- On today's "Fit to Eat", I'll be preparing eggplant manicotti with tomato herb sauce and grilled cantaloupe.

Our guest is Sam Humphrey, owner of Fertile Ground Farms.

He'll tell us what it's like to be an urban farmer and we'll take a trip to his farm in Jackson.

Registered Dietician, Rebecca Turner, will share with us some easy weeknight dinner ideas.

It's gonna be a great show so stay tuned.

(uplifting jazz music) Welcome back to "Fit to Eat", I'm your Host, Rob Stinson.

Today's guest is Sam Humphrey, owner of Fertile Ground Farms in Jackson.

- Hey Rob.

- Sam, welcome.

Welcome to the show.

- Thanks for having me.

- Well, we're gonna have a lot of fun and I think it's right up your alley.

So we are looking at these beautiful fresh vegetables, and we're gonna have a feast today.

- Excellent, excellent.

- So what we're gonna do is a healthy twist on a classic Italian dish- - Okay.

- Manicotti.

Manicotti is almost always made with pasta sheets, then filled with ricotta cheese, it's a great dish, but we're gonna make it a healthy version using fresh eggplant.

- Love it.

- Right up your alley, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

- So just to get started, I'm gonna show a quick trick.

If we come over here to the board and you see a piece and you'll notice I've got some that are sliced already, the trick, and most people don't know is, cut a piece off like so, and then lay it.

Now it doesn't move around so you don't take the chance of cutting yourself.

And I'm gonna tell you the other trick is a sharp knife.

- [Sam] Oh yes.

- So now as we go through and we're cutting a nice little thin piece, so let's go ahead and kind of move this to the side for the time being, and we are going to work on grilling the manicotti so that it becomes tender enough to move it, all right?

So you'll see, we don't use salt, we don't use sugar, we don't use white flour so it's kind of that healthy version.

So we've got onion powder and garlic powder, which neither have salt.

- [Sam] Yeah.

- So it's a really nice way of putting flavors in, a little paprika for color and black pepper.

I love pepper.

- [Sam] Yeah.

- You gotta have a little flavor in your food.

So while we are doing this, I'm gonna take this and kind of break it apart and then just thoroughly mix that seasoning so that it looks nice and blended.

And then we're gonna take two pieces, cause we're gonna use two today.

Let's get that little piece of basil out of there.

And I'm gonna spray this with just a little zero fat spray and then we're gonna sprinkle each one of these lightly so that they've got flavor.

And I tell you what, I've read about the farm.

I've talked a little bit about it and all, but I think it really needs to be said, how did you get into working with your whole idea of Fertile Ground Farms?

- Oh yeah, that's a great question, Rob.

So I got into agriculture really just...

I wasn't expecting it.

I grew up here in Jackson, born and raised and went to school out in Colorado and just wasn't quite satisfied with the education and what I was studying there.

And really I was always very passionate about the environment, being outside, and I decided I wanted to be able to grow healthy food.

And I thought if I could grow healthy food and feed it to unhealthy people, that might lead them to have healthier bodies, healthier minds, maybe healthier thoughts, and actions, a healthier community, a healthier society.

- And what a perfect place to be Mississippi because we really need to change our focus and I think that's great.

What a great aspiration and it's interesting because being in the restaurant business, I see the availability of good local produce, good local fruit, what a blessing that is.

We're gonna go ahead now and just season the other side.

- [Sam] Yeah, those are looking good.

- Yeah and it's just a real simple process and it's neat cause when they make manicotti you typically roll it up in this case, we may just actually cut it and then kind of layer it that way.

So it kind of looks like manicotti but look at how simple that was.

- [Sam] Oh yeah.

- And can smell that too.

So what I intend to do now is just kind of show a wonderful mix.

So instead of ricotta and all, which is quite high in fat, we're gonna use a fat free cream cheese base, some yogurt, and I've taken the liberty of dicing up some fresh basil, that's always in the recipe, some fresh minced garlic, and then we're just gonna start kinda mixing that together.

And this will become the stuffing.

And I think you had made a comment too, that fresh herbs and basil, when you talk about basil, the way you have it.

