Inspired by #Foodival2016? Everyone can have a Tooting home farm by sprouting seeds!

A new idea at this year's Tooting Foodival was to celebrate local food together by encouraging home seed sprouting.

 Measuring out seeds to give away as trial packs at the Foodival (and checking the spelling)

Why sprout seeds at home?
It's easy, fun, accessible to all (no allotment, balcony or windowsill needed) and you produce fresh  nutritious food with zero food miles and no waste.

How to do it?
Growing your own is easy with our Successful Seed Sprouting at Home handout.

Soak the seeds (there are so many kinds you can use) for a day, then rinse them every day until ready, then enjoy them while beautifully fresh within a week of starting them off.

These sprouted seeds are nearly ready to eat

After the Foodival one family sprouted a mix of lentils and teff

We had good conversations about sprouting on the Saturday at the Foodival. Most people have heard about it....but maybe only ever had those big supermarket bags of bean sprouts. Some people may have a sprouting kit tucked away, or maybe it's a completely new idea.

Enjoy!
Enjoy in many ways - in salads, in pitta bread, mixed with a yogurt dressing or salsa, in a stir-fry, as a topping to add crunch and life to many dishes - and to school lunchboxes.

PS why teff?
In TTT we've become interested in teff cereal grain during our year and half working with refugees and asylum-seekers at CARAS in our Rooting in Tooting project. Teff is native to the Horn of Africa: in Ethiopian restaurants in London you'll be served injera, fermented bread made of teff grain.

Tooting teff

We've grown teff this year in the Tooting Community Garden, and we're going to get some hands-on advice about how to save the grains....so there can be plenty of future sprouting in Tooting.

Did you try Minestra's delicious pasta dish?

On Sunday afternoon, while the cooks were deliberating over who would become Top Tooting Cook for 2016, Minestra turned local produce donated from Tamworth Farm and around Tooting, into the most delicious vegetable pasta dish.

Elisabetta preparing vegetables (Pic by Riccardo, Minestra)

Elisabetta demonstrates to a packed Foodival crowd (Pic by Riccardo, Minestra)

We are really grateful to Minestra for their cooking demonstration. Maybe you saw it and tasted the delicious dish. Maybe you'd like to try it at home? Head over to Minestra's Facebook page for the recipe - Homemade Maltagliati with Vegetables.

Minestra also run Supper Clubs at their home - delicious low food mile dishes, shared with neighbours and new friends. The next Supper Club will take place on 15th October.

Soup Disco Characters

So the finale of Foodival 2016 yesterday was a Soup Disco held at Tooting Market. Many vegetables were peeled, washed and chopped before being cooked up into an uber soup by our team of dedicated volunteers. Thanks to everyone who helped out.
Just off the adjacent, hot, disco dancefloor (see Jeni's golden boots) various local characters indulged themselves in the semi-anonymity of Soup Disco Photobooth.  Can you spot any famous Tooting faces you know?

There'll be a full report on the whole event to follow ...

Top Tooting Cook Entries - Wow!

Feast your eyes on these amazing photos of the #Foodival2016 Top Tooting Cook entries!  All grown principally from donated home grown produce. More details on recipes and prize winners will follow ... but I thought you'd like to see this hot off the press!

Thank you to Charles for these stunning shots.  There'll be some from the Soup Disco photo booth soon too!

Soup Disco Tonight!

Don't miss the Soup Disco at Tooting Market this evening.  Low food mile sustainable veg peeled, chopped and cooked up into a community feast to the sound of classic dance beats.  You couldn't make it up!  Well you can if you come tonight ...

Optional checklist: peeler, glitter, apron, platform shoes, wig, chopping board, friend, inner Travolta

Foodival Day One

A great day at Foodival today - thanks to all our donors of locally grown fruit and vegetables, many of whom are pictured above. Tomorrow we have the Top Tooting Cook competition from 4pm, cooking demos from Minestra and the Soup Disco from 7pm. bring your peeler and your dancing shoes!

