Kentucky Proud program pairs recipes with local products

LEXINGTON, Ky. — The University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service and Kentucky Department of Agriculture will give consumers recipes containing local products with Plate It Up, Kentucky Proud program.

Plate It Up, Kentucky Proud will kick off statewide beginning at the Kentucky State Fair. Two recipes from the program — a watermelon tomato salad and a cucumber, corn and bean salsa — will be featured at the Aug. 18 commodity breakfast, the fair’s opening day.

Criteria

Nutrition and food science students in the UK College of Agriculture’s School of Human Environmental Sciences modify recipes to make them healthier while retaining flavor and then each recipe is run through a series of taste tests.

Recipes that make it through the process become part of the “Plate It Up” recipe catalog at www.kyproud.com/recipes.

For each featured recipe, extension agents receive demonstration guides containing nutritional, selection, storage and preparation information that they can use to educate consumers in their local communities about how to use a specific Kentucky Proud product.

Recipes have been featured in cooking demonstrations at groceries and farmers markets last fall and this summer, and sales of those ingredients increased after visitors sampled the recipes.

Funding for the program came through a federal grant to the Kentucky Department of Agriculture. KDA is assisting in developing the educational resources, marketing, and has developed and maintains the Kentucky Proud recipe database.

Elsewhere

In addition to recipes featured during the state fair’s opening day breakfast, recipes will also be featured at the Gourmet Garden demonstrations held noon daily at the Kentucky Beef Council’s stage in the south wing of the Kentucky Exposition Center.

Additional information and recipe cards will be available at the UK College of Agriculture’s exhibit in the west hall lobby and in KDA’s exhibit in the south wing. Kentucky Proud is Kentucky’s official farm marketing program, administered by the state Department of Agriculture.

Membership is free and open to any Kentucky farm or business which grows, raises or manufactures food and agricultural products in Kentucky.