As you know, I really enjoy sharing my love for healthy living. So much, in fact, I helped plan a “healthy living” event for my office yesterday afternoon. 
With the assistance of Harvard University Dining Services (HUDS) and the Food Literacy Project, we hosted a lunch, featuring recipes prepared with ingredients from the Farmers’ Market at Harvard, followed by a walking tour.
Ted Mayer, the Executive Director of Harvard University Dining Services, kicked-off the event with a quick welcome and explanation of HUDS’s role in responding to the College community’s growing interest in food. They’re doing quite a lot on campus!
Before enjoying a market-fresh lunch, the group watched a cooking demonstration given by Martin Breslin, the Director for Culinary Operations at Harvard. He showed us how to prepare a number of the recipes that we were about to taste.
Lunch was absolutely amazing! The menu was interesting and the food was incredibly fresh and flavorful!
Holy yum! Lots of my favorites!
Lunch included a Green Salad made with local greens and topped with maple cider vinaigrette. I loved the vinaigrette!
Mediterranean Salad
Serves 10
- 5 Yukon gold roasted potatoes
- 2 red peppers sauté
- 1 Vidalia onion sauté
- 1 cup pitted Kalamata olives
- 1 pint quarter artichoke hearts
- 1 cup diced feta cheese
- 1 quarter diced local tomatoes
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
- Salt & pepper
Directions: When cool, toss in a bowl and season.
Tomato-Bread Soup
Serves 10
- 1/2 cup diced onions
- 1/2 cup diced carrots
- 1/2 cup diced celery
- 1/2 cup diced fennel
- 8 cloves garlic
- 4 cups chopped tomatoes
- 1 cup olive oil
- 1 cup bread cubes
- 2 bunches of basil
- Salt & pepper
Directions: Sauté all the vegetables with olive oil, add garlic last. Blend and add diced bread. Add basil, season, and whisk in olive oil.
And, for dessert, we had the most amazing Baked Stuffed Apples made with local apples, cranberries, brown sugar, and some rather surprising (breadcrumbs and egg yolks!) ingredients.
I’ll be sure to post the recipe once I get it. These apples were out of this world, especially with a schoop of vanilla ice cream!
After lunch, we took a guided walking tour of the Farmers’ Market at Harvard.
We chatted with a number of vendors and sampled all sorts of delicious food, including Concord grapes, fresh mozzarella, stone-ground chocolate, and exotic-flavored nuts. Mmmmm!
It was a foodie’s heaven! 
Unfortunately, my camera battery died at this point in the tour, so I wasn’t able to snap any more photos. Bummer. 
But, overall, the event was a great success! My collegues really seemed to enjoy themselves! Thank you, HUDS for helping me coordinate such a wonderful event!
{ 45 comments… read them below or add one }
Tina,
.
It is so awesome that your colleagues at work are invested in healthy living. Harvard seems like a great place to work!
The baked apples look amazing. I grew up eating baked apples, but never stuffed apples, so I would love to see the recipe when you get it
Have a great night!
what a great event!
my fiance’s work has a “wellness committee” but so far i think they’ve only done one thing he’s been to-that involved free food
i think there being a meal is a good way to get people at something
That looks really fun. Did they ask you to come up with something like this or did you just suggest it? Just wondering.
YUM! I’m dying to try that apple cider vinaigrette! I bet the egg and breadcrumbs in the apple made it so ooey-gooey good!
Note to self: add to dessert list.
That event is so wonderful, Tina! I can’t wait for the stuffed apples recipe
Have a great night!
Such a cool event! Those salads sound great!
how awesome – go you for helping to put this together…
What a great idea to organize a healthy living event at work. I would love to share my interest in healthy living with my colleagues in a non-imposing way. Just need to come up with the best way to do it!
What a great event! It looks like a complete success…great job!
