As community engagement volunteers, the North Yorkshire Rotters promote home composting and the Love Food Hate Waste programme to communities and residents of North Yorkshire. At roadshows the volunteers provide advice along with handing out leaflets, recipe books and packs in droves, and we always receive very positive feedback from this. This static type of stall serves a purpose and is easy to set up; and paired with branded banners and signs, it always draws attention.
But we wanted to do more than this! In order to inspire the public to use up that glut of veg, and conjure up a delicious meal from leftovers from our recipe cards, what better way is there than to let them taste the delights first?
So to encourage and inspire the people of North Yorkshire, The North Yorkshire Rotters and Volunteer Coordinator have started to take “tasters” with matching recipe cards to events. Recipes include Glutney chutney (see step by step guide below), Chocolate Fridge Cake and a Seasonal Toffee Apple Crumble.
The first event was a festive food market in the North Yorkshire town of Thirsk…
And who knew the power of free tasters? Despite being a cool Thursday night in October, people came in their droves and they not only tasted our delights, they wanted to buy our offerings and snapped up the recipe cards! We gave away over 150 copies of each recipe and ran out of tasters!
We plan on continuing this engagement tactic and are already planning a spiced pumpkin soup with sweet and savoury pumpkin seed snacks for a big fair in November, turkey and cranberry parcels and Christmas pudding strudel for Christmas events! Watch out for the culinary take over happening in North Yorkshire!
Glutney recipe
Are you bored of the same old vegetable dishes this autumn? Follow our step by step guide and make some Glutney, a great recipe for chutney, using whatever’s in season, by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall.
Ingredients
Makes 5 jars
- Spice bag – 1/2 teaspoon each of cloves, black peppercorns Black peppercorns
- 675g courgettes and marrow OR pumpkin, peeled and diced into 1cm pieces
- 675g over-ripe tomatoes, skinned and chopped OR
- 675g over-ripe plums, stoned and chopped
- 675g bruised or shrivelled apples
- 250g onions, peeled and roughly chopped
- 375ml white wine or cider vinegar
- 200ml water
- 1-2 teaspoons dried chilli flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 250g raisins .
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 250g light brown sugar
Method
- Make up a spice bag by tying the spices into a square of muslin.
- Place all other ingredients into a large, heavy pan. Add the spice bag to the pan, pushing it to the middle.
- Heat gently, stirring occasionally to dissolve the sugar. Bring to the boil slowly then simmer on a low heat for about 1 hour, stirring regularly to stop it burning on the bottom of the pan.
- The chutney’s ready when rich, thick and reduced, and parts to reveal the base of the pan when a wooden spoon is dragged through it. If it starts to dry out before this stage, add a little boiling water.
- Place in sterilised jars with plastic coated screwtop lids while still warm but not boiling hot
Enjoy with cheese, cold meat or simply on crackers!
Recipe available: http://www.lovefoodhatewaste.com/recipes/show/85-glutney