Oh my gosh.

- Oh, I love growing basil on the farm.

It's a big staple of ours.

We do fresh pesto during the summer months.

Whenever we have fresh basil, also a basil-free pesto during the winter.

And I mean this past year I was growing basil that, I mean, stalks were as big as my wrist.

I mean they were just beefy.

- [Rob] We need to talk.

- Big bushy plants.

- We definitely need to talk.

- Yeah.

- Cause I could make use of something like that.

Alright so now these are kind of tender and they're warm, and that's about how we want 'em, and I'll show you what we're gonna do next.

We're going to take it now and let's get 'em both outta here at the same time, and then we're gonna take a little bit of our stuffing, put it right into the middle of the slice if we would.

And you really have got something here that absolutely looks like the real thing, looks like ricotta.

And that's the idea.

You don't wanna feel you're missing out when you eat healthy and I think that's critical.

So now we're gonna kind of take this and just flip it over and make a little turnover and you see how well that worked.

- [Sam] Yeah.

- Isn't that fun?

- [Sam] Yeah, I have not- - And it doesn't matter if some oozes out the side and all, don't worry about that at all.

All right so now we're gonna take it and just set it back in the pan, and that pan is gonna keep, and what it will do, we've turned the heat off and I wanna make sure people know that.

The pan is still warm and we're just gonna let that kind of sit there so that as it melts, it'll form kind of what looks like real manicotti.

- [Sam] Yeah.

- So I think half the fun of some of these is trying to come up with an idea where it's this, not that.

And by that I mean, it's not ricotta so instead it's fat free cream cheese, but when you look at the flavoring fresh basil, Parmesan, garlic... You talk about your pesto.

- Oh yeah I mean, I wanna...

I have a lot of, always have fresh produce coming out every single week.

That's a blessing of being here in Mississippi.

We can grow every...

I never stop growing, every single week of the year we always have something and to be able to have, to be able to make product like pesto or pickles, or strawberry jams or popsicles... - You're talking my game there.

I mean, it's all wonderful stuff.

- And if it's fresh, I'm all about it.

We want to just give people access to that fresh food and- - Well and in the pesto with that beautiful, fresh basil that you put in and then good Parmesan- - Parmesan-Reggiano.

- Parmesan-Reggiano, you know what?

I'm gonna high five you to that.

Most people don't realize that's the real deal.

- It really matters a lot, especially with the saltiness of it, it just doesn't work the same as a regular Parmesan.

- Well, when I was in Italy, the Italians have the saying, great ingredients, make great food.

And what you're doing is kind of farm-to-table bringing great ingredients to the table and that's what Mississippi needs.

I'm gonna do one last thing with this here.

I wanna kinda just turn this over.

So both sides are warming.

Oh, look at it.

It really, I tell you what, it's gotten the shape really nicely.

Exactly what we want and now we're gonna turn it over and there we go.

And that'll warm it on both sides so that we're really kinda done.

- Yeah and it's so, I mean, just so easy to do.

A lot of people tell me, "It's just so hard to cook eggplant."

And they never know what to do with it and it's really intimidating, but something like this it's just so easy.

- [Rob] I know, isn't it incredible?

- Yeah.

- Well, you can always go to mpbonline.org/fittoeat, to find the full recipe for everything here, as well as more information on what we've been talking about today.

We're gonna take a short break and actually visit Fertile Ground Farms with Sam, and he'll tell us more about his farming practices and what it's like to be an urban farmer.

Take a look.

- We have a lot of people are coming through looking for the farm and they're just like, "Where am I?

"I see all these warehouses and the train."

And then boom, all of a sudden, there's a surprise vegetable farm in the middle of the city.

I'm Sam Humphrey, the owner of Fertile Ground Farms, a regenerative fruit and vegetable farm in Jackson, Mississippi.

We're a small farm on a quarter acre, right in the heart of the city.

We're growing food right where the people are, right where they need it most.

I've got three caterpillar tunnels, they're kind of like high tunnels but a little smaller.

As far as the plants here, I've got two types of kale, I've got yellow, summer squash, four types of lettuce, six types of mustard greens, basil, Ruby June strawberries, three types of tomatoes.

