Meal Partnerships, Meals, Community, Poverty & Food Insecurity
Jenny Barker
Fueling Potential: How Summer Meals Support ...

At the Andrew Jackson Clubhouse of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Middle Tennessee, kids are spending the summer learning, growing—and thanks to The Nashville Food Project’s made-from-scratch meals—staying nourished, too.

Through the Sweet Peas Summer Eats for Kids program, sponsored by Jackson®, hundreds of healthy meals are delivered each week to support youth during a time when access to regular food can drop off.

This partnership is part of The Nashville Food Project’s Community Meals program, which brings nutritious food directly to organizations already creating safe, supportive spaces for young people.

Now in its sixth year, the collaboration with Jackson is helping serve over 100,000 meals this summer—fueling not just plates, but potential across the city.

Fueling Potential: How Summer Meals Support Youth at the Boys & Girls Club
Community, Gardens, Volunteers
The Nashville Food Project
The Community Agriculture Network Is Live—And ...

The Community Agriculture Network is a collaboration of growing spaces—community gardens, church plots, urban farms, and orchards—each managed by trusted leaders in their respective communities. These sites are independently managed but supported by TNFP through shared tools, technical assistance, access to seed and compost, and a network of volunteers and educators.

The Community Agriculture Network Is Live—And Growing!

Generosity!

This guy! Continued thanks to John Patrick of Foggy Hollow Farm who dropped off 30 dozen certified organic eggs for us to use in our meals. John is building a sustainable poultry network in our community and his enthusiasm for chickens is contagious! You can purchase his eggs, meat and chickens. Learn more at foggyhollowfarm.net

The MEAT Report

Several weeks ago, The Nashville Food Project got a call from an event coordinator at Opryland Gaylord asking whether we could receive a large donation of fresh meat (never been frozen) at the conclusion of the American Meat Convention. We were told the take would be something like a thousand pounds. Over the course of a few days, we got a plan in place to recover so much meat: organized volunteers, rented freezer space, counted vehicles, and purchased wax-lined boxes to be palletized. In a caravan of trucks and station wagons, our people arrived at the convention center last Monday evening, ready to pack up thousands of pounds of meat for inclusion in our meals.

As the conference was winding down, company reps began packing up, leaving all of their meat products on display for our team to pick up. In food project aprons, we went from booth to booth, boxing up pork, chicken, beef, turkey, lamb and veal, as well as some other exotic meats, like boar, buffalo, duck and goose. These were products that would have otherwise gone into the dumpster at the end of the night. Did you all know 40% of all food in our country gets wasted? And one person in every five people in Tennessee doesn’t have enough healthy food to eat? The wasteful nature of our economy is one of our most egregious sins, especially when we remember we are talking about actual life wasted—each animal's life an important part of God's inexhaustibly beautiful creation.

The Nashville Food Project boxed up 5,100 pounds of high-quality meat that night! Based on current outputs, this should be enough meat to get us through 10 months of meals shared with people in need. I am proud of the new challenges The Nashville Food Project is able to meet, thanks to the TREMENDOUS support from our ever-widening circle of friends. If you want to get involved in this joyful, life-giving, sometimes-messy work, email us, and we will find a place for you!

 

Strawberry Ricotta Bread

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What to do with all our strawberries?! We recently received a beautiful donation of strawberries along along with a case of ricotta cheese. We found a delicious recipe for a tasty dessert bread and served it last week. The ricotta makes this bread low fat, moist and has a unique consistency that we all loved.

  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup ricotta cheese
  • 1 cup buttermilk
  • 1 tbsp vanilla
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 4 tbsp melted butter (cooled)
  • 2 cups All purpose flour
  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
  • 1/8 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tbsp lemon zest
  • 1 1/2 cups sliced strawberries

Preheat oven to 350. In a medium bowl, whisk ricotta cheese and then add eggs, beating until well combined. Add buttermilk, vanilla, lemon juice and cooled melted butter.

In another bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and lemon zest. Add ricotta mixture to the flour mixture. Stir until just combined and then fold in strawberries.

Bake in greased 9 X 5 loaf pan for 30-40 minutes.

Chicken Curry with Chick Peas and Tomatoes

This recipe uses an abundance of chick peas. We served this on a bed of brown rice and garnished it with recently harvested cilantro from our garden.

Recipe: (serves 50) 

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  • 15 cups brown rice 
  • 18 cups roasted, pulled chicken meat 
  • 9 cans of chick peas, rinsed and drained (15 oz) 
  • 9 cans of diced tomatoes, drained (14 oz) 
  • 5 cups of lowfat sour cream 
  • 4 Tbl of curry 
  • 3 Tbl of ground cumin 
  • 1 cup of fresh cilantro (chopped for garnish) 
  • 1 Tbl garlic salt 1 tsp pepper

Cook rice according to package directions and divide evenly into 3 large serving pans; meanwhile, transfer the chicken to a stock pot. Add chick peas, tomatoes, sour cream, curry powder and cumin. Mix well. Simmer on medium heat for 15 minutes to heat through. Remove from heat and season with garlic salt and pepper. Adjust seasonings to your preference. Serve curry over rice and garnish with chopped cilantro.