Sunday night Soup Disco

One prize that was decided was the Ugly Veg competiton - a tie between Rich's tomato and David's kohl rabi!

Looking Ugly

Grow Local, Cook Local, Eat Local with Minestra Supper Club on Sunday

Tooting Foodival celebrates growing food locally. It's also celebrates what we do with that produce together - how we share in cooking seasonal produce with very low food miles, and enjoying every delicious mouthful together as a community.

Transition Town Tooting is delighted to be welcoming Minestra back to Tooting Foodival this year. Run by Elisabetta and Riccardo, Minestra truly embraces the idea of growing, cooking and eating local.

Minestra will be harvesting produce from their allotment plot and receiving donations from other plot holders at Tamworth Farm in Tooting on Saturday. They'll be giving a cooking demonstration using that produce on Sunday afternoon at Mushkil Aasaan (222 Upper Tooting Road) from 5pm - 6pm. We'll share the recipe with you on Sunday at the event!

Come along to see what Minestra will cook.  Of course, we'll eat a little together too, before we find out who has won Top Tooting Cook at 6.15pm (also at Mushkil Aasaan) and then all head to Soup Disco at 7pm at Tooting Market!

Elisabetta has been kind enough to share a recipe here. So if you're thinking about entering Top Tooting Cook, maybe this will inspire you!  If you'd like to try Minestra's food, come along on Sunday. Like them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter to find out more about the supper club and cooking classes they run.  Next supper club is on 15th October.

Courgette and Pumpkin Flower Fritters

Ingredients

To make about 15 fritters you need:

• 15 courgette or pumpkin flowers
• 80/100g of plain flour
• 1 egg
• Cold sparkling water
• Peanut oil or sunflower oil for frying

Method

Mix the egg and the flour, and then add enough sparkling cold water to make a thick batter (so it is the same consistency as pancake batter). Add a pinch of salt. Let it to rest for half an hour covered.

Meanwhile prepare the flowers by removing the green part attached to the stem, including the pistil.  Don’t wash them if possible but shake them of any dirt.

Bring the oil to frying temperature in a large, deep frying pan. Dip the flowers, one at the time, into the batter and fry for 2 min or until gold, turning them several times.  Gently remove them with a slotted spoon and let them drain on kitchen paper.  Serve them hot.

Share your recipes

Maybe you have a delicious recipe to share.  If you'd like to share a recipe or picture of something you've cooked using seasonal fruit, vegetables and herbs, post it to our Facebook page or tweet us @TTTooting. You'll be sharing it with over 1,000 people locally!

 

Or enter Top Tooting Cook!  Judges and prizes have just been announced - take a look at the Top Tooting Cook page for all the details.

Calling out for your locally-grown vegetables & fruit for #Foodival2016

This is the ninth year we've run the Tooting Foodival, and every year we call out to local growers for home-grown donations.

Every year we're amazed at the range and quality of what gets grown locally by beginners and experts in backyards or pots, on balconies or allotments.
Maybe you took part in our Growing Tooting classes in spring 2016?
Maybe you have been growing your own all your life.

Here's our 'I Grew This' poster of locally-grown donations at the 2015 Foodival.


To contribute your locally-grown donations, please select something you've grown which you'd like to share and bring it along to Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7EW between 1:00 pm and 4:00 pm on Saturday 10th Sept. There are lots of other activities at the venue on Saturday.

• After 4:00 pm on Saturday 10th, local cooks taking part in the Top Tooting Cook event will be able to choose produce from what's on offer. There will be the potential for wonderful dishes - maybe with surprising ingredients that the cooks had not anticipated using before seeing the selection.
• Then we'll store remaining vegetables overnight for use in the Soup Disco cook-up with music and dancing on Sunday evening in Tooting Market.
• Any surplus will be donated to the Battersea Canteen supper clubs being run by the London Cooking Project and Tooting's own Be Enriched. The clubs aim to reduce food waste and feed those in need.  And to CARAS, who run clubs and support services for refugees and asylum seekers in south west London.

