Joyful 12 School Project Archives

Farminista’s Feast highlights the Joyful 12 School Project

May 10 by Chef Hollie Greene Leave a Comment

Whenever I see our project through a trusted friend’s eyes, it makes me feel honored and joyful. Karen Pavone is not just a friend and colleague. She’s a native to Novato, California, where we have launched the Joyful 12 School Project with Wellness in the Schools, and today, she shares her perspective about our school project over on her gorgeous blog, Farminista’sFeast. As Karen says, “pull up a chair and enjoy the journey,” as she explores the thriving “farm-to-table food culture in California’s North Bay” on her site. Thank you, Karen! We’re so grateful you’re a supporter and friend, helping us grow healthy kids in Novato Schools.

Karen Pavone is a writer, blogger, and photographer who lives in Novato, California, with her husband Matt, and their two children. To contact Karen about her blog, email [email protected].

Exploring Spring Peas

Mar 30 by Chef Hollie Greene Leave a Comment

Can you tell the difference between a sugar snap pea and a snow pea? Kids at Lu Sutton Elementary can! They learned about the three most common types of peas we eat during spring as a part of the Joyful 12 School Project and their “Eat Green” challenge during the month of March.

We just completed week four of our Joyful 12 School pilot at Lu Sutton Elementary in Novato, CA, and we’ve accomplished so much in the few weeks we’ve been there. I’ve had parents and teachers tell me that the children are coming home talking about the vegetable of the week and saying things like, “It’s so important to try new foods,” and asking their parents to make them spinach smoothies. I promise, I’m telling the vegetable truth!

In addition to every member of the school receiving free access my Joyful 12 Online Kitchen Learning Lab to learn how to cook vegetables at home with their families, the amazing thing about our project has been the community effort from teachers to parents to community partners that have made it possible for us to help this school community excite, educate, and empower 360 children in Novato to learn how to explore seasonal vegetables as their new healthy (and delicious) food culture!

Each Monday, 360 kids have sampled our vegetable of the week through the school food samples I’ve been making with Miguel Villarreal, Director of Food and Nutritional Services for NUSD, and his dietetic interns Dorette Franks and Robin Larkson: Brussels sprouts, asparagus, spinach, and this week was peas!

Each Wednesday, our friends and partners, Chefs Elianna Friedman, Amy Nghe and Rachel Kiichli from Bay Leaf Kitchen, have taught anywhere from 30-50 kids of the school as I’ve been teaching their parents how to cook the vegetable of the week at least two different ways. Last week, we made a spring spinach Minestrone and Spinach Pesto Toasts (in just an hour!) and this week was a Spring Pea Fried Rice and fresh strawberries for dessert.

Our vegetable report cards in the gymnasium are filling up with kids declaring they’ve tried the vegetable of the week with their stickers (see photo attached of weeks 1-3)! Kids will fill out their last board for peas this week!

Huge thanks to all of our partners in the Bay Area for their support of this pilot: Director Miguel Villarreal and the Food and Nutritional Services Department of NUSD, Bay Leaf Kitchen, Whole Foods Market® Novato, The Humane Society of the United States, and the SF-Marin Food Bank. Our amazing chefs, educators, and dietetic interns: Amy Orlandi, Dorette Franks, Robin Larkson, and Delaney Kidd.

If all this talk of peas has made you crave a heaping plate of them, you can make our Spring Pea Veggie Fried Rice at home with your kids and experience the joy we felt when this Novato community came together to celebrate cooking, eating, and relishing seasonal veggies!

Spring Pea Veggie Fried Rice

2015-03-27 17:11:32

Serves 8

Save Recipe

Prep Time

15 min

Cook Time

15 min

Total Time

30 min

Prep Time

15 min

Cook Time

15 min

Total Time

30 min

Ingredients

Pre-cooked and chilled brown rice, 6 cups (cooked)
Coconut oil or vegetable oil, 2 TBS
Carrots, 2
Ginger (fresh), 1 TBS
Green onions, 1 bunch
Green peas, 1 cup (fresh shelled or frozen)
Eggs, 2
Tamari (gluten free soy sauce), 1/2 cup
Sesame oil (dark), 2 TBS
Lime, 1

Prep

Take 5 minutes to get out all your ingredients, measuring and cooking equipment needed, and place them on a cookie sheet within easy reach.
Cook the brown rice in advance. This is a great thing to do the night before. Cook according to package instructions. Hold in refrigerator.
Peel and grate the carrots, peel and mince the ginger, slice green onions into small dice (both the white and green parts). Set aside some of the green tops of the onions as a garnish!
Shell fresh peas (or use frozen).
Chop cilantro and set aside as a garnish.
Zest and juice lime.
Crack eggs into bowl and beat them with a fork.

Cook

In a large deep bottom pan, heat the oil over medium high heat and cook the carrot and ginger for approximately 3 minutes.
Next add your other vegetables (scallions and peas) and cook an additional 2 minutes on medium high. *Note – you can substitute whatever vegetables you have on hand for what’s in this list, including frozen veggies. Try to make sure there is a variety of colors – green, red, orange, etc.
Push the vegetables to the left side of the pan. Next add your two eggs that you have lightly beaten with a fork in a separate bowl. You will scramble them on the right side of the pan and then mix them into the vegetables.
Add your tamari and sesame oil, and check for flavoring. Add the juice of ½ lime. Cut the other ½ lime into wedges to garnish each serving of the fried rice.
Mix in the chilled rice well and cook for an additional two minutes on medium high heat or until heated through.
To serve, you can top each bowl with extra green onion and cilantro.

