Our Meal Program produced several versions of corn chowder in the summers of 2020 & ‘21. This is one of our faves!
* This time of year, maybe you have corn you froze from our local harvest! If not, frozen corn is readily available at an affordable price from your grocery store* Corn Chowder Ingredients: 200g bacon or ham, cubed (optional) 1/4c butter or oil 1/4c flour 1 large onion, chopped 2-3 cloves garlic 4c corn (fresh or frozen) 2 carrots and 2 celery stalks, chopped 2-3 red or yellow potatoes, cubed 1L water or chicken stock 1c heavy cream (milk/non-dairy works too!) Salt & pepper to taste Method:
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Our frozen meal production started in April 2020, using primarily recovered foods to create nutritious and delicious meals. Chefs are contracted to produce meals each week and volunteer cooking sessions are coordinated every 2 weeks. To date, we have produced over 17,000 (12 oz) servings of meals for our community!
This program fills a niche in Kimberley and has resulted in improved food security services for our community. We adapt to enhance already existing services whenever possible. Some examples: Blarchmont Early Learning Centre runs a supper program that is highly over-subscribed with increased need since the Covid-19 pandemic. In addition to accessing 100s of lbs of fresh groceries each week, accessing additional frozen meals from us means they don't have to turn people away. Seniors Helping Seniors created a new meal delivery service due to accessing our meals. Since January 2021, their volunteers have delivered meals to 12-14 households per week. Local school meal programs have been restricted due to Covid-19 restrictions. We have produced an average of 75 whole food-based handheld baked goods weekly since October 2020 to accommodate the reduction in variety of fresh produce they are able to offer students. To augment supports our partner agencies coordinate for clients before the winter holidays, we plan our cooking sessions to produce the appropriate number and sizes of extra meals needed. Starting in 2020, we offer agencies frozen meal coupons for their clients to access meals through our 4 Open to Publics planned over the holiday period. Since this is a time when many local agencies are closed, there is also a greater amount of recovered groceries available to the public. Thanks to:
Blue Canoe Orchard in Creston for their inspiring "Rent-A-Tree, Donate-A-Tree" program, connecting fresh, beautiful cherries to food service organizations across the Kootenays! Wildsight Youth Climate Change Corps for their enthusiasm & hard work helping with the harvest! Our tireless food recovery volunteers who joined the harvest effort & helped us pit and freeze 200 lbs for use in our meal program & distribute the other 600 lbs for fresh use by partner agencies, such as Kimberley Helping Hands Food Bank, Blarchmont Early Learning Centre, Seniors Helping Seniors, Home Support, & others. Thanks to our food recovery volunteers for their efforts in harvesting & diligently processing them by cutting off the fly-affected bits.
Our cooks' team will put these to use in our frozen meal program - within a week of harvest, there were 100 carrot pineapple muffins in our freezer, ready for supplying local school meal programs :) This amazing certified organic farm produces sells their produce at local farmer's markets, through a CSA & directly from their farm and onsite cafe - check it out next time you're in the area. |