Good Food Box Newsletter – November 12, 2025
What's in your bag?
BC Only: *org. potatoes, Michell’s Butternut squash & carrots, *org pears, *org. apples, North Star Organics tomatoes & spinach, Camas Farm org. garlic
Cultural: Farm Folk *org beans & winter squash, *org. onions, North Star Organics cucumber, tomatoes, spinach, org. yams, org. mango, Camas Farm org. garlic
Standard Plus: *org. potatoes, Michell’s carrots, Fruitful Fields org. Red Kuri squash, *org. pears, *org. apples, North Star Organics tomatoes, spinach & cucumber, Camas Farm org. garlic, oranges
Standard: *org. potatoes, Michell’s carrots, *org. pears, *org. apples, North Star Organics tomatoes & cucumber, org. mango, Camas Farm org. garlic, oranges
Sustainable: Lockwood org. Red Kuri squash, North Star Organics tomatoes, spinach, cucumber & leeks, BC org pears, *org. potatoes, BC org. apples
Fruit: grapes, BC org. apples & pears, mango, oranges
Staples: *org. potatoes, Michell’s carrots, *org. pears & apples, North Star Organics tomatoes, cucumber & spinach, oranges
Snack: grapes, BC org. apples & pears, mango, oranges, North Star Organics cucumber
*local
Wet Weather Reminder
Don’t forget to bring along your reusable grocery bags or totes to avoid the soggy demise of our paper bags if you’ll be hitting the elements on the way home. Even just getting to the car during this soggy season could be lethal for your produce — we want it to make it all the way home — not playing a game of 10 pin on the sidewalk!
This one pot Roasted Chicken with Honey Bacon Pears is a great way to use up any soft pears in the back of your refrigerator drawer, saving them from getting wasted.
$$ Saving tips:
- I will chop up any apples or pears starting to soften or wrinkle and toss them in a freezer bag for meals like this. Apples and pears make great fillers in curries or veggie roasts.
- You can buy bacon ends or pieces often in the grocery store or meat market and save money. These are great for tossing into casseroles, salads, etc.
Serve this dish over rice, quinoa or a bed of spinach greens.
Find the Reluctant Entertainer’s full recipe here.
Skip the Indian Take Out and dine at home with this Easy Saag Aloo (Spinach and Potato Curry). Most ingredients will be in your Good Food Box this week, with the exception of the spices. Once you try this recipe you’ll want to be sure to have these spice on hand regularly.
$$ Saving Tip: It’s the perfect way to use up any wrinkly potatoes, your North Star tomatoes, spinach and if you have other wrinkling root veggies like carrots, squashes, etc. toss them in too. It’s another of those great recipes for using produce up.
Find Olive and Mango’s recipe here.
Intimidated by preparing Butternut squash because of it’s tough skin? Check out Love Food, Hate Waste’s video on prepping this beauty. Check the video out here.
Butternut Squash Whipped Feta Dip is quick and easy to get ready to serve to company as an appetizer as you’re prepping dinner. Or great to take in your lunch with pita and cut veggies or use as a wrap filling. Find the full recipe here.
A weekly Dal offers a great opportunity to use up the leftovers in your fridge or freezer, acting as a base of North Star Organics tomatoes, spinach or other winter greens, onions, Camas Farm organic garlic and it’s other ingredients.
$$ Saving Tip:
- This already inexpensive meal can be extended by adding left over sautéed vegetables like carrots, beans, cauliflower, peas, even potatoes. you can precook them or cook them in the pan with your other ingredients. *Precook any harder veg like potatoes, carrots, etc. before adding them to the Dal.
- Left over Dal can be layered over cooked rice and other vegetables and baked together. Top with bread crumbs or cheese and bake until it starts to brown.
Find The Delicious Crescent’s recipe here.
This Carrot Mango pickle is delicious served with rice or quinoa as a side or added into a wrap for lunch. You can find pickling spice at your local Indian store if you can’t find it at your regular grocery haunt.
$$ Saving Tip:
- Another great way to use up any ugly or soften carrots or mango.
Find the recipe here.
$$ Saving Tip:
- Don’t toss the seeds or the skin of your Butternut beauty – wash the skin well before peeling it, prep your skins and seeds on a tray, get creative with the seasonings. Roast them up together and use them as a snack or a garnish. Enjoy, learn more and watch the video here.
Still got Delicata squash in your larder, this Maple Delicata Kale Caesar salad is great way to use up not just your squash but your kale and other greens too. Find the recipe here.
$$ Saving Tip:
- Use up your left over roasted squashes in this salad – avoiding tossing them.