We've got fig trees, we've got rosemary, lemon balm, all sorts of flowers.

Oh yeah, and collard greens.

I always forget the collard greens, a lot going on.

With just me, one person, no tractor, all hand labor.

I really manage things in a very specific way and so I'm harvesting something every day.

Today is the cherry tomatoes.

So this is my cherry tomato jungle.

They are probably on average about 30 to 40 foot long vines.

I manage them in a special way.

On all these tomato plants, I have them growing on these metal hangers and each metal hanger has two different clips.

The bottom one holds the weight of the plant and the top one keeps it growing straight so that they will then wrap around the bed over time so that I can keep growing them in the same space without having to change the crop.

Everybody thinks, oh, well you need more acreage.

You need more land to grow more food.

I wanna teach people how to grow better not bigger.

You know that one, two acres that you have, why don't we learn how to grow better on that small piece of land.

I've harvested around 2,000 pounds of squash out of this little area right here.

I'm getting yeah, about 150, 200 pounds a week, even though I'm on a quarter acre, the more I invest in the soil, the more that I follow these regenerative practices, I'm regenerating the soil, I'm not just sustaining.

This quarter acre should produce more food every year, as long as I'm growing food here because it's being managed in this regenerative way.

I harvested these two weeks ago and they've already regrown.

So week ago they look just like these, just like little stumps that have just been cut.

And then now they're all regrowing and ready to be eaten.

My goal is to grow food for the people of Jackson and be able to be a resource for other small farmers across Mississippi, to be able to do the same things for their families and their communities so that we can have a truly local and high quality food system for everyone, everywhere.

- Welcome back to "Fit to Eat", if you're just joining us, Sam Humphrey and I are right in the middle of preparing our eggplant manicotti recipe.

All right, you ready?

We gotta get back.

- Oh yeah, let's do it.

- Alright, so a little touch of olive oil, not much, and a spray of our zero fat spray, and you can see the pan is kind of hot and what we're gonna do is take and just quickly wilt a little fresh spinach and this just is...

I said it's so important to have things look pretty and I wanted to have something.

And sometimes people have this right in the manicotti, but what we're gonna do is kind of put this right in the plate and you'll see why later, it'll end up giving the plate a little bit more color.

Alright so we move that off the heat for a second and let it not get too hot.

But over here, I wanted to-- every single chance I have, I'd like to try and kind of demonstrate some tricks.

So you saw what we did, Sam, so I cut a piece of it off so it lays flat.

Then cut down to get the end, which we don't use, and you can cut the other end off.

But right now, what I wanted to show is then cut into it and we'll cut that end off.

And by doing that, it's just simple cause some people are really intimidated believe it or not to use fresh vegetables cause they don't know how to clean them, how to get the skin off, how to dice 'em and I think that's an important part of what we need to show.

- Oh yeah, the preparation of vegetables and just educate folks on how to use them in the kitchen.

- It's so critical.

- Just as important as growing 'em cause you can grow it but if you bring it into the kitchen and, or leave it in your refrigerator- - Right.

- You need to be able to use it.

- Well and here we go so what I'm doing is cutting lengthwise some strips, why?

So I can actually have nice little and what we're gonna do, kinda go this way, this way, you gotta be careful.

And if you have a sharp knife, you can do it.

And you cut into the onion and now one nice slice and look at that beautiful, and that's gonna go right into what is really a true marinara sauce.

So let's move all this out the way, we're gonna set that on the side and back in the same pan, we're gonna go ahead and put our onion right in the pan.

The pan is good and hot too, cause we wanna brown these.

(onions sizzling) Then minced garlic.

I love garlic.

- The onion and garlic smell is undefeated.

It's the...

I use use garlic in virtually all my cooking.

- Well it really, really makes a good difference.

And the key, honestly, with garlic is to brown it but not burn it.

And I see a noddin' your head so you know, cause obviously you love using fresh garlic, huh?

- Yeah I do a lot of cooking in my house.

- Now we're gonna work on the sauce.