A huge Jerusalem Artichoke!

And small ones - but with big leaves!

Whatever you decide to bring along, donating is all about celebrating local food and wanting to share that enthusiasm with others.
It's about sharing Tooting's flavour, diversity and interest! 

Foodival Supports Zero Waste Week 2016

TTT is supporting National Zero Waste week which starts this coming Monday 5th Sept.  People and organisations all over the UK have made pledges to reduce waste in their lives and committed to help spread the message of how zero waste can be part of all of our futures.

As a group we are pledging to create zero food waste at next weekend's Foodival Soup Disco by collecting all the food scraps at the event for composting at the Tooting Community Garden. Plus, bring a container with you and you can take home any left-over soup. What can you pledge to do next week?  Maybe you could join in with some office colleagues or friends?

Are these pledgers copying our poster?

There is still time to sign up and make your pledge here and help spread the word using #ZeroWasteWeek.

And come to the Soup Disco on Sunday evening to celebrate your wastelessness!

How Ugly Is Your Veg?

This year we are again holding an Ugly Vegetable Competition at Foodival.  Have you grown something in your back garden, window box, flower pot or allotment that would meet no supermarket specifications?  Something truly distorted, organic, untainted by order?  Yes?  Great!  You could be a contender or rather your fruit or vegetable could.  Bring it along to be celebrated, photographed and admired at Mushkil Aasaan on Saturday September 10th, 1-5pm.

Last year's winner was a rather beautiful ugly pepper grown by our friends at Share Community Garden.  Congratulations to Jenny Shand and her team.  Could you be a prize winner this time round?

Ugly Veg Champion 2015

Celebrating Local Food Together as a Community: Preview of #Foodival2016 on the 10th & 11th Sept

We're very excited about TTT's ninth annual Tooting Foodival which is all about Celebrating Local Food Together as a Community. 
We're planning the details now - here's a snapshot preview.
Plenty more information to come later on.

'Local food plus local community' is the weekend's theme:

I Grew This! (Foodival 2015)

Saturday 10th Sept activities run from from 1pm to 5pm and are based at Mushkil Aasaan, 222 Upper Tooting Road SW17 7EW. 

On Saturday we welcome all local growers to share and donate some of their local produce - maybe a bag of potatoes, or a single chilli pepper...whatever you would like to share.

Mark where you've been growing on our Growing Tooting Map.

We'll take your photo proudly holding your fruit or veg for our 2016 I Grew This! poster and we'll display what's shared.

Where will all this wonderful donated local produce go?

Top Tooting Cook! 
Firstly, donated produce goes to anyone who wants to enter our fun Top Tooting Cook event. Take some produce or recipes away (or cook with what you have grown at home), and bring back what you make on Sunday for the light-hearted judging and more at Mushkil Aasaan from 4 to 7pm.

The TTC hat - not the only prize you might win

Show off your culinary skills using fruit and veg grown locally and you could win a prize... and the coveted title "Top Tooting Cook"!
Find out all about the competition here and get in touch with Belinda to enter.
For inspiration, look at these delicious dishes - sorrel soup, risotto with cavolo nero, fava bean toast with egg - cooked by visitors to the Tooting Community Garden, using produce picked that day!

Thanks Naomi, Charles and Janine.

Soup Disco!

Secondly, local produce donated on Saturday will go to Sunday evening's Soup Disco party from 7pm to 10pm in Tooting Market, 21-23 Tooting High Street SW17 0SN.

From 7pm, we'll all be chopping up the veg to make our delicious Tooting soups for everyone to enjoy. And to accompany the collective cook-up, our fantastic DJ will be spinning some great tunes so you can show off all your best moves on the chopping board and the dance floor. 