- This is a great salad for using up kale, chard, other greens that are starting to wilt a bit. You’ll never know once tossed. Wash them in some cold water first to bring them back to life a bit, spin dry them or roll them in a tea towel and give them the “helicopter whirl” and you’re good to go.
- Save the stems from your greens for stock in a freezer bag.
Vegan Swap: Want to adapt your Caesar salad for your vegan friends and family, Violife parmesan or other vegan parms are a quick easy option to whip through the food processor and toss into your salad.
Stock Making Workshop
By North Park Neighbourhood Association
Following
932 Balmoral Road
Nov 27 from 5:30pm to 7:30pm PST
Overview
Learn how to turn kitchen scraps into delicious hearty stock. Perfect for soups or other cooking!
Join us for a cozy kitchen workshop, we will be exploring ways to reduce food waste, turning kitchen scraps into delicous and nutritious stock! A perfect base for soups and stews and a perfect addition to so many dishes. All supplies will be provided and participants will get to take home a jar of stock.
Thursday November 27th 5:30-7:30pm
932 Balmoral Road (First Met Commons) in the kitchen.
Register here.
FRIENDS & COMMUNITY! We are desperate need of more Back-End Volunteers to keep our program alive. We deliver 80+ food hampers weekly but much takes place behind the scenes to make that possible.
If you can’t volunteer your time, consider donating, and if you can’t do either, please re-post and share this message with anyone you think would want to get involved. Read on to discover roles we are looking to fill.
Slide 1:
Community Food Support is seeking Back-end Volunteers!
Back-End Roles include:
* Meeting coordinators
* Finance team
* Volunteer Coordinators
* Time-Sensitive Volunteer Coordinators
* Social Media team
* Fundraising team
Slide 2:
Back-End Volunteer Roles with Community Food Support
Community Food Support delivers 80+ food hampers to families across Lekwungen territory for free every week. This work cannot be done without the work of our incredible back-end volunteers!
Many of our back-end volunteers are over capacity and we need to onboard new volunteers to be able to continue the food delivery program.
If you support our mission or have been considering volunteering, now is the time to help us out!
Slide 3:
What does being a Back-End volunteer involve?
There are many different roles. Each role has multiple people on a team so that no one person is taking on all the work, and so folks can take breaks.
These roles are independently completed on your own time, usually online with Slack and email.
Back-end volunteers attend two organizing meetings online per month (Monday evenings), if they are available, or read the minutes and report back in Slack.
No prior experience with Slack is required – we will train you!
Swipe to learn more about each role and see where you might fit in!
Let's Get Growing
Solstice Wreath Making
By Compost Education Centre
Following
1216 North Park Street
Nov 22 from 1pm to 3pm PST
Learn how to create a decorative wreath in celebration of the winter solstice!
In this workshop we’ll use a combination of invasive species and found blowdown from native species to build a beautiful solstice wreath to bring some festive décor to your home. While we build our wreath, you will learn some information about the plants we are using, and how to ethically harvest and collect. Tune into your creativity to bring in some beauty in this dark time of year!
Cost of Materials: $12 per person, included in the workshop fee.
Instructor Bio: Kayla Siefried (she/her) is a settler in Lekwungen Territory and grew up in Anishinaabe and Haudenosaunee Territory. Kayla is the steward of the Compost Education Centre demonstration gardens and the curator and main educator of the Adult Education Program. She can be found growing seedlings for plant sales, working with volunteers to keep gardens healthy, flipping hot compost, arranging expert instructors to teach workshops, or out in the community teaching about soil health, organic gardening, and Do-It-Yourself tasks that increase our climate resilience.
Kayla holds a Bachelor of Environmental Studies from the University of Waterloo, and she continued on with practical hands-on permaculture training, gardening and farming internships in various places on Turtle Island and beyond.
Solstice is a time when Kayla loves getting crafty, and wreath making is one of her favourite holiday projects. Come ready to make beauty to hang in your home!
How to Register
This workshop is happening in person only. Please dress appropriately for all types of weather, the workshop may be outside or in our heated strawbale building.
Only current members in good standing are eligible to use the free ticket option as a part of their member benefits package.
There are a limited number of Pay What You Can tickets available for folks who self-identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC), and people who are facing significant financial barriers to their involvement in our programming. The Compost Education Centre is continually in the process of examining the ways in which our program accessibility can be improved for all members of our community. This ticket gesture is by no means a fulsome examination of the systems of oppression that exist for people inside and outside of our community. We welcome your ideas and feedback.
