Apples and sweet potatoes together in butter, sugar and cinnamon; is this a side dish or a dessert? Well, that's up to you. This is a great dish to accompany your grilling favorites, or to enjoy afterward as dessert. It's simple, easy and great tasting.

Ingredients

• 2 large sweet potatoes, sliced
• 1 apple - peeled, cored and thinly sliced
• ground cinnamon to taste
• white sugar to taste
• 1/2 cup butter

The strawberries in the store right now are perfect for dipping.  Select large, firm berries with stem leaves attached for the best presentation.  This is a simple and elegant dessert that takes no time at all.

Ingredents

• strawberries
• dark chocolate
• powdered sugar

Steps

1. Wash and air dry as many strawberries as you plan to serve.
2. Melt squares of dark chocolate in the microwave, about 20 seconds at a time, stirring between cooking, until all the chocolate has melted.
3. Holding the berries by the stem, dip and swirl into the chocolate so all sides are completely covered.
4. Sprinkle with a bit of powdered sugar.
5. Let dry on waxed paper or a plate and serve within a few hours.
6. Note:  amounts are approximate depending on how many berries you want to make.  You can also use white or semisweet chocolate, and can sprinkle with colored sugar or even very finely chopped nuts. 

Why Not Cupcakes?

Suddenly, these cute little cakes seem to be everywhere.  They show up in boutique bakeries, at bridal showers, in supermarkets, in lunchboxes.  There's just something about a cupcake that makes you feel like you are treating yourself without going overboard on the sugar-sweet continuum. 

I am somewhat of a cake fanatic, but am very particular about that cake.  I first tasted a Magnolia Bakery cupcake in New York City a few years ago, and thought to myself, "this is what a cupcake should be."  A dense, vanilla-infused cake with just a few crumbs, strong enough to stand up to a crown of swirling pastel buttercream:  now that's a cupcake to remember.  And I do remember it well, carrying two of them home on the plane, but alas...had to eat one mid-air,somewhere over the Great Lakes,  much to the envy of my fellow travelers.

I like to make cupcakes in the mini size.  They are just right for two bites and you don't have to confront 24 supersized cakes.  When they're petite, you can nosh on a couple and feel like you've given yourself a little pat on the back.

Flavors?  I am a purist.  I go for a white cake with white frosting.  I don't think that's boring: it's the height of culinary skill to produce a true vanilla flavor without a synthetic aftertaste.  And if you're like me, you always double the frosting you make, adding twice as much, because isn't the frosting the whole point?  I make mine from scratch, a simple buttercream, but if you're pressed for time, an inexpensive cake mix and canned frosting will quell the craving quickly.

Cupcakes have long been the answer to classroom treats, and adapt themselves to any holiday or season.  Right now, a pink, strawberry-flavored cake with a creamy matching strawberry frosting would be right in step with spring.  Mix up a batch and share your success with your family, coworkers, students, pals.  It doesn't get much better than a sweet taste of cupcake heaven.

Today is Earth Day. For some people, that's everyday. For others, that's ridiculous. But if there's one day to whisper to a patch of dirt and say, "thanks for raspberries," or yell out to a tall Douglas Fir, "thanks for oxygen!" - Today is that day.

Earth day is a day of service. It’s an opportunity to teach and learn – and a chance for us to identify problems that face our communities and work together to find lasting solutions.

If you want to do something, but you’re still wondering what that should be – the first step is to get outside. Most of the stewardship activities of Earth Day take place outdoors, such as picking up trash, joining a work party to remove non-native vegetation, planting trees or volunteering at an event.

While you’re outside, consider how the natural environment supports your life – providing food, shelter and all of the resources needed to live out your daily life. Our environment sustains us, and we simply can’t live without it. Earth Day represents the recognition of this relationship between people and their environment – and the need to give back to the Earth in return for providing our sustenance.  

To learn more about what you can do, visit:

Local Earth Day Events (Western Washington) – Department of Ecology

I've probably eaten peanut butter every day of my conscious life, starting with p.b. and jelly.   It's always been chunky, and I vary the brands.  Nothing satisfies, taste-wise, as a toasted English muffin or a half bagel with melting peanut butter oozing over the sides.  We're talking all-American comfort food here.

