John Yanga’s Creative Ways to Prepare Vegetables

One challenge when you’re blessed with access to plenty of fresh local vegetables is what to do with them all. How do you prepare them in a way that brings out their flavors and makes everyone want to eat them? Vegetable farmer John Yanga has spent a lot of time pondering this very question.

He loves to not only grow vegetables, but also to come up with creative ways to prepare them. He is truly a vegetable whisperer, expertly transforming every imaginable vegetable from his farm into exquisite dishes. As one of his fellow church-goers says at the end of this episode, he turns even the often shunned kale into something appetizing!

John was born in South Sudan and studied theology in Egypt before fleeing the war in his homeland with his mother and his wife. He moved to the United States as a refugee in 2000 and soon began working and training with Cultivating Community, an organization based in Portland, Maine whose work is rooted in the belief that everyone has the right to good food. The organization empowers New Americans by teaching them sustainable farming practices and connecting them to the community through its food hub. John is a graduate of Cultivating Community’s farmer training program, the New American Sustainable Agriculture Project, and now has his own farm plot where he grows a gorgeous assortment of mixed vegetables, including many African varieties that can be hard to find in Maine. John and his wife sell their organic vegetables at one of Portland’s busy farmers markets. Over the years, John has also spearheaded many marketing innovations, such as a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) food share for the Sudanese community.

In this episode, John shares one of his favorite ways to prepare vegetables, as a mixed veggie platter with roasted chicken thighs. He first cooks up a fragrant chicken broth and uses the stock to cook the many vegetables he harvested, which he sautés separately. For instance he does African eggplants in one pan, Italian eggplant in another (because they require different cooking times), summer squash and carrots together, and then all the greens together. In the video, he also made some roasted winter squashes and green peppers stuffed with sautéed veggies (though this is not officially part of the recipe provided below). He then assembles all this onto trays that are kept warm in the oven. The chicken used to make the broth is also roasted on top of potatoes wedges.

John uses fresh herbs and spices generously, which, combined with the chicken broth creates a nourishing feast that is bursting with flavor and which he loves to share with his church community.

As John says in the video, he loves showing people how vegetables can be the centerpiece of a meal. And while not everyone gets excited about vegetables, it’s often because they have not had them prepared in an appetizing way. Sometimes it’s also because they’ve lost their splendor due to being shipped from halfway around the world and then sitting on a grocery shelf too long. Spinach for instance can lose up to 90 percent of its nutrients within just 24 hours of being harvested! Sourcing vegetables locally, whether at a farmers market, farm stand, pick-your-own, or perhaps even from your own garden makes a huge difference not only in terms of freshness and taste, but also nutrient content. Even in cold winter climates, farmers markets usually have plenty of locally-grown storage vegetables like cabbage, winter radishes, celeriac, beets, carrots, winter squashes. Some have year-round greens even in cold climates. As John says in the video, locally-grown, organic vegetables just taste different from the ones you’d buy at the grocery store. So it’s worth seeking them out in your local community, not just for the flavor and nutrient content but to support farmers like John who work so hard to grow delicious nutritious food for their communities.