Baked Butternut Squash

INGREDIENTS

2 butternut squashes
2 Tbsp butter, melted
Nutmeg, salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Scrub the squash, then cut in half lengthwise and scrape out the seeds and stringy portion. Place cut side down on a lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake for 45 minutes.

Remove from oven, brush with melted butter and add seasonings. Return to oven, cut side up, and bake for 15 minutes longer.

Did You Know: Using the "Likes" & "Dislikes" Lists

"Did You Know" is our series of blog posts about Green Earth Organics: how it works, how you can do more with your account, etc.

Back to school, back to work, back to business and busy-ness! We want our bins to be as easy to customize as possible, so you can spend a minimum of your precious time doing your shopping. One of the ways to make sure you get exactly what you want even when time is getting away from you is to use the "Your Likes" and "Your Dislikes" page on your account.

These two pages are only used for our pre-designed bins - the $27 Small Bin, $35 Medium Bin, and $46 Large Bin - and doesn't apply to the Custom Bin option. What happens is when your order is created for the week, the website will automatically substitute out anything that is on your dislikes list and replace it with something else. Though what is subbed in is a somewhat random choice from the bin contents and fresh picks list for that week, the website is programmed not to choose something that is on your dislikes list and to give priority to items on your likes list.

To take the best advantage of the dislikes/likes option, make sure any items you don't ever want are on the "Your Dislikes" page. There are two ways to enter an item:

By Category: If you don't want kale, for example, put "kale" in the "Always Match Items Named" field. The website will remove all items with kale in the name from all your future bins, so you won't get black kale, green kale, red kale, white kale, purple Russian kale, etc. Even if we enter a new type of kale on to the website in the future, you still won't receive it.

If you never want apples in your bin, enter "apple" into that field. By using the singular form, the website will catch both "gala apple" and "red delicious apples", since both contain the word "apple". If you enter "apples", only the latter would have been removed; "gala apple" would not be caught by "apples".

By Exact Item: If you like most apples but don't like red delicious apples in particular, you can get the website to only remove them by starting to type the item into the "Find Specific Item" field and clicking on the appropriate item in the drop-down box.

These two options also apply to the "Your Likes" list. If you enter "pear" in the "Always Match Items Named" field, the website will give priority to any kind of pear when making substitutions for you. If you choose "bosc pear" from the "Find Specific Item" field, then the website will choose bosc pears when they are available, but will not give priority to any other kind of pear.

After setting up these lists, the website will make changes for you as necessary. However, you can always change what is subbed in by logging in before 9 AM the day before your delivery.

Please just give us a call at 604-708-2345 or email us at info@greenearthorganics.com if we can help you get your lists just right. We can also help with more complicated requests such as if you don't want to receive any fruit except apples or if you want to make sure you don't receive any cooking greens or citrus fruits. And if your "dislike" is actually an allergy, please let us know, especially if cross-contamination would be an issue.

We want to make your ordering as easy as possible and make sure that you receive a bin full of delicious food you are excited to eat, so please let us know if there's anything we can do to make your bins better for you.

Baked Corn Fritters

INGREDIENTS

1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp sea salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
3 cobs corn, cooked and cut off the cob

DIRECTIONS

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the egg and milk. Add egg and milk to dry ingredients and stir until uniform. Mix in the corn.

Drop batter by the tablespoon onto a greased cookie sheet.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until just barely brown. Be careful not to overcook.

Black Bean Salad

INGREDIENTS

Juice of 1 lime, or about 2 Tbsp lime juice
2 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp cumin
2 Tbsp fresh oregano, diced
Sea salt and pepper to taste
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
2 cobs corn, steamed and cut off the cob
2 avocados, diced
1 field cucumber, peeled and diced
3 green onions, diced
1 tomato, diced

DIRECTIONS

In a jar, combine lime juice, olive oil, cumin, oregano, and salt and pepper. Shake well to combine.

Combine remaining ingredients in a large bowl. Pour dressing over and toss gently. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

Autumn Reminders

The recent turn in Vancouver's weather reminds us that summer is soon coming to an end. The autumn harvest season has begun, and there is an abundance of local seasonal treats available starting this week: apples, pears, beans, nectarines, grapes, and more, all grown in our beautiful province. It has been a tough year for our farmers, and we’re thrilled to finally see the results of their hard work through this poor summer.

As people return from holidays and settle back into their work and school routines, we wish to offer the following reminders to make sure that Green Earth Organics has smooth deliveries and that you get your bin of delicious produce just the way you want it.