My peanut butter obsession carries over to the perfect peanut butter cookie, as well as using peanut butter in Asian cooking sauces to great acclaim (well, acclaim in my own small circle).  I crave chocolate and peanut butter ice cream, peanut butter cups surrounded by milk chocolate, peanut butter icebox pie, and even peanut butter, especially, peanut butter frosting.  I add peanut butter to my homemade granola recipe, and when my energy is lagging late in the afternoon, a heaping spoonful of peanut butter does the trick.  The same amount transforms a simple chili, too.

A few years ago, I developed a food allergy to peanut butter and suddenly couldn't eat it anymore.  I tried almond butter, cashew butter, sunflower seed butter, but they couldn't fill that sticky void.  I kept reintroducing it into my diet, to no avail.

Then I tried a brand I seldom used, Adams.  I didn't like having to stir the oil on top, but thought maybe the all-natural p.b. might be the answer. 

Wonder of wonders, it was!  I can enjoy peanut butter again, and am always on the lookout for new ways to incorporate it into my meals.  Any thoughts? Is there a single food you eat every day? 

There are many variations of this tasty salad, and I generally find it's a good one for using up the last bits of this and that.  You can sub out the dried fruit or the nuts with what's on hand.  I prefer a simple dressing, but some people think it's better slathered with mayo and a pinch of sugar.  Either way, good healthy eating.

Ingredients

• One pound chopped broccoli
• Two cups chopped grapes, red or green, seeds removed
• One cup dried cranberries
• 1/2 cup slivered almonds
• One T vinegar
• 3 T oil

Steps

1.  Mix the vinegar and oil together; toss with the remaining ingredients.

2. Chill for a few hours; serves four to six people.

Donate Your Nickel: Bag Rebate Adds Nonprofits

When you bring your own shopping bag to our stores, we rebate you a nickel for every bag, every time you shop.  This includes our reuseable plastic bags, our Northwest-themed organic cotton bags, or any bag you bring from home.

The nickel is deducted from your grocery total, but you can choose to make a donation to a local nonprofit organization.  While a nickel doesn't seem like much, it can add up to big some change for worthy groups that are scrambling for funds these days.

We have added the Chelan-Douglas Land Trust (www.cdlandtrust.org)  for our two Wenatchee stores, the Boys and Girls Cub of the Columbia Basin for Moses Lake Food Pavilion(www.bngclub.org) , and the Prosser Senior Center for Prosser Food Depot.

Earth Day is April 24th, but you can make a difference every day by bringing your own bag and making a donation to these organizations. 

Ingredients (serves 6)

• 2 tablespoons canola oil
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 3 cups cooked white rice
• 2 cups cooked black beans, drained and rinsed
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon ground coriander
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 2-3 tablespoons vegetarian worcestershire sauce (regular can be used as well)
• salt & freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• fresh cilantro (optional)
  sliced green onion (optional)

More important than how often you eat organic is which types of organic produce you choose to eat. The Environmental Working Group recently released a shopper’s guide to minimizing exposure to pesticides from produce. The guide ranks the pesticide contamination levels of 47 popular fruits and vegetables based on an analysis of 87,000 tests for pesticides on these foods, conducted from 2000 to 2007 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

The ranking was based on composite scores of the following six measures:
    * Percent of the samples tested with detectable pesticides
    * Percent of the samples with two or more pesticides
    * Average number of pesticides found on a sample
    * Average amount (level in parts per million) of all pesticides found
    * Maximum number of pesticides found on a single sample
    * Number of pesticides found on the commodity in total

The group created two lists based on the findings of each produce item’s score. The first list contains the top 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest levels of contamination – which they recommend as the most important to buy organically grown. The second list shows which out of the 47 items consistently have the lowest concentrations of pesticides. These items are assumed to be safer to eat when organic is not an option.

Every one of our produce departments is a state certified produce handler, accredited by the Washington State Department of Agriculture and third-party audited. We offer a wide selection of organically grown produce. Meanwhile, we understand that eating organically grown produce is not always practical. For the times when it’s not an option, you can minimize your exposure risk by choosing items with lower contamination rates and washing your produce thoroughly before consumption.

The Market at Anacortes was certified in March as an organic food handler for our Meat Department, joining the store's Produce Department, which carries the same designation.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture issues certification as a way of ensuring the integrity of foods listed as organic.  It has established standards and a rigorous checklist for retailers to pursue before certification can be issued.