My mouth is watering just looking at all the delish food =)
I am a senior undergraduate at Harvard, and I grabbed lunch at the Queen’s Head yesterday (PB&J…). I was wondering where that spread came from! My friend and I were lucky enough to snag some of the ice cream before it was carted away. I <3 HUDS! (Oooh, those monster cookies.)
Let me know if you ever want to grab lunch someday!
Well done!! Looks like the event was a great success – that apple dish looks delicious
HOLY YUM @ your lunch spread! Everything looks fresh and delicious!
Oh man, I am so jealous right now; I’m dying for a farmer’s market to spring up close to me!
that’s awesome that the chef told you how to prepare some yummy dishes! what a fun, fun event. i looove farmer’s markets. such a nice seletion of fresh, healthy goodies!
what a cool event! My MIL made a maple dressing not too long ago – let me know if you want the recipe! i’m not sure what cookbook she got it out of, but I can get it. It was awesome!
what an awesome idea for an event! Everyone looked like they had a good time, and its so fun to be able to share something that you love with the people you work with! i think thats awesome!
the food looks amazing!
What a fun event! I work for Utah’s worksite wellness program and have been helping plan farmer’s market/walking activities all summer! I love getting the employees out and about for a bit! Nice work!
Would seriously have killed to have had access to this event haha. Great job with the event!
Tina-what an amazing event! I wish I could have been there. Sounds like it was a wonderful time!
Awesome job Tina, it looks like such a fun event! And those baked, stuffed apples? All of us will be thanking you graciously for that recipe
Have a wonderful evening, hope you can get more unpacking and organizing done!
That looks wonderful! So neat that you got to be apart of planning it. It definitely looks like it was a success!
You did a great job, Tina! It all looks so delicious! Thanks for sharing the mediterranean salad recipe.
The baked stuffed apple looked amazing as did all of those BLUEBERRIES! Love them!
I NEED that baked stuffed apple recipe ASAP!
Looks like a great event. Congrats, Tina!
Yummy spread!
Nice going! I love it when you can get the healthy food word out there to the masses!
What a great event – I wish I could have been there! I love farmers’ markets and local ingredient meals. You have an amazing food service that would help you put an event like this together – so jealous!
Thank you so much for posting the recipes! I can’t wait to make the soup!
so cool that you inspired/coordinated this event!
I’m so jealous of how close you are to a farmer’s market! We have some great ones in NYC, but I’m never able to get there during the workday. Luckily, that’s what Saturdays are for!
Congratulations on a great event. Wish I could have been there!
This looks like so much fun! Good for you for putting this together. I’d love to attend something like this in my area…I’m not in college though haha so maybe they do stuff like this all the time and I just don’t know about it
Tina – your event looks wonderful! It’s always nice to share your passion with new people, heck isn’t that what blogging is about too.
What a fun event!!! Thanks for all the great recipes!! I make most of the recipes you post here and they are all sooo good!
That is so great. How awesome that you got to share with others at work and that you got to taste some yummy eats
You should definetelyb an anvent planner, so great that you got to do this!
Food looks great and love Farmer’s Markets!
What a lovely day! I love reading your blog and all the things you get up to x x
Wow, that really looks like foodies heaven!
xxx Julia (Taste of Living)
Wow, looks like the event was awesome!!! You did a great job!
What a great idea! It looks like you had a good turn out….lots of people who want to live a healthier life!
Wow Tina looks like a great day! Good on you for organising!
How fun. Way to spread some healthy living love
I definitely would be interested in the baked apple recipe… with the apple season coming up and all.
thats really cool tina!! it was such a great idea!!
What a great idea for an event!!
@Lee: Yep, I suggested it! My boss loved the idea, so I worked with HUDS to make it happen!
That event sounds totally awesome. Way to go on taking the initiative, I hope everyone had a great time
What a perfect event and an awesome way to get other people excited about healthy, local food. Everything looks delicious! Now if only I can find a job planning those kinds of events…
yummm..those stuffed apples look delish!
jenna
{ 1 trackback }