You must pre-register for this event. You can purchase a ticket through Eventbrite. You can also register for the event by calling our office at 250 386 9676 or via email by contacting office@compost.bc.ca
Customers can receive a full refund (less the Eventbrite processing fee) up to 7 days before the workshop. Customers who request a refund less than 7 days before the workshop can request to switch their ticket to a different workshop if tickets are available. To request a refund or switching your ticket, email office@compost.bc.ca.
VERY IMPORTANT: Please be in touch if you are no longer able to attend but hold a ticket so we can make your space available to someone else.
Accessibility
The Compost Education Centre site has flat paths made of woodchips. The strawbale learning classroom is accessed via a wooden ramp and has a wide double door and a ramp leading up to it. Once inside everything is flat.
There is a single-stall gender neutral washroom on site. The washroom is not wheelchair accessible. There is a steep ramp from the wood chip pathway onto the washroom boardwalk, and a 2-inch step up from the washroom boardwalk into the washroom.
About the organization
The Compost Education Centre is located on unceded and occupied Indigenous territories, the land of the Lekwungen people— specifically the Esquimalt and Songhees Nations. These nations are two of many, made up of individuals who have lived within the porous boundaries of what is considered Coast Salish, Nuu-Chah-Nulth and Kwakwa̱ka̱ʼwakw Territory (Vancouver Island) since time immemorial. At the CEC we seek to respect, honour and continually grow our own understandings of Indigenous rights and history, and to fulfill our responsibilities as settlers, who live and work directly with the land and its complex, vital ecologies and our diverse, evolving communities.
Compost Education Centre memberships get you free workshops, discounts at garden centres around town and more great perks! Sign up or learn more on our website.
Connecting in Community
Still Life
By North Park Neighbourhood Association
Following
1701 Quadra Street
Nov 19 from 6:30pm to 7:30pm PST
Enjoy a relaxing still life workshop. All supplies provided!
Next up, join us for a relaxing evening of still life sketching and painting. All supplies provided!
Wendesday November 19th
6:30pm-7:30pm
1701 Quadra Street (in our office, enter through the courtyard next to Vinyl Envy)
Become a Make Space member!
The North Perk cafe at 2150 Quadra is open and hopping, and Make Space North April is seeking sustaining members. Help them open the woodworking and fabrication shops faster and get first-in-line perks. For $30/month, you’ll get: early access to event tickets, showcases and repair cafés, members-only previews of the wood + fab spaces before public launch, free coffees, shout-outs to founding members in their newsletter, and much more!
🌈 Join us for the Victoria Pride Skate – a community building event for 2SLGBTQIA+ people and allies! Lace up your skates and glide into an afternoon of inclusivity, recreation and fun! 📅 Saturday November 29 🕑 1:45-3:30 p.m. 📍 Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre (Gate #3, 1925 Blanshard St, Victoria) Advanced registration only (no drop-ins). Limited spaces available, so secure your spot today! Ice Skate Rentals: Our Skate shop will be open and available for skate and helmet rentals. Ice skate rentals are $4.32 per person and helmets are free, payment can be made by cash, debit or credit. Accessibility and Safety: Attendees will enter Save-On-Foods Memorial Centre at Gate #3, this entrance is wheelchair accessible. Washrooms for this event are gender-inclusive and wheelchair accessible. We’ll have a limited number of ice skating supports available for those who need, plus a sensory inclusion room for anyone looking for a quieter space. Parking: The Save on Foods Memorial Centre parking lot is located at 1925 Blanshard Ave (access off Pembroke Street) and requires payment at the kiosk or via the HONK mobile app. Free parking is available on the surrounding streets.
Register here.
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*Leather working, learn the indestructible saddle stich
*Learn to make buttons from avocado pits
*Learn to mend, stitch and patch your clothing
A Chair to join the circle
Most supplies for the skill sharing workshop are provided. Please bring clothes you need for mending and patching.
Its a potluck, bring a dish to share with others
Come self-sufficient. Please bring your own water, food, dishes, rain gear, warm bedding and tent (if you plan to stay the night)
Elder Bill Jones
It will be posted in the Discussions area of this event page.
them into Google maps and it will guide you to the right place.
Drive through and at the end of the paved road turn RIGHT on to South Shore Road.
feels like a continuation of the same road, but you will see a sign on the left that says Caycuse)


