This checklist includes inspection of the store's management practices in handling organics, including everything from recording product arrival in the store to equipment clean-up for organic products.

The Market at Anacortes is proud to be one of the only certified organic retailers in the state, and the only one in Anacortes.  Our Produce Department offers over 100 organic items daily, and receives fresh deliveries six days a week.  Like the Produce Department, the Meat Department follows stringent practices of separating organics, clearly labeling products and providing employee training in proper procedures. The goal is to handle organic produce and meat with the same level of care that is required to grow or produce it.

The Markets are committed to providing customers with exceptional food quality.  One of our Store Managers, Paul Shepard (Southside Food Pavilion) is a member of the Washington State Department of Agriculture's Organic Advisory Board.

Someone told me that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is the ultimate comfort food.  That got me thinking about the foods that satisfy when I need a pat on the back, a kind word or a little treat

When I was a kid, it was always about something sweet.  A wedge of angel food cake with lofty white frosting topped with chocolate chips, a handful of bridge mix (and why is it called bridge mix?), a piece of lemon meringue pie, eaten in separate layers, or the ultimate: oreo cookies, broken apart, and devoured filling first. 

But as I got older, comfort related to more than the basic lust for sugar, and became both seasonal and situational.  After a big exam, nothing tasted as good as a slightly soggy grilled cheese sandwich, simply white bread with melted American cheese.  In the summer months, a big bowl of local strawberries in the afternoon was reward enough for working all day in the garden.  The forboding days of deep winter in the Pacific Northwest encouraged hot Irish oatmeal, steel-cut and topped with sliced almonds, dried cranberries and a dollop of plain yoghurt.

My comfort food these days is even simpler:  just one or two ingredients, easy to assemble and slow to eat.  I can linger over a toasted bagel, treating myself to a little peanut butter on top, after I finish a long jog.  Following a grueling drive in heavy traffic, I sit down to a piece of last night's homemade pizza, served cold, and feel myself wind down.  Food has the ability to not just nourish , but to satisfy on many levels.  Well, that's a pretty deep thought, and I'm feeling a little chilly, so I need a big bowl of lentil soup to keep me going. How about you?

This is a 50s-vintage recipe for leftover ham that always, as Mom used to say, "hits the spot."  If eternity, it's been said, is two people and one ham, then this is one good use for some of that!

Ingredients

Eight thin slices baked ham

Eight slices Swiss cheese

1/4 onion, finely chopped

Four Kaiser-type bread rolls

2 tablespoons yellow mustard

4 tablespoons butter, softened

Steps

1. Mix onion, mustard and butter together.

2. Slice rolls in half; spread mix on top of rolls and inside each half.

3. Sandwich in two pieces of ham between two pieces of Swiss cheese.

4. Place on baking sheet: bake at 400 degrees for about ten minutes, or until cheese melts and the topping turns golden.

5. Serves four.  Variations: you can use mini rolls for slider-style snacks.  Double the filling recipe for a heartier flavor.

The Markets are holding a job fair on Tuesday, April 14!

Join us as we begin hiring for our newest store, The Market at Birch Bay.  The Job Fair will be held at the Bellingham Airport Hampton Inn, Fox Hall, 3985 Bennet Drive in Bellingham, from 3 to 7 p.m.

Interviews will be held for positions including checkers, courtesy and helper clerks, night crew, deli and bakery staff.  Potential employees are encouraged to bring their resumes and come prepared to complete applications.

If you share our passion for great food and unmatched customer service, come see us on April 14th. 

These come together in a snap so you can get dinner on the table in a hurry.  You can vary the fillings to what's available in the frig, too!

Ingredients

1 pound boneless chicken breasts or thighs, cut into thin strips

1 tsp. chili powder

1 tsp. ground pepper

1 tsp. cumin

cooking spray

four flour tortillas

1/2 cup shredded Monterey Jack or cheddar cheese

1/4 cup chopped onion

1 green pepper, seeded and sliced

Steps

1.  Mix first four ingredients together; set aside.

2. Spray saute pan; heat to medium and add chopped onion and sliced pepper.  Cook until soft (about five minutes).

3. Add more cooking spray if needed: saute chicken until juices run clear.

4.  Warm up tortillas in the oven or microwave (just for a few minutes).

5.  Fill with chicken and vegetables, top with cheese.  Add bonus toppings like sour cream, guacamole or salsa if you like.

