About a month ago I had the privilege to be my friend Heather’s “date” to a Make it & Take it event sponsored by the Iowa Food and Family Project. Which, to be quite honest I didn’t know that much about, until I attended the event.
The Food and Family Project of Iowa brings ag and food related associations, businesses, and educational institutions to the table to connect families, food and farmers. They are starting the conversation…”Where does your food come from, and what makes food safe and healthy?”
To help people learn more about farming and food the Food and Family Project sponsors and hosts a number of events. In addition to the Make it & Take its they have a booth at local farmers’ markets, host a Recipe Refresh Giveaway, present Food for Thought at the Science Center of Iowa and participate in a number of other events, including the Iowa State Fair. You can find a list of their events on their website.
The Make it & Take it event I attended was held at the Mills Civic Hy-Vee in West Des Moines. Heather had entered to win the Make it & Take it giveaway on Iowa Food and Family’s Facebook page. The giveaway invites six people and their “plus one” to spend an evening making a week’s worth of meals for their families. In addition to the meals, we also received a “swag bag” which contained an apron, cookbook and a $20 Hy-Vee gift card.
Lindsey Foss, Communications Program Coordinator with the Iowa Soybean Association, kicked the evening off welcoming us and giving us a bit more background about the Iowa Food & Family Project. The Make it & Take it event is funded in part by the soybean, pork, beef, egg, dairy, corn and turkey producers of Iowa.
Since May was Beef Month the “theme” for the evening was beef. Before we put our aprons on and got to work, Dan Hanrahan a local farmer and member of the Madison County Cattlemen’s Association and Nancy Degner with the Iowa Beef Council spoke. They provided the group with some background on how calves and cows are typically raised and processed in Iowa. They answered questions and stayed around while we assembled the meals. Dan even helped Heather and I slice up flank steak for the fajitas we were in charge of making.
After observing our clever table mates sharing a bottle of wine, Heather and I raced down to Hy-Vee’s liquor department to purchase our own. Any night away from the kids is a good time for a little vino, right? Light snacks like carrots, celery sticks and pita chips with hummus were also served to help sustain us through the “Make it” portion of the event.
Lacey Rumsey, the Mills Civic Hy-Vee Club Room Manager, explained how the process of assembling the meals would work, provided us with the recipes and had all of the ingredients stocked and available for us. She ran her tushy off assisting us and helping us locate missing ingredients. Our recipe selections for the evening included: Grilled Flank Steak, Beef Enchiladas, Beef Fajitas, Black Bean Taco Soup, Bar B Que Beef Sandwiches and Stuffed Shells. All of which are very kid friendly.
To date we’ve eaten four out of the six meals and they all have been quite tasty. Not that there’s too much to complain about when you’re eating FREE food! I’ve also made a couple of recipes out of the Iowa Food and Family Cookbook that we received. The cookbook features recipes from the Iowa Girl Eats and Food & Swine Blogs.
It was a really fun, hands-on and educational evening and I would highly recommend it to anyone. The next Make it & Take it events are:
- July 28th, Mills Civic Hy-Vee (Turkey and Egg)
- August 11th, Altoona Hy-Vee (Corn and Soy)
- September 15th, Ankeny Prairie Trail Hy-Vee (All Commodities)
Have you heard about the Iowa Food and Family Project? Share what you know in the Comments below.