Black pepper, this is dry oregano, ground oregano, lot of ingredients and people will never remember all of them, so you can go to mpbonline.org/fittoeat for the full recipe that you see here as well as much more information on what we've been talking about.

All right so let's get all this going and you can see now you've got all that flavor kind of working in there.

And I actually am gonna add in some fresh basil, it's gonna brown in there.

Then we're gonna take a little white wine.

Alright, now everybody hears this big old fancy word, deglazing a pan.

(Sam laughs) All right deglazing a pan is nothing more than putting a liquid in the pan to get the seasoning that's stuck on the pan in the sauce.

So you know... (pan bubbling) And guys don't be scared, the alcohol cooks out.

And now we're gonna add in some beautiful, fresh Valle Rosa tomatoes.

I made a little bit extra sauce just so the staff has got plenty.

- [Sam] Gotta keep them happy.

- Yeah and now we're gonna add the rest of the basil.

And I just love a good, true marinara sauce.

Now we're gonna move all that around in there.

Turn that heat down so it just simmers.

Boy, it's just such a good thing.

So listen.

- Yeah.

- We were talking about pesto and I know there's times a year when you're not with basil.

Tell me something, cause I heard you say something interesting before the show so talk about the pesto you make without basil.

- Yeah so we can... As we can have a great growing season here in Mississippi but when we don't have basil available, we use a number of different greens that we grow on the farm.

My favorite to use is our mustard green mix.

- [Rob] Oh man!

- It gives it just a real dynamic flavor of that pesto.

We also use a curly kale, a dinosaur or Lacinato kale as well as collared greens or combinations of those.

- How cool.

- And all of them- - Same other ingredients.

- Yeah, same other ingredients.

- So you got the Parmesan, you've got everything else but you've changed the actual kind of herb, if you would.

- Yeah, the base of it always needs to be a green.

I mean, it can be anything from- - [Rob] How cool!

- The top tops of carrots to I've even used stinging nettles, which you don't see a lot around here.

But during my time in North Carolina, they were just abundant but you gotta make sure you cook 'em before, so they won't sting you.

- Yeah well, I tell you what, one of those when you're ready, I think I may have to take a drive up here and get some of that because, and I'm not trying to say after 15 years though, I have been making the same pesto, I'd love to sample it.

It sounds like a wonderful, wonderful way to go.

- Yeah well I'd be happy to have you on the farm and we can even make some together.

- I mean, I think that would be incredible.

All right, well, I tell you what the sauce now is simple, we just let it simmer and then we're gonna find a place on the plate for it, cause we're gonna actually take that in and flip in your mind what you can do with cantaloupe.

So anyhow, we're going to take a quick break and check in with Registered Dietician, Rebecca Turner.

She's got a great idea for how to throw together a quick, healthy, delicious dinner in no time!

Stir fry, check it out.

(relaxing jazz music) - Everyone needs that one go-to recipe that gets them through the week and stir fry is it for me.

Stir frying is a Chinese cooking technique in which ingredients are cooked in small amounts of very hot oil while being stirred.

Traditional stir fry ingredients include olive oil and Asian-inspired vegetables like carrots, mushrooms, baby corn, broccoli, snow peas, and bell peppers.

But you can use the same techniques for Mississippi fresh-picked produce, try zucchini, yellow squash, onions, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, cherry tomatoes, and so many more.

In fact, I encourage you to use whatever you have as leftovers or on hand.

There is no rhyme or reason to your stir fry combination.

It is a quick way to use up produce and put a balanced meal on the table in 30 minutes or less.

The first step to cook up your vegetables is to heat a little olive oil over medium heat.

Add in vegetables that will take longer to cook first like your carrots.

Once your vegetables are tender, I want you to serve them on top of maybe whole grain pasta.

If you choose rice, go with brown rice.

Brown rice has more fiber and antioxidants as well as a lot more important vitamins and minerals.

Or try my favorite untraditional base for saute.

And that's a baked potato, a good old baked potato, hold the butter and cream, makes for an inexpensive and nutritious canvas for a variety of healthy toppings, like a stir fry.

So remember when you come across a busy weeknight, sauté up a dinner that is fast but "Fit to Eat".

