Occupy The Victory Garden Project

03/04/2026

Garlic Butter Steak Medallions with Cheesy Mozzarella Tortellini

Ingredients:

1½ lb sirloin steak, cut into thick medallions or large chunks
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp unsalted butter
4 cloves garlic, minced
1½ tsp Cajun seasoning
½ tsp paprika
½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper

For the cheesy mozzarella tortellini

20 oz cheese tortellini
2 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp olive oil
1 small onion, finely diced
4 cloves garlic, minced
1½ cups heavy cream
½ cup whole milk
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
¾ cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese
½ cup Velveeta cheese, cubed
½ tsp salt
½ tsp black pepper
½ tsp Italian seasoning

Directions:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and cook the tortellini according to package directions. Drain and set aside.
2. Pat the steak medallions dry and season evenly with Cajun seasoning, paprika, salt, and black pepper.
3. Heat olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the steak in a single layer and sear for 2–3 minutes per side until deeply golden with a caramelized crust. Remove and set aside.
4. Reduce heat to medium. Add butter and garlic to the same skillet and cook until fragrant. Return the steak and toss until coated in garlic butter. Remove from heat and keep warm.
5. In a separate pan, melt butter with olive oil over medium heat. Add diced onion and cook until soft. Stir in garlic and cook briefly.
6. Pour in heavy cream and milk and simmer until slightly thickened.
7. Reduce heat to low. Add Velveeta and stir until fully melted.
8. Add mozzarella and Parmesan gradually, stirring until the sauce becomes ultra-thick, glossy, and very cheesy.
9. Season with salt, black pepper, and Italian seasoning.
10. Add cooked tortellini and gently fold until every piece is fully coated and cheese stretches when lifted.
11. Serve the cheesy tortellini on one side and the garlic butter steak medallions on the other.

Cooking Time: 30 minutes | Servings: 4 | Calories: ~980 per serving

04/11/2025

You don’t need a big yard to grow your own food! 🌱🍅
🌿 1-Gallon – Basil, Cilantro, Thyme, Lettuce, Spinach;
🍓 3-Gallon – Peppers, Strawberries, Kale, Cherry Tomatoes;
🍅 5-Gallon – Tomatoes, Lettuce, Cucumbers, Carrots, Peppers;
🌱 10-Gallon – Squash, Cucumbers, Beans, Broccoli, Cabbage;
🥔 15-Gallon – Potatoes, Peas, Corn, Tomatoes, Watermelon.

You don’t need a big yard to grow your own food! 🌱🍅
🌿 1-Gallon – Basil, Cilantro, Thyme, Lettuce, Spinach;
🍓 3-Gallon – Peppers, Strawberries, Kale, Cherry Tomatoes;
🍅 5-Gallon – Tomatoes, Lettuce, Cucumbers, Carrots, Peppers;
🌱 10-Gallon – Squash, Cucumbers, Beans, Broccoli, Cabbage;
🥔 15-Gallon – Potatoes, Peas, Corn, Tomatoes, Watermelon.

