We’ve got the Winter Solstice, Chanukah, and Christmas all happening this week ! The produce is just as festive, with rainbow carrots, a rainbow potato mix, and Clementine add-ons! Also, we have tasty recipes for Stuffed Cabbage, Carrot & Cumin Soup, Potato Latkes, and Apple Dumplings! Check out the newsletter!
It’s our first week of root veggies from Winter Moon Farm in Hadley, MA, with rainbow beets, carrots, and parsnips coming our way. Rainbow chard, sweet potatoes, and onions are also going out in boxes. Plus, check out our holiday schedule and a special note from Food For Free in this week’s newsletter!
Don’t think you can use your Boston Organics delivery during these next few weeks? It’s easy to cancel upcoming deliveries on our website!
Deadline Reminders:
If you’ve got any questions, don’t hesitate to call us up at 617-242-1700 or email us atservice@bostonorganics.com!
Thank you, and we look forward to a safe and happy holiday season!
The Boston Organics Crew
Happy December! The fine folks at Dwight Miller and Son Orchards in Vermont are sending us Honeycrisp apples, which we think are some of the tastiest, sweetest, most crisp apples available. We’re also looking at delicious items such as green bell peppers, swiss chard, parsnips, and sunchokes. We’ve got organic garbanzo beans from Fiddler’s Green Farm as the featured add-on this week. In addition, find out about our giveaway for a Taza chocolate factory tour, and a special promotion from our neighbors at Avalon CrossFit. Check out this week’s newsletter!
Every week we put together a local box (which we call the “Dogma Box”) to help people eat food that’s both organic AND local! The Dogma Box includes produce that has been sourced as close to Boston as possible, and this week we’ve got some great items from Massachusetts and Vermont.
This week’s Dogma Box includes:
Fall and winter veggies add a wonderful flavor and heartiness to soups, stews, and roasts. There are countless healthy and delicious recipes you can try out with these seasonal items, such as Root Veggie Chowder, Curried Turnips, and more! We also love to let the veggies stand on their own in a simple roasted vegetable medley.
Wanna learn more? Check out our recipes page where you can browse by item and get some inspiration for your next locally-sourced meal! Also, if you have a great fall/winter recipe that you’d like to share, feel free to send it our way to recipes@bostonorganics.com.
We hope everyone had a delicious and relaxing Thanksgiving holiday! Just because the holiday is over, it doesn’t mean you have to stop eating well! We’ve got onions, broccoli sprouts, green bell peppers, potatoes, and more for you this week. Add-on grapes and pumpkins are done for the season, but we still have Missouri pecans and other seasonal add-ons. Also, get recipes for curried turnips, root veggie chowder, lemongrass soup, and apple, goat cheese, and pecan pizza! Check out this week’s newsletter!
We have a special thank you note from Boston Organics’ founder Jeff Barry, and we’re featuring our 5 favorite customer-submitted recipes from the Thanksgiving recipe contest! Check out this week’s newsletter!
We recently took a trip down to Rochester, MA to visit our friends at Jonathan’s Organic and learn more about where their sprouts come from. Liz Reilley, Jonathan’s Director of Sales & Marketing, was kind enough to show us around their main sprout facility, which has been in the same large barn for over 30 years! We even got to sneak a few samples.
After putting on our hair nets and lab coats, Liz showed us their seed storage room and explained the importance of seed testing. Food safety is a top priority for Jonathan’s Organic, which is why they thoroughly sample and test all of their products from seed to sprout. Sprouts are grown from seed to sprout in only a week, and they can be grown year-round.
Our next stop was the sprout packing room, where we were surrounded by racks of beautiful alfalfa sprouts, sunflower sprouts, mung bean sprouts, and spicy radish sprouts. We were pleasantly surprised to find that instead of using a mechanized packing process, Jonathan’s employees weigh and pack each container of fresh sprouts by hand. They are able to package and distribute approximately 40 tons of sprouts each week!
Once packaged, the sprouts are distributed to supermarkets, specialty markets, wholesale distributors, and small grocery services like Boston Organics! Click here to read more about Jonathan’s Organic and why they believe in organic practices.
After our lovely visit with the Jonathan’s Organic crew, Liz took us to Buzzards Bay to see how cranberries are harvested and meet some of the cranberry growers that Jonathan’s works with each year. In the fall, Jonathan’s packages and distributes cranberries for local cranberry growers. Despite the short harvest season (October through December), cranberries are a major commercial crop in Massachusetts, and the cranberry harvest is the main source of income for many Massachusetts families.