The selection of produce changes weekly. The next week’s bins and fruit and vegetable options are posted to our website on Thursdays by 6 PM. We’ve been upgrading our fruit and vegetables pictures to higher quality ones – we hope you like them!

You are able to make up to four substitutions per delivery. The deadline for all substitutions, cancellations, and additional item requests is 9 AM the day prior to your delivery. This deadline is especially important if you are interested in Artisan Bake Shoppe items; their deadline is very strict and we order exactly what we need for the next day, so there’s no extra available and any late cancellations will go to waste.

If you enjoy one of our wonderful grocery items, consider placing it on standing order. You can choose to have it with every delivery or with every second delivery, and you will save 5% every time! To set up a standing order, add the item to your “Standing Orders” page or contact the office. Please note that to remove an item from your standing order or change the quantity, you will have to contact us to do it for you. We can also set up standing orders that come every second bin; unless we're told otherwise, all standing orders are assumed to be for every bin.

We offer several convenient payment options. Using a Visa or MasterCard, or being set up with Direct Debit, means that you never risk missing a payment. If you choose to pay by cash or cheque, please remember that payment is due upon delivery and that the delivery drivers do not carry change.

Please place your empty bins out in a safe area on the morning of your delivery for the driver to collect. If you are returning Avalon milk bottles and cold packs, please make sure they are clean and remove the lids from the bottles.

If you have any questions or concerns, you can reach Melissa or Esther at 604-708-2345 or info@greenearthorganics.com. The office is open from 8 AM to 4 PM from Mondays to Thursdays, and from 8 AM to noon on Fridays and holidays. Someone also checks the voicemails and emails around 9 AM on Sunday to meet the deadline for Monday's orders, so please feel free to leave us a message over the weekend.

We are looking forward to providing you with abundant organic food this autumn! Please let us know if there's anything we can do to make the service work better for you.

Our blog is a great place to browse recipes, check out new products, and learn about some of the cool, local stuff that's happening in the organic world, but it's not the only place we hang out. We also send out a monthly email newsletter that's chock full of tips for living organically, cooking and preserving some of the tasty produce that fills your bins, and general tidbits on whatever we're finding interesting these days.

Through the newsletter, we let you know about upcoming events in the community, like evening classes on raising backyard chickens or community potlucks, and rhapsodize about the beautiful organic fruits and veggies we love best (no, really). If you're not signed up already, filling out the following form is a super easy way to make sure you don't miss out!

Did You Know: How Sale Items Are Chosen

"Did You Know" is our series of blog posts about Green Earth Organics: how it works, how you can do more with your account, etc.

Every week, when we update the fruits and vegetables for the coming week, we also update the sale items page of our website. The fruits and vegetables on that page change weekly, while the grocery items tend to change monthly.

The fruits and vegetables on that page are usually chosen because our supplier gave us an excellent price. If the distributor has a lot of stock - as happens most often when an item is at the height of its season - they will give us a discount to pass on to our members.

A lot of the fruits and vegetables on sale are too expensive to put into the regular bins, but are too tasty to resist carrying. Recently, we've had some of our best local fruits on the "sale items" page: cherries, raspberries, blackberries, bulk blueberries, canning peaches, and more.

The grocery item sale items are chosen for a variety of reasons. First, there are monthly specials from the supplier or manufacturer. Each month we receive a flyer from each of our suppliers with discounts of anywhere from 5% to 30% off various items. Sometimes everything from a certain brand is on sale and sometimes only one exact item is discounted. When we get a discount, we pass that on.

Second, we often put new products on sale. Sometimes we've received an introductory discount on the product, but often we just mark it down anyway. We aren't always able to do this - sometimes the margins are just too narrow - but we like to make sure our members see new products and the "sale items" page is an easy way to showcase them. This is especially important with perishable items where we have to buy full cases; if an item doesn't sell well at the sale price, we will often discontinue carrying it to avoid having waste.

Third, we sometimes put items on sale because we have too much stock or because we received an item accidentally. If we miss counting a case when doing an inventory and order more of something, or if the supplier sends us the wrong size of something, it is usually easier to put it on sale than to return it (especially since the supplier will often give us a discount if it is their error).

We do the best we can to keep sale items in stock, but sometimes they sell very quickly. Occasionally we've had issues with the availability from our sources too: if an item is on for a very good price, sometimes the supplier will run out of stock.

To get the best prices and find the newest items, we suggest checking the sale items page before each delivery. As with the rest of the website, the sale page is updated by 6 PM on Thursdays with the following week's stock and prices.

Happy organic eating, and saving!