04/01/2025

OWS Special Projects Affinity Group

08/26/2024

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝘀 𝗶𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗶𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗻 𝗯𝘆 𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗲𝗳 𝗗𝗮𝗻 𝗚𝗲𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗲:
In the course of my lifetime I have lived in two distinct cultures. I was born into a culture that lived in communal houses. My grandfather’s house was eighty feet long. It was called a smoke house, and it stood down by the beach along the inlet. All my grandfather’s sons and their families lived in this dwelling. Their sleeping apartments were separated by blankets made of bull rush weeds, but one open fire in the middle served the cooking needs of all. In houses like these, throughout the tribe, people learned to live with one another; learned to respect the rights of one another. And children shared the thoughts of the adult world and found themselves surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins who loved them and did not threaten them. My father was born in such a house and learned from infancy how to love people and be at home with them.
And beyond this acceptance of one another there was a deep respect for everything in nature that surrounded them. My father loved the earth and all its creatures. The earth was his second mother. The earth and everything it contained was a gift from See-see-am…and the way to thank this great spirit was to use his gifts with respect.
I remember, as a little boy, fishing with him up Indian River and I can still see him as the sun rose above the mountain top in the early morning…I can see him standing by the water’s edge with his arms raised above his head while he softly moaned…”Thank you, thank you.” It left a deep impression on my young mind.
And I shall never forget his disappointment when once he caught me gaffing for fish “just for the fun of it.” “My son” he said, “The Great Spirit gave you those fish to be your brothers, to feed you when you are hungry. You must respect them. You must not kill them just for the fun of it.”
This then was the culture I was born into and for some years the only one I really knew or tasted. This is why I find it hard to accept many of the things I see around me.
I see people living in smoke houses hundreds of times bigger than the one I knew. But the people in one apartment do not even know the people in the next and care less about them.
It is also difficult for me to understand the deep hate that exists among people. It is hard to understand a culture that justifies the killing of millions in past wars, and it at this very moment preparing bombs to kill even greater numbers. It is hard for me to understand a culture that spends more on wars and weapons to kill, than it does on education and welfare to help and develop.
It is hard for me to understand a culture that not only hates and fights his brothers but even attacks nature and abuses her.
I see my white brothers going about blotting out nature from his cities. I see him strip the hills bare, leaving ugly wounds on the face of mountains. I see him tearing things from the bosom of mother earth as though she were a monster, who refused to share her treasures with him. I see him throw poison in the waters, indifferent to the life he kills there; and he chokes the air with deadly fumes.
My white brother does many things well for he is more clever than my people but I wonder if he has ever really learned to love at all. Perhaps he only loves the things that are outside and beyond him. And this is, of course, not love at all, for man must love all creation or he will love none of it. Man must love fully or he will become the lowest of the animals. It is the power to love that makes him the greatest of them all…for he alone of all animals is capable of love.
Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. Instead we turn inwardly and begin to feed upon our own personalities and little by little we destroy ourselves.
You and I need the strength and joy that comes from knowing that we are loved. With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.
There have been times when we all wanted so desperately to feel a reassuring hand upon us…there have been lonely times when we so wanted a strong arm around us…I cannot tell you how deeply I miss my wife’s presence when I return from a trip. Her love was my greatest joy, my strength, my greatest blessing.
I am afraid my culture has little to offer yours. But my culture did prize friendship and companionship. It did not look on privacy as a thing to be clung to, for privacy builds walls and walls promote distrust. My culture lived in a big family community, and from infancy people learned to live with others.
My culture did not prize the hoarding of private possessions, in fact, to hoard was a shameful thing to do among my people. The Indian looked on all things in nature as belonging to him and he expected to share them with others and to take only what he needed.
Everyone likes to give as well as receive. No one wishes only to receive all the time. We have taken something from your culture…I wish you had taken something from our culture…for there were some beautiful and good things in it.
Soon it will be too late to know my culture, for integration is upon us and soon we will have no values but yours. Already many of our young people have forgotten the old ways. And many have been shamed of their Indian ways by scorn and ridicule. My culture is like a wounded deer that has crawled away into the forest to bleed and die alone.
The only thing that can truly help us is genuine love. You must truly love, be patient with us and share with us. And we must love you—with a genuine love that forgives and forgets…a love that gives the terrible sufferings your culture brought ours when it swept over us like a wave crashing along a beach…with a love that forgets and lifts up its head and sees in your eyes an answering love of trust and acceptance.
This is brotherhood…anything less is not worthy of the name.
I have spoken

12/29/2023

A lot of you already know about this but i wanted to share for those who may not know or have forgotten about Farm Bag Distribution Alert!

Farm Bag Distribution Alert!

Stop by the Brownsville Community Culinary Center (69 Belmont Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11212) every Friday from 12 PM to 4 PM to pick up your healthy groceries for the week at your chosen rate!

Remember to register in-person before the event to secure your fresh and nutritious produce. 🛒🥕🍅

06/15/2023

Victory Gardens became popular in Canada in 1917. Under the Ministry of Agriculture's campaign, "A Vegetable Garden for Every Home", residents of cities, towns and villages utilized backyard spaces to plant vegetables for personal use and war effort. In the city of Toronto, women's organizations brought expert gardeners into the schools to get school children and their families interested in gardening. In addition to gardening, homeowners were encouraged to keep hens in their yards to obtain eggs. The result was a large production of potatoes, beets, cabbage, and other useful vegetables.[4]

06/14/2023

Victory Gardens became popular in Canada in 1917. Under the Ministry of Agriculture's campaign, "A Vegetable Garden for Every Home", residents of cities, towns and villages utilized backyard spaces to plant vegetables for personal use and war effort. In the city of Toronto, women's organizations brought expert gardeners into the schools to get school children and their families interested in gardening. In addition to gardening, homeowners were encouraged to keep hens in their yards to obtain eggs. The result was a large production of potatoes, beets, cabbage, and other useful vegetables.

In March 1917, Charles Lathrop Pack organized the US National War Garden Commission and launched the war garden campaign. Food production had fallen dramatically during World War I, especially in Europe, where agricultural labor had been recruited into military service and remaining farms devastated by the conflict. Pack and others conceived the idea that the supply of food could be greatly increased without the use of land and manpower already engaged in agriculture, and without the significant use of transportation facilities needed for the war effort. The campaign promoted the cultivation of available private and public lands, resulting in over five million gardens in the US[5] and foodstuff production exceeding $1.2 billion by the end of the war.[6]

President Woodrow Wilson said that "Food will win the war." To support the home garden effort, a United States School Garden Army was launched through the Bureau of Education, and funded by the War Department at Wilson's direction.