- Welcome back to "Fit to Eat", I'm here with Sam Humphrey from Fertile Ground Farms and we are almost done with today's recipe.

Come on over here, Sam.

- Yeah.

- So all right right now, I know you know good cantaloupe, huh?

- Oh yeah.

- So we've got a piece of cantaloupe.

Now we're I'm gonna really kind of confuse you here.

So we're looking at some black pepper, some white pepper, and some chopped basil.

And you're thinking... cantaloupe?

- Yes, sounds like a savory cantaloupe I've never had a savory cantaloupe, Rob.

- [Rob] Yeah.

- Have sweet with a little bit of vanilla ice cream or something but- - Well- - I don't know about this, Rob.

- Tell ya.

I tell you what's fun about it, we spray it with a little of the zero fat and now I'm gonna sprinkle that mixture and some of the basil will fall off, there's plenty so that's not a worry.

And then again, zero fat spray and now you see that pan is good and hot.

All right, you ready?

- Do it.

- Oh yeah.

Oh yeah, I know it's unusual.

It's a little different.

- [Sam] Never seen this before.

- Well, nobody really thinks about taking fruit to a different level but it's kind of right up your vein in everything that you've been talking about.

- Oh yeah, I love growing fruit on the farm.

We got strawberries that'll be ready here in a couple weeks.

We'll be doing cantaloupe, a French cantaloupe.

We do mini seedless watermelons as well as a number of other different fruit on the farm.

- Wow, well that's great.

So this really kind of this hits home and this is something that you could literally take to your table.

- Oh yeah, I'll be making it later this year.

- Well, the fun part of it is, it doesn't take long to heat this and cook it.

So we'll put the plate here.

We've got our manicotti and our spinach there.

Now we're gonna take this and I'm gonna actually be careful.

Is that not cool?

- [Sam] Oh yeah, give it a nice little sear.

- And we're gonna turn this one over as well.

- [Sam] Caramelize some of the sugars inside of there.

- Yeah, now you see what I'm doing!

- [Sam] Oh yeah.

- Say what that means, cause I think people out there need to understand when you caramelize the natural sugar in the cantaloupe, it gives it a crust and it gives it a whole different flavor.

- Oh yeah.

I mean I noticed with the persimmons, when I have persimmons, I mean to when you let those age just a little bit and get really, really sweet.

I mean you can literally feel the crystals of sugar in 'em as you eat 'em.

- Isn't it great?

All right now again, I know nobody's gonna remember all these recipes, so you can go to mpbonline.org/fittoeat, to get 'em and believe it or not, I said not long and I meant it.

Cantaloupe goes right on the plate.

Looks like there's another one over here.

Not sure what we're doing with that one, set this over here and get it away from the heat.

We've got our sauce and what we're gonna do now is really kind of have some fun with this.

So the sauce is good and warm and now we're going to put it right down the middle.

Yes, is that crazy?

The tomato sauce, like a pure marinara, is going right there where now you can actually eat it with the cantaloupe and everything has to have a little touch, little Parmesan on top here for a little pretty garnish.

I'll even make yours pretty.

- Oh thank you, Rob.

Man that is just looking so good with I love seeing all those colors on the plate.

- Isn't that incredible?

And I tell you what, so we took a very typical Italian dish, we twisted it up, we made it healthy, we added a savory fruit, all born and bred here in Mississippi.

And that's kind of the essence in what's so cool with Fertile Ground Farms is that you can truly supply everything that's in this to people here.

So where would you go?

Probably a local farmer's market.

- Oh yeah, I'm at the Mississippi Farmer's Market on High Street downtown every Saturday from 8 to 1.

You can come see us at the farmer's market or visit us at our website, fertilegroundfarms.com or check out our Facebook or Instagram at just Fertile Ground Farms.

- Well, I tell you what we're out time but I think everything turned out great.

I want to thank Sam Humphrey and there you go, for joining us today and if you wanna learn more about anything you've seen in this episode, then head over to mpbonline.org/fittoeat and don't forget to follow our Facebook page.

So until next time, I'm your Host, Rob Stinson; eat well.

(cheerful jazz music)