Keith Mann, a fourth generation cranberry grower, showed us how cranberries are harvested at the bog. Cranberries grow on shallow vines, and growers flood the bogs with water in order to harvest the cranberries. Once the bog is flooded, the growers use a harvesting machine that quickly stirs up the water and loosens the cranberries from the vine. Cranberries have small air pockets in their center, which causes them to float to the top. This creates the scene that you see in Ocean Spray commercials. Check out this video of Keith explaining the harvesting process.
The floating berries are then corralled and put on a conveyor that takes them up to a truck. The cranberries are separated from the debris before being taken to a warehouse, where they’re cleaned, sorted, and packaged.
Keith explained that most cranberries are wet-picked because the wet picking process produces a higher yield and requires less time and labor. The wet-picked berries are typically used for juice, sauce, and other processed foods. Roughly 10 percent of cranberries are dry harvested and sold as fresh fruit.
As we approach the holiday that brings cranberries to the forefront of our plates, we’re thankful for the growers who work hard to get them to us. If you have any questions about cranberries, sprouts, or anything else we offer, send us an email and we’ll make sure your questions get answered!
Thanksgiving is a food-lover’s holiday. Here at Boston Organics, we love to cook, eat, and share recipes with one another, and we wanted to share a few of our favorite Thanksgiving dishes with you.
Jeff Barry (Owner/Founder) - One of my favorite dishes is my older sister’s chocolate pecan pie. It’s a little over the top, but isn’t that what T-Day is all about? I don’t think there needs any further explanation why that is so awesome. Here’s the recipe.
My recent contribution to Thanksgiving has been sweet potatoes and butternut squash. Because the vegetables have been so flavorful, I’ve simply been roasting them and mashing them up (separately of course) and adding a little salt and pepper (if necessary, you can add a little brown sugar or maple syrup). You’ll be amazed how susprised people will be when you tell them that there is nothing but salt and pepper added to them. Whether it’s sweet potatoes from Picadilly Farms or butternut squash from the Deep Root coop, these vegetables will speak for themselves.
Adam S. (Operations Supervisor) - I’m a firm believer in the food philosophy that the best foods are “slop.” In keeping with that, and Thanksgiving, I LOVE to mix up buttery mashed potatoes, homemade stuffing and cranberry sauce, and then smother them in gravy. Simple, schloppy, and a Turkey Day staple.
Amy L. (Marketing) - For me, it’s a tie between macaroni & cheese, pecan pie, and yeast rolls. Every year my family would go down to South Carolina to visit my grandma and enjoy Thanksgiving the real southern way, leaving no opportunity for butter or carbs behind. There’s no greater comfort than creamy mac & cheese, a buttery roll, and a big ol’ slice of pecan pie.
Amy M. (Customer Service) – My favorite Thanksgiving dish is my mom’s cheesy onions! Cooked onions smothered in a white creamy cheese sauce with bread crumbs on top. Baked in the oven til it’s bubbly & begins to brown – Delicious!
Andy R. (Delivery Driver) - Stuffing is the best.
David D. (Delivery Driver) - Pumpkin pie!
Emilio D. (Operations Manager) - Pasteles. They are one of the most popular and cherished dishes in Puerto Rico through the holiday season (November, December and January). A Thanksgiving or Christmas lunch/dinner is said to be incomplete if pasteles are not featured in it.
They consist of a patty (similar to tamales) made out of grated green banana, green plantain or yuca root stuffed with any combination of meats, potatoes, garbanzo beans, olives and other items, season with traditional Puerto Rican/Caribbean spices.
The way in which they are made are almost an art. The dough is placed on a banana leaf that has been heated over an open flame to make it supple and take on a smoky aroma. Then it is stuffed with the meat mixture, wrapped around with parchment paper and tied with a kitchen string as it to form a packet. They can either be cooked in boiling water or frozen for later. One of the traditional dishes I miss the most from home.
Gardijan N. (Delivery Driver) – Green bean casserole!
John G. (Delivery Driver) – Mashed potatoes!
Kevin S. (Delivery Driver) – Mashed potatoes!
Tom A. (Fleet Manager) - My Uncle Joe makes a killer stuffing every year. The oysters are the magical ingredient which make it rock. Here’s the recipe.
Do you have a favorite holiday recipe that you want to share? You can share it with us on Facebook, Twitter, or email recipes@bostonorganics.com!
Happy eating!
Thanks to the beautiful weather, we’ve got local Red Boston lettuce this week from Atlas Farm! Sweet potatoes, cranberries, beets, radishes, and apples are some of the other delicious local crops we’ve got coming in. We have a condensed Thanksgiving delivery schedule next week, and we’re offering Thanksgiving add-on’s such as pecans, cranberry sauce, mushrooms, and more! Also, there’s a cooking class coming up this Saturday at the Boston Center for Adult Education! Check out the newsletter!