6. Serves four hungry people.

I don't follow soup recipes. They're more of a source for inspiration, serving as an amendable plan or a general aim. Although doing this has lead me to cook a few irreversibly damaged soups, I still find that the most enjoyable soup-making style is to simply build the flavor one ingredient at a time without a recipe (which is why you won’t hear me talking too much about exact quantities - I just eyeball everything!).

Last night, I had a plan to make a Thai-curry style soup. I knew I wanted it to be somewhere between a red curry with vegetables and a Tom-Kah style soup (my favorite). Each have complex flavors, and they take a while to build - but taking it one step at a time makes it very easy.

First I chopped a yellow onion and threw it into an oversized pot that I had heated up with a few ounces of butter. I let the onions brown while I prepped my veggies, potatoes and mushrooms. Then I poured in a large container of chicken broth, two cans of coconut milk, a can of fish stock and a few cups of water. I brought that to a boil and added chopped carrots and Yukon Gold potatoes. Then I added four cloves of garlic (chopped), a few ounces of red curry paste, and palm full of grated ginger. Things started smelling more soup-like at this point, but the flavor was still in the early stages of development.

Ginger in soup seems lonely to me without lime, so I zested two and squeezed the juice in with the zest. To balance out the citrus and ginger, I added brown sugar. It tasted a little oversweetened at first, but after adding soy sauce and some coarsely ground pepper, the broth was taking on a well-rounded flavor and aroma. Overall, it was still a little thin, so I added a few cups of quinoa to absorb some water and give it a thicker body - and a boost of protein.

Next I added chopped parsnips and sweet potatoes - ingredients uncommon to this type of soup, but I was feeling brave (and hungry). Then I tossed in julienned bell peppers and sliced shitakes. Five more minutes simmering and I finished it off with a handful of baby spinach leaves and some chopped cilantro.

In the end, the flavor had become rich and savory with a warming spice from the red curry. The sweet potatoes and parsnips turned out to be a risk worth taking. It was a successful new version to a comfort soup I can’t get enough of. If only all of my experimental soups could end on such a good note.

Ingredients

• 3 or 4 ripe bananas, smashed
• 1/3 cup melted butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 Tbsp espresso or strong coffee (optional)
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• Pinch of salt
• 1 1/2 cup of flour
• 1 cup chopped walnuts (toasted or raw)

In the details, or most likely, in the eggs.   Deviled eggs, that is.  For me, spring heralds the beginning of deviled egg season.  You have probably seen deviled eggs in their usual environment, adorning a picnic plate, sitting in all their half-moon glory, bright yellow creamy yokes topped with that bit of "devil", in this case, a smidge of paprika or red pepper flakes for a nice  bite. 

Deviled eggs are pretty simple and inexpensive to make.   Take as many eggs as you want to serve (but be warned, there are never enough!), and put them in a capacious pan, completely covered with water.  Bring to an energetic boil, and then, turn off the heat, cover the pan and let them sit for 15 minutes while they finish their work.  Uncover the pan, and  voila:  hard-boiled eggs.  To easily remove the shell, I run them under cold water, tap with a butter knife around the midpoint, and peel them, hopefully not losing too much of the white to the attached peel.  (By the way, anyone have a foolproof ---sorry, it's April 1st! --- method to peel eggs?  I'd sure like to try it.)

Slice each egg in half, longways (not around the midpoint), and scoop out the yoke.  Then, the fun begins.  You can mash up the yolk, add salt and pepper and a bit of mayo or creme fraiche, some soft chevre or even Greek yoghurt, and spoon back into the waiting eggwhites..  Top with the red sprinkles. That's the classic deviled egg, but I like to tinker with such simple perfection.

How about mixing in some jalapeno to your yolk blend?  Or tiny bits of chopped pickles?  Red onions, little capers or pimientos, pickled ginger or wasabi, shredded cheese, any spice that piques your interest: deviled eggs are like a blank canvas for creative cooks who like to dabble. 

But be warned: deviled eggs, once they appear in all their straightforward appeal, just don't last long, and you'll find yourself wishing you had doubled the batch.  Dare I say "no foolin'?"  Eggs-actly so!