A growing community

If you read my last post about going local, you will know that I love everything about supporting independents and growing your own. For me, it is always great to hear about local events and projects that encourage awareness of what we eat.  When looking for something to do on a sunny Saturday recently, I came across an event at a local community centre that was holding an Eco fun day. The event was held by Windsor Grass roots, Green shoots, ' a creative urban growing collaboration between  Squash Nutrition, Windsor primary school, Toxteth TV, Toxteth library and local green-fingered activists, to ' green-up ' get growing and cooking lovely food in the Windsor street area '. On entering the event we were given a very warm welcome by the organisers and invited to eat free food, pick up free plants and learn all about what they do. Chatting to different people from the community and seeing the passion they have for the work they are doing was great; really inspiring. I realise that sounds a bit gushy but in the age of ready meals and self service check out, it's great to people really getting involved with food and sharing their love.

There was also a free ' veggie tombola ' in which everybody won a prize, mine being this lovely beetroot grown on the lovely on site allotment

I quickly made a lovely Chocolate and Beetroot cake and a quick beetroot, feta and walnut salad. I got the cake recipe from BBC Good Food and for the salad I simple peeled and sliced the beetroot, cooked it in the oven with oil and balsamic vinegar for 20 minutes, added feta and walnuts then put back in the oven for a further 5 minutes so the cheese warmed through; delicious.

Throughout 2012, Squash will be working on various projects as well as providing great courses where you can go along and learn all about cooking, preserving and even beekeeping. There really is a lot of great work going on around our city, with lots of projects interested in getting people involved. I have just registered with Project Dirt and am looking forward to getting involved with some of the projects and events in and around Liverpool, so why not take a look, get involved and bring back a sense of community.