The Athena Salad!

Highs in the 60’s today here in the Queen City of the Plains. A crisp, crunchy salad sounds perfect for lunch. We’re hard at work making them for you.

Quick Breakfast Idea:

Creamy Noosa Finest Yoghurt and Purely Elizabeth ancient grain granolas. Noosa honey with the Cranberry Pecan is our favorite right now.

Orange you gonna eat me?!

Red Navel Oranges AKA ‘Cara Cara’ are one of nature’s sweet seductions and are in season at the moment. Not to be fooled, they look like an orange on the outside yet conceal a sweet pink flesh on the inside that looks and tastes like grapefruit, but sans bitterness. Flavor also evokes hints of cherry, rose petal, and blackberry. Does that sound too good to be true? Well, it isn’t, fortunately. $1.99/lb

New Produce product! Welcome Tatsoi into our midst.

Grown hyrodponically by Colorado Aquaponics, this beautiful rosette-style bok choy has small spoon shaped leaves, a soft creamy texture, and a subtle yet distinctive mustard-like flavor. It is most commonly eaten raw, but can also be added to dishes at the end of cooking or wilted slightly.

Try this wonderful green as a simple wilted salad paired with our LOCAL greenhouse grown Mizuna! $3.99/ea

http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/tatsoi-vegetable-recipe.htm

Today we start “corning” our briskets for corned beef!

Our house-brined corned beef is a local favorite, and to achieve that perfect flavor we’re starting the weeks-long process today to be ready for your Saint Patrick’s Day dinner ideas.

Our Clarkson location has Maradol Papayas!

$4.99/ea ONLY available until supplies run out! Try this super simple salad recipe. We’ve got red dandelion greens that are deeeelicious. We don’t have bittercress, but substitute LOCALLY grown mizuna for a milder flavor or arugula if you like a little more bite to your salad.

http://www.eatweeds.co.uk/hairy-bittercress-dandelion-papaya-salad

Your Fish Friday just got even better…

Come in to the 17th street store for “The Better Friday”: seared tuna steak, sprouts, avocado, & tangy wasabi aioli on a toasted brioche bun for $9.99.

Serendipity Confections

Sweet treats! We are so excited about one of our newest LOCAL vendors - Serendipity Confections. This Denver based artisan candy company makes caramels the old-fashioned way with only the best-quality ingredients such as organic butter and organic agave. How can you possibly resist???
http://www.serendipityconfections.com/

Sardines & Anchovies

Ever wonder what to do with all the wonderful sardines and anchovies we have on our shelves? Here’s your answer.

http://food52.com/recipes/16360-pasta-con-sarde

Buffalo? Bison? Grass fed/finished?

So many ways to describe meat today, here are some answers:

The big thing about grass fed - we call it finished - is how the animal ends its life.  All beef (well almost) starts on grass and roams the prairie munching away on clean green grass.  Then about 3-6 months (at least in Niman’s case) before the animal is set to be slaughtered it is moved onto a feedlot where it it eats a mix of wheat, corn and soy (mostly corn).  This grain mixture fattens the animal up and allows the marbling in the meat that is so sought after.  However grain costs money, and grass on the prairie is virtually free. So why is grass finished as expensive as feedlot finished?

Grass finished beef never gets moved to a feedlot.  The animals spend their entire lives eating grass on the prairie.  This is great for the animal who lives a more peaceful life.  What the consumer will find in grass finished is that the animals don’t get very big because they never eat grain.  The other challenging part about grass finished is that the animals have to be moved quickly from prairie to slaughter because they can’t eat anything after they leave the ranch.  This is an example why we prefer to call this beef grass finished since virually all beef is grass fed at some point in their lives.

 Bison (or buffalo) is a great alternative to beef.  Bison is super flavorful, slightly gamey and has less fat and calories with more protein and iron than beef or chicken.  Bison is the preferred name to differentiate between the water buffalo and the American buffalo.  Our Bison is raised in Wyoming and Nebraska and are finished on grain just like cattle for the last 100 days of their lives.  There is still enough fat in Bison steaks to make them very flavorful.