An Ontario school recently came up with a relatively simple recipe, but one that turned out to be worth $5,000.

Elizabeth B. Phin Public School in Pickering was awarded $5,000 for their submission of a recipe to a new youth food program called Cheese4Change that supports healthy sustainable eating and gives out grants to schools and students.

Students at the school came up with a stuffed pepper that utilized local microgreens, Canadian mozzarella and sustainably grown vegetables, even showcasing the indoor gardens of kindergarten students in their video submission.

The students who came up with the recipe are on a "Future City" team at the school who had just finished a project about how to create a sustainable community on the moon, and they were guided by teacher Gary Braid to create the recipe.

To choose a recipe, the kids talked together about their favourite foods and then looked them up online to see which ones had the most ingredients they could grow in their school's community garden. Stuffed peppers was actually one grade eight student's favourite recipes.

The onions, tomatoes, peppers, garlic and cilantro they used were all grown in the school's garden, and the cheese and brown rice they used were also local.

They also created the recipe to be vegetarian, accessible with affordable ingredients that can be grown at home, and low waste by choosing cheese in a recyclable container and compostable ingredients.

They plan on using the $5K prize from the Cheese4Change program to purchase a 3D printer with a sustainable system for disposing of the waste, something they've wanted for a long time and have researched extensively.