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Sustainability Peer Educators
SFU Student

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Edgar Castrejon on Unsplash

Sustainable SFU put together some amazing recipes that not only taste great, but can help you stay healthy - all while using sustainability-friendly products.

Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper Soup
Butternut Squash and Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Paige Ritchie shares her favourite soup recipie that you can make with locally grown produce. Add a caramel apple and your sandwich of choice, and you have one delicious lunch.

Stuffed Peppers and More
Stuffed Peppers

Paige makes an awesome vegan dinner, complete with stuffed peppers, mashed potatoes, veggies, and a locally grown apple dessert.

Autumn Inspired Meal
Autumn Inspired Meal

Paige found a recipe to warm you up when the weather gets cold: Pork tenderloin with locally grown oven roasted vegetables. The meal wouldn't be complete without apple crisp for dessert.

Pork Tenderloin & Oven-Roasted Vegetables:

  • 2  Pork tenderloins
  • 4  Local Beets
  • 4  Local Carrots
  • 4  Local Potatoes
  • 2  Local Ears of corn
  • 1  Local Onion
  • 2 tbsp Olive Oil
  • 1 tbsp Rosemary
  • 1 tsp   Ground black pepper
  • 1 cup  Spring Mix organic greens

Season the pork with Montreal Steak Spice and 1-2 pressed garlic cloves.  The pork can be cooked various ways; this week I chose to barbeque them.  Total time: 15 minutes (turning frequently).

For the vegetables, pre-heat the oven to 400˚F.  Chop the beets and potato and use a large bowl to lightly season them with olive oil, rosemary and ground black pepper.  Line a baking sheet with tin foil and place seasoned beets and potato on it.  Place the baking sheet on the middle rack in the oven.  Make sure to consistently remove the baking sheet from the oven and mix the vegetables around so that they do not stick.

While the beets and potato are in the oven, chop the carrots and onion.  Season these the same way.  After the beets and potato have been roasting for 15 minutes, add the seasoned carrots and onion.  While these are roasting, cut the corncobs in half and shave the corn off each cob.  Season these the same way and add them to the other vegetables after the carrots and onion have been roasting for 15 minutes.  The corn only has to roast for 5-10 minutes.  At this time, remove the vegetables from the oven and let them cool on the baking sheet.  Total time: 40 minutes.

Add the vegetables to the plate of pork tenderloin and serve alongside the organic greens.

Apple Crisp

Keep in mind; the apples in this recipe could easily be substituted for this week’s local peaches!

  • 6 cups        Sliced Local apples (or peeled Local peaches)
  • 1 tbsp        Lemon juice
  • 2/3 cup      Packed brown sugar
  • 2/3 cup      All-purpose flour
  • 2/3 cup      Rolled oats
  • 1 tsp           Cinnamon
  • Pinch          Nutmeg
  • 1/3 cup       Butter, softened
  • 1 scoop       Vanilla ice cream

Preheat oven to 375˚F.  Arrange slices of apple in a buttered 8-inch baking dish and sprinkle with lemon juice.  In a large bowl, combine brown sugar, flour, rolled oats, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Blend in butter using fingers or a large spoon.  Sprinkle this mixture over the apple slices.

Bake for 30 minutes or until topping has browned and apples are tender.  Total time: 35 minutes.

Homemade "Sushi"
Homemade "Sushi"

Paige experiments with sushi using only local ingredients. Hint: Try turnips. The results look amazing, and even allow for delicious leftovers.

This week I used my box to make experimental sushi and I focused on a lesser known member of the Lower Mainland’s local food repertoire – the turnip.  How do turnips relate to sushi…stay tuned to find out!

*Caution: Sushi rice is typically the most important part of a sushi roll and the most difficult ingredient to perfect.  Be careful when selecting your sushi rice and follow the directions carefully when preparing it.

Ingredients Used:

  • 1 cup  Sushi Rice
  • 3 sheets  Nori
  • 1  Turnip (half cubed, half sliced thinly)
  • 1  Cucumber
  • 1  Apple
  • 1/2 cup  Sesame Seeds
  • 2 cups    Crab Meat

Faux California Roll

Typically, California rolls contain crab meat and avocado.  Instead, I substituted sauteed turnip for the avocado.

Cut the turnip in half and use one half to chop up into thin slices (see picture below).  We will use the other half in one of the other rolls.

Saute these slices in a pan with just a little bit of oil (I used sesame oil but canola, vegetable or olive would work too).  Meanwhile, put half of a nori sheet onto your bamboo mat (shiny side down) but make sure the mat is covered with plastic so you can easily flip the roll over.  Cover the nori with rice and sprinkle sesame seeds over the rice until it is evenly covered.  Flip the nori over and put thin slices of crab meat down at the edge of the roll.

Place the sauteed turnips down over the crab meat  (slightly overlapping to make it easier to roll).

Fold the bamboo map around the ingredients as tightly as possible until you have a compact roll.  Slice the roll into pieces.

Sans-Rice Roll

For this roll, I substituted mashed-turnips for rice – and it actually worked!  The roll ended up slightly mushy due to excess liquid from the turnips but that can be resolved by straining/draining the turnips prior to using them.

Use the other half of the turnip, dice it and add it to boiling water.  Similar to mashed potatoes, wait until the pieces are decently soft and then mash!

Put a half piece of nori down on your bamboo mat, cover it with your mashed turnips, and add whatever ingredients you like.  I used thinly sliced cucumber and apple.  Roll and enjoy!

Leftover Roll

I used the remaining ingredients to throw together a couple cucumber rolls, an apple and turnip roll, etc. Sushi is fun to experiment with and is the perfect way to utilize BC’s fantastic assortment of local produce.

Sustainability Peer Educators
SFU Student
Paige Ritchie is a peer educator and local food blogger. You can reach her at paiger@sfu.ca
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Apr 16, 2016

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