By Chef Hollie

JoyFoodly http://www.joyfoodly.com/

Thanks To You Our Barnraiser Campaign Was A Success!

Mar 3 by Chef Hollie Greene Leave a Comment

We are all jumping for joy thanks to ALL of your participation and support! It’s been a Barnraiser of an event and we’re so grateful for each and every one of you for backing our Joyful 12 School Project and in turn making a big difference in the health of Novato Community’s families & children!!

We can’t thank you enough, knowing that this is just the first step in our bigger goal of a nationwide school food movement effort. But like anything worthy, it takes a lot of people and effort to create a healthy community, supporting one another for the greater good of our future.

The support of Foundations such as The Vita Fund, Whole Foods Market, NUSD’s Wellness Program & Bay Leaf Kitchen was so critical, but it’s the rest of our community of 150 supporters(!) that really demonstrates the power of individuals.

Collectively, $20,000 is enough to ensure every member of the school gets free access to the Joyful 12, the 4th & 5th graders can benefit from Bay Leaf Kitchen’s Jr Chef Helper cooking and mentor program, and provides a month-long vegetable cooking challenge with lessons each week for parents and kids at the school, focusing on the vegetable of the week!!

This is just the first step towards a nationwide initiative and we couldn’t have done it without all of your help!

We are still accepting donations through our fiscal sponsor, the Social Good Fund, 501(c)3. If you’d like to help us re-produce our Joyful 12 School Project in schools across the nation, any amount (yes, it’s tax deductible) helps! Just click the donate button below:

If you’re late to the party, learn more about the goals, the impact, and our pilot for the Joyful 12 School Project over on our Barnraiser page.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts, with our utmost gratitude!!

Community Support is a Vote of Confidence

Feb 24 by Chef Hollie Greene Leave a Comment

Our Barnraiser deadline ends this Friday 2/27 at 9pm PST! We’ve had great momentum thanks to all of our community support from our backers! We have some Foundations looking to donate some big money through grants and the more names we have on our list of supporters, the bigger we demonstrate the vote of confidence our supporters have! Please join (any donation amount counts) and share this post and to add YOUR name to our growing list of supporters!!

Thank you ALL!! We’re at 98% goal & 149 supporters (and counting) let’s make it over 175 by Friday!

Greta Alexander, Liza Siegler, Ramona Decker, Julie Lewis, John Vasellina, Beth Krauss, Almut Stephan Marino, With Love from BK (Dara Furlow), Sandro Enomoto, Tricia Rudisill, Scott Wigley, Kari Hamerschlag, Derek Metzger, Judith Gordon, Alan Chai (twice!), Margaret Reeves, Sasha Bernstein, Amy Nghe (twice!), Dana Gunders, Nate Wright, Scott Madsen, Jim Qin, Hannah Piercey, Nadia Ramos, Mark Holder, Emilie Gioia, Joyce Goldstein, The Vita Fund, Elianna Friedman (of BayLeaf Kitchen), Nalini Mehta, Grow Your Lunch (Benjamin Eichorn), Karena Stoner, Beth Waitkus, Lindsey Shifley, Laura Atkinson, Clayton Holz, Kathleen Roach, Sadie Scheffer, Fernanda Pacheco, Rebecca Chesney, Elana Greene, Miguel Villarreal, Lindsay Thomasson, Nancy Flowers, Wilson Frota, Thomas Roberson, Naomi Starkman, Melora Leiser, Tricia Stewart, Adam Kesselman, Ellie Hirshberg, Jill Conklin, Allie Leiser, Rachel Pringle, Kathleen Keagy, Neville Clubwala, Bernadette Kathryn, patty gattari, sandra guidi, Leah Brooks, Isabelle Elias, Kristie Middleton, Boris Lieberman, Sarah Nelson, Seth Rasmussen, Ave Beaupre, Haven Bourque, Angela Blume, casper mork ulnes, Molly Laurel, Nina Menconi, Julie Cerny, Ellen Rubenstein Chelmis, Guilherme Queiroz, Eleanor LaRocca, Julie Cummins, Nora Miller, Kevin Bayuk, Tony Lipp, Liz Oliner, Rob Salafia, Amy Fothergill, Jean Greene, Connie Schan, Carrie Sullivan, Brie Mazurek, Lauren Rottman, Barry Hillman, Alex Loscher, Sam Mogannam, Stacie Dong, Megan Ranegar, Deborah Huber, rahmin sarabi, simran singh (twice!), Paige Bossart, Philly Hartman, Wendy Morgan, Rudy Dobrev, Stella Grizont, Lilly Shapiro, bud fifer, Allison Suzanne, Marie Sayles, Raquel Rivera-Pablo, Margaret Langston, Heather Rosnow, Jane Hollman, Heather Koning, Damon Copeland, Frances Hodges, Grace Gonzalez, Alan Chai, Valeria Porto, Amy Nghe, Amy Orlandi, Grygoriy Ladigin, Allison Waddell, Jennifer Gerard, Elaine Mason, Anita Ratnathicam, Benedicte Galichet, Jon Kiehnau, Carolyn Federman, Jennifer Brown, Jean Rottman, Jaime Lockwood, Claudia Ossa, Leefa Roe, James Rottman, Jennifer Hall, Anna Wolf, Meg Rottman, Lena Brook, Tricia Stewart, Jack Miller, Leanne Lauder, Annie Hanrahan, Eileen Gordon, Kate Davis, Debbie Greene, Sarah Jelley, Laura Metzger, Mike Horne

-Hollie and the Joyful 12 Project Team