No cooking or dancing experience required but fabulous disco outfits are encouraged! Plus, some enterprises in the market will be open for business - it's going to be a memorable night! 

Other activities for all ages on Saturday at Mushkil Aasaan from 1pm to 5pm will include:

Celebrate reducing waste and having fun by displaying your Ugly Veg. Or as it's called in the USA: Produce with Personality.

Learn about urban beekeeping, taste SW12 and SW17 honey and get close to live bees. Local beekeeper Richard is bringing a demonstration hive of live bees. He can chat about bees & honey - and about sources of info for planting and gardening to encourage bees and other pollinators.

Sprouted teff seed

Practice being a successful home farmer by sprouting seeds - easy and delicious. Fresh seeds sprouted at home only have to travel a few inches 'from plot to plate'. 
NO food miles!

Play our fun low carbon living games including exploring food's footprint and much more.


Get hands-on and creative with crafts linked to food and the Soup Disco - all ages can come and enjoy making.

In the garden...

Explore the local network of community gardens which can offer you fun, exercise, friendship, time outdoors in nature and a place to grow healthy local food.
Plus, you will pick up plenty of growing advice and encouragement to grow your own fresh food on window sill, a balcony or in a front garden.


Discuss the other local sustainability projects that Transition Tooting facilitates with many different partners, find out how to get involved - and we welcome your suggestions and new ideas.

All welcome to #Foodival2016!

Could you be Tooting's Top Cook?

Look at these delicious dishes - sorrel soup, risotto with cavolo nero, fava bean toast with egg - all cooked by visitors to the Tooting Community Garden, using produce they picked that day! Thanks Janine, Charles and Naomi!

Are you feeling hungry yet? Or maybe you have a wonderful recipe to share with the community?

If you do...

Enter Top Tooting Cook at this year's Foodival!

Show off your culinary skills using produce grown and sourced locally and you could win a prize... and the coveted title "Top Tooting Cook"!

Find out all about the competition here and get in touch with Belinda to enter or come chat to the team at the Community Garden picnic tomorrow!  Plenty of time to decide what you'll cook. The competition takes place during Foodival: 10-11 September.

The Top Tooting Cook hat... not the only prize you'll win!

Share your recipes with Tooting!

If you have a delicious recipe you'd like to share - post it to our Facebook page.  Post the recipe with a picture if you have one. We hope to produce a recipe book. Maybe you'd like your recipe to be shared with local people. Let us know!

Tooting Foodival 2016 - Coming Soon!

We're getting ready for Tooting's 9th Foodival. Here's a sneak preview!

Stay tuned for more details and if you'd like to get involved, get in touch.

Tooting Foodival Wins Mayor's Sunshine Award

Tooting Foodival 2015 today received an inaugural Grow Wandsworth Award from Mayor of Wandsworth, Nicola Nardelli, who launched the awards to encourage people and organisations who grow healthy, fresh, local food in Community Food Projects.

With Mayor Nicola at Wandsworth Town Hall

At a reception in the Mayor's Parlour at the Town Hall, including very beautiful cakes, Foodival won the "Sunshine Award" for "celebrating the ways people have brought a bit of sunshine into the lives of others through community growing"! We do our best!

Back in September the Mayor experienced the myriad food related activities at Samaj Hall, including some prize winning vegetables and bananas (below)!

Mayor Nicola Nardelli with David & Mal at Foodival 2015

We are delighted to receive this award and it was really interesting to meet people from the other award-winning community groups including friends from SHARE Community and Wendelsworth Community Garden as well as new contacts who we hope to collaborate with in the future.

For anyone interested in getting involved in Foodival 2016, the first planning meeting will be at the King's Head in Upper Tooting Road, Tooting Bec, on this Thursday evening (Feb 4th) at 7pm.  All welcome to help us work out how we will create this year's home grown sustainable food festival in Tooting.  If you have any ideas, skills, or just fancy being part of a fantastic (and now award-winning!) community project please do come along.