Here is the recipe for a customer favorite. This very easy, healthy dish adapts well to changing, seasonal vegetables.

Spa Pasta

(This recipe will make about 2 servings)

Whole grain penne pasta
Olive oil
Salt & Pepper
Four Ounce Salmon Filet (We prefer wild caught, skin on)
1/2 cup each, seasonal vegetables; chopped (We are using asparagus & peas in June)
1/4 cup chopped onions
1 tablespoon finely chopped garlic
1/2 cup shredded cheese (we are using parmesean, but have used goat chevre)

Preperation: Cook 2 servings of penne pasta and set aside. Heat a large saucepan, add two tablespoons of olive oil and salmon filet. Cook at a medium-high heat for about 4 minutes per side. (Be careful not to overcook.) When the salmon is cooked, flake and leave in pan (you can leave the skin in the pan, or remove if you prefer.) Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil and all vegetables. Sautee for 2 minutes then add pasta and 1/4 cup of cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste and toss for another minute. Transfer pasta to plates and sprinkle remaining parmesean. Serve with bread.

(The cost for this dish is about $8.00 including the salmon.)

A year since the project kicked off…who woulda even believed?

Work in progress

Have Fun Cooking Saturday at the market. And then there was a party….

Well – we have many local meats, cheeses, dairy products and more – but we’re very pleased to declare that right now, in January – we have local “produce” – just in are black beans from Wright Way Farm in Beloit (USDA Certified Organic) and garlic from Evans Family Farm in Afton – cool – local in January – we’re excited….

THE number one non-local food seller at Bushel & Peck’s is Kombucha….Bushel & Peck’s carries GT Kombucha, the all around, number one seller…you can make Kombucha yourself too…So what is it, what’s the big deal? Here are a few links……..

Conscious Choice Article About Kombucha

The brand we carry

Who buys it? One would have thought college students..yes, they buy it. But the Komucha demographic at B & P runs 18 to 75ish…headache free for two months since drinking it…three cheers for Kombucha..

We recently took inventory of the local suppliers with whom we have a direct buying relationship. What that means is that we make a special effort to work with these local suppliers to acquire their product. We don’t just order from a massive supplier like most stores. This is a major logistical challenge. We could easily order alternative products from suppliers with big trucks, but we’ve chosen to go the extra mile to support local producers and to offer our customers the highest quality products. While there is a list of producers on the website, this is a list of producers that work directly with Bushel & Peck’s – food (and more) you trust from people you know – right?

Carr Valley Cheese, Hooks Cheese,Silver Lewis Cheese, Dean Meyer, Robins Roost, Wind Ridge Herb Farm, Kauffmans, Johnson Brothers, Rustlin Brook Farm, Peace Coffee, Rishi Tea, Double D’s Bees, Golden Bear Monarch Elk Farm, Rolling Meadows Sorghum Mill, Natures Bakery, Haylo Farms, Gahl’s Apples, Cindy Robinson, South Padre Seafoods, Daval’s Bison ,Apple Hut,Sugar River Dairy,Axium Foods,Blue Farms, Jordan Creek Dairy Farm, Herbs, Spices and More, Glory Be Pork, Marr’s Valley View Farms, And Many, Many Produce Growers from Monroe, to Beloit, to Caledonia……..

Some readers may have noticed a very nice letter to the editor in the Beloit Daily News – if not here it is….Letter From Morningstar

This unprompted, no-bribe-required letter was very nice and actually heart warming if I do say so. Many folks have stopped in looking for raspberries and yogurt since the letter appeared.

The reality is that behind the scenes of Bushel & Peck’s are a lot more people that enjoy bringing their products into the store, having lunch and going back home to their passion. Whether it be a soap maker or a potato grower or a borgeoning young sausage maker, many people come to Bushel & Peck’s looking to sell their goods. And very rarely, do we say no. Sometimes we make money, sometimes it’s an experiment and we don’t. But we always try to sell a good product from a local producer.

And while our produce case isn’t overflowing with fluffy green lettuce and bright and shiny apples, everything you see is local, recent, homegrown, fresh and keeps a dollar in the local economy. Some days you can come into the store and stumble upon the Raspberry Guy, The Apple Guy, The Honey Guy, The Elk Lady, The Chicken Guy (AKA Lamb Guy) and so on, perhaps all in the store within an hour of one another, stopping in to see what we need. This, to me, is so different than the Sysco Guy and the WalMart hauler showing up at the back door.

It’s cool – I wonder if there were actually a time when stores and restaurants were supplied this way? When was that?

Bushel & Peck’s has a meat case that has been empty for six weeks. A lot of people have asked for fresh meat. So it seems time to explain the absence.

Our philosophy on meat is that it should be produced on a small farm, on pasture, without antibiotics or hormones. “On pasture” means that the animal gets outside. All of these things seem reasonable, and one would think that in Wisconsin, it would be easy to fit all of the criteria.

So let’s start with small farm meat….Most small farmers raise just a few animals per year, and process only once in a while. A whole cow or hog goes a long way, and therefore is usually flash frozen when processed. Though we’d like to say that we’re selling a steer a week, we’re not. So we have to have the meat frozen. The small farms that provide us meat simply cannot have it done any other way than frozen.

Which brings us to commercial meat sources. We’ve been searching high and low for meat that we can purchase from purveyors of specialty foods. We ask questions; Where is it raised? Are the animals given antibiotics? Are the animals raised on pasture? Even after talking with many sellers of “all natural” meats, at least one of the questions is answered incorrectly. Most sellers can’t source their meat, most, even those labeled “all natural” have animals in confined feed lots.

The short answer is that we have chosen not to compromise our commitment to quality meat. For now, you’ll find great cuts in the freezer and we’ll keep searching for the right answer!

Bushel & Peck’s – Not Your Average Grocer

I’ve been looking for stories that articulate the uniqueness of Bushel & Peck’s. Not just a grocery store, not just a café, not just an ordinary place. There are many things that make the store unique; a focus on local foods, a sense of community, home made products, unique choices from fancy foods to cheap bulk items. There’s a lot that’s unique. One thing that struck me as really unusual the other day is our recycling program. More specifically, our composting program…..it is pretty fancy and really sustainable.

So it goes like this. And I found it sort of funny last night on my drive home. Yesterday, Jeff, a student at Beloit College started his job as Vice President of Dishwashing. His last job for the night is to take out the trash. So he does… except for the one, usual, large black plastic bag that is placed behind my 1999 Saturn Station Wagon. (It is placed there so I don’t forget it, which I have been known to do) He tells me just before we’re leaving that the big bag of garbage the staff told him to put outside is behind my car. That it is heavy and ready to burst. Then he sort of asks, “Why do you take the garbage home?” – or something like that… and I explain.

“I take the scraps home and feed them to my chickens. They love them. Today they’re getting all the vegetable extras and we shaved and froze corn so they’re getting corn cobs too! They’ll be so excited!” He looks at me a bit perplexed….but pleased. I continue, “ Every morning on my way out to the store I open the chicken door and they all run out to get the stuff that comes out of the bag. They’ve come to expect it.”

And then I explain that the chickens are our egg layers. The eggs we sell in the store. It’s really a pretty cool cycle. We grow food in soil fertilized by chickens, the food gets transported to the store. It is washed, cut and made into something delicious in the café. The scraps go into the compost can and then back into the chickens. The chickens lay eggs. The nutrition from the eggs comes from the food scraps from the café…very cool. Very unique. I don’t think Walmart or Cub or frankly any store can claim to be so sustainable. Just one of many things that make it unique.

And it will only get better…..