add more later. You can add some more spices at this point too (e.g. curry, salt).
Take the peppers out of the oven and let them sit out. Watching your sauce for that magical saucy perfect look. When you feel like it’s time you can add some of the rice (I don’t recommend adding all of it).
Now the fun part: putting it all together! There should still be some water with the peppers that just came out the oven, which you will keep and have it become part of your sauce. Put a little bit of mozzarella cheese into the empty pepper shells. Start carefully scooping up your mix of yummy vegetables and pouring it into each shell. Get as much as you can into each one and then pour the rest all around them. This is when you’ll be able to tell if you need any more water.
Sprinkle desired amount of mozzarella over each pepper and a little bit over the rest of the casserole dish. Place in oven 15 min. Check to see is the mozzarella just a little bit browning and then that’s when you know it’s ready! Let sit for about 5-10 minutes and serve.