Appetizers and Sides

Earlier this week on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I visited the Farm and Food Lab at the Orange County Great Park. The other option was watching 12 hours straight of Bravo, so I’m going to call it a win for making the most of a day off and learning about a pretty cool spot that’s contributing to the community.

The Farm and Food Lab is an interactive outdoor classroom where you can grow your gardening knowledge, like who knew you could grow broccoli in a bale of hay?! It’s also home to the University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardeners, dynamo retirees who sweat it out gardening for a few hours a week. When we were there, two fabulous gals were pruning an avocado tree. It looked like hard, rewarding work and something I’d definitely consider doing when I’m retired. Until then, I’d like to invite these master gardeners over to my house to work their magic. I don’t think it would qualify as volunteer work unless you consider saving those who visit my home from the painful backyard tour that is “tree to the left, kind of flowery tree to the front, bush to your right, and that concludes our tour.”

This broccoli is having a diva moment.

The OC Great Park is also home to Alegria Farm, a solar-powered demonstration center where over 50,000 plants utilizing hydroponic and organic configurations are grown. What might you ask is a hyrdoponic farm? Well, let me enlighten you by quoting directly from the Alegria Farm website, “Hydroponic farming is soil-less. Alegría’s hydroponic vertical farm uses coconut fiber (coir) instead of soil, which prevents contamination by soil-borne diseases and food-borne pathogens such as E. Coli, Listeria and Salmonella.” Basically, they’re dreaming up amazingly innovative ways to bring science to agriculture in order to tackle modern day issues such as shrinking agricultural space, water shortages, and poor nutrition due to a lack of access to fresh produce.

Hydroponic farming is just one way Alegria is addressing the issue of providing healthy produce to those living in urban areas. They’re also leading the way with Soxx. No, not socks, Soxx. Like this.

Rows and rows of stacked Soxx grown organic strawberries.

GardenSoxx are an organic food production system that can be used over cement or other man-made surfaces. A GardenSoxx farm can yield nearly double the amount of produce as a conventional farm in less space and with 70% less water usage, making it perfect for densely populated urban environments. Basically the urbanite’s answer to farming and a genius way to expose kids to food production and healthy eating.

If you’re a SoCal native and interested in volunteer opportunities on the farm, the Incredible Edible Farm – a joint venture between Second Harvest Food Bank and OC Produce – is located adjacent to Alegria Farms and regularly hosts volunteers. The 4.5 acre space has produced over 275,000 pounds of produce in the past 11 months, which translates into roughly 200,000 healthy meals for Orange County’s hungry.

I may not have a green thumb, but I do love my greens and after being exposed to all that vibrant veg, I decided to whip up my Cilantro Green Sauce. This sauce is everything. Really, it is. It’s sweet and savory, slightly spicy and totally unexpected. It makes Mexican fare like tacos and burrito bowls suddenly sophisticated and ups the flavor punch on Asian stir fries or as a dip for pot stickers. My newest discovery is drizzling it over roasted potatoes. It’s cool to eat nearly a pound of fingerlings all by yourself right, right?!

Whip up some of Cilantro Green Sauce for yourself – it takes less than 5 minutes – and let me know what you put it on.