Hey Friday Friday! Get your Garlic!

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Check it out! Garlic can now be purchased in .25lb increments!! We know you have to be cooking non-stop to get through a whole pound of garlic, so we had our web guy make it so you can smaller amounts! Check it out and add Garlic to your order this week.

In the hustle and bustle of our daily life, it can be hard to maintain healthy eating habits. By choosing Golden Gate Organics, you have already made buying organic produce easier. The following are a few more tips to eating right, saving the earth and saving money!

1. Eat at Home and Cook for Yourself
It’s cheaper than eating out. It’s fun. It’s a chance to spend time with loved ones (or catch up on your favorite TV — whatever works). You choose the ingredients. You control how nutritious it is. You drive less. You waste less food.

2. Eat Real Foods
If your grandmother wouldn’t have immediately recognized it as “food” there’s a good chance it’s less food and more manufactured good. Who wants to eat a manufactured good? There’s a reason a Twinkie has a shelf life to rival a Nerf basketball. Real foods are the basis for a commonsense diet. The only processing food needs is the cooking you do at home.

3. Learn to Preserve
You can make your harvest last for months by learning age-old preservation methods. Whether it’s canning veggies, drying sunflower seeds, pickling cucumbers or making jams and jellies, there are simple techniques that can — with a little investment of time — make your dollar investment in a garden or a farm share really pay off. For tips on preserving, check out the GGO blog.

4. Think Beyond the Food
Eating green is really about limiting waste in one form or another, so why stop with the food?Here are three easy ways to waste less and save money: If you drink bottled water, or carbonated beverages, look to your tap, a good filter and/or a home carbonation system, paired with a good reusable bottle. Buy cloth napkins instead of paper. Replace plastic storage containers with glass.

All of today’s tips were courtesy of TheDailyGreen.com.

Recipe of the Week Check out our recipe of the week: Super Tuscan Burgers and Potato Salad with Capers and Celery.

Do you have your own tips for keeping produce fresh? We want to here them! Share your tips on our Facebook page or on the Golden Gate Organics contact page. Your tips might be in next week’s newsletter!


Let your friends know about Golden Gate Organics, and if they sign up we’ll give you a $10 credit towards your next order. Just our way of saying thanks, and a good way for you to get some free produce.

Please remember to leave your box from your last delivery out on your delivery day so we can pick them up and reuse or recycle them. Same goes for the eco-bags we use (although we just recycle those).

If you have any questions, you can reply to this email or send us a note on our contact page.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend!!

Taylor, Wayne & Corey

hello@goldengateorganics.com

www.goldengateorganics.com

Tuesday is my Favorite Day

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Organic Eggplant

Organic Eggplant

While the rest of the week is fun and we do enjoy picking our menu and seeing what is fresh and delicious, Tuesday is really my favorite day of the week. Sure we all get up super super early to get our deliveries out the door and to you as fast as we can, but it’s worth it.

Seeing the boxes full of fresh produce going out to our friends and neighbors is really exciting!

Not too much to say about the produce today except it is all amazing! It was fun mixing it up this week with some Jalepeno Peppers.

Enjoy, and don’t forget to stop by our Facebook page

Cherries for sale! Get your cherries!

Posted by & filed under weekly update.

Happy Friday! Check out our amazing deal on cherries this week. They come in 1 1/2 lb bags, and you can add them to your order for $7.99. Lot’s of other good deals for additional produce, we also have Red Potatoes for $.99/lb and Cantaloupe for $1.99 each!


School is back in session and so are cafeteria lunches. It’s tough to find healthy lunch ideas and snacks for kids in this day and age of highly processed fast foods and sugary treats. It is especially hard trying to find healthy alternatives that your kids will actually eat! But there is good news –with a little planning and cooking, your children can enjoy organic goodies at school. These ideas are great for parents to take to work, too!
organic lunch ideas:

1) Make a vegetable salad filled with a variety of healthy greens like organic fresh herb and green leaf salad, baby arugula or romaine hearts. Add organic grape tomatoes, carrot peels, chopped celery and sweet corn. Also, pack a small container of salad dressing, letting your children choose their favorite one. This way they will be much more likely to eat their nutritious lunch at school. With a variety of tasty organic dressings to choose from like roasted garlic balsamic vinaigrette, Italian, sweet pepper thousand island, creamy Caesar and ranch dressings, they will certainly find a favorite.

2) Make a frozen fruit salad that will naturally thaw by lunchtime. Mix and freeze fruits such as organic blackberries, dark sweet cherries, raspberries and strawberries. For an added touch, drizzle fruit with a tablespoon of 100 percent pure maple syrup. Your kids will not only love the taste of this all-natural healthy sweetener, but you will also be using real maple syrup instead of processed corn syrup. Include a side container of their favorite organic yogurt or round out the fruit theme with a slice of organic banana bread.

3) For an extra special dessert treat every now and then, pack a few organic cookie varieties such as vanilla and chocolate cream cookies, ginger snaps or chocolate chip cookies into lunch boxes. Or include an organic apple sauce cup or side servings of flavored organic raspberry or cinnamon apple sauce.

Recipe of the Week Check out our recipe of the week: Cowboy Quiche. This little gem does take some time to prepare and cook, but it is well worth the effort!

Do you have your own tips for keeping produce fresh? We want to here them! Share your tips on our Facebook page or on the Golden Gate Organics contact page. Your tips might be in next week’s newsletter!


Let your friends know about Golden Gate Organics, and if they sign up we’ll give you a $10 credit towards your next order. Just our way of saying thanks, and a good way for you to get some free produce.

Please remember to leave your box from your last delivery out on your delivery day so we can pick them up and reuse or recycle them. Same goes for the eco-bags we use (although we just recycle those).

If you have any questions, you can reply to this email or send us a note on our contact page.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend!!

Taylor, Wayne & Corey

hello@goldengateorganics.com

www.goldengateorganics.com

Produce Report & Kale Chip Recipe (Super Easy!)

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Hey Everyone! The fruits and veggies looked absolutely amazing this morning, but I think the prettiest fruit award has to go to the Apples.. fantastic!

Good Looking Organic Apples

How do you like them apples?

We’ve had some questions about what to do with the Kale this week, so here’s our answer: Make Kale chips! It’s a great low-calorie, healthy snack. Just a few ingredients, throw it in the oven, and voila! You’re done. It’s a super simple recipe and is really delicious. Here you are:

Baked Kale Chips (6 servings)

  • 1 bunch kale
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 1 teaspoon seasoned salt

Directions

  1. Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a non insulated cookie sheet with parchment paper.
  2. With a knife or kitchen shears carefully remove the leaves from the thick stems and tear into bite size pieces. Wash and thoroughly dry kale with a salad spinner. Drizzle kale with olive oil and sprinkle with seasoning salt.
  3. Bake until the edges brown but are not burnt, 10 to 15 minutes.
Recipe Courtesy of AllRecipes.com

In other awesome news, we are now delivering to Richmond!! If you have any friends in the Richmond area, make sure they tell us who referred them and we’ll give you a $10 credit for every referral… and the best part is you can get as many as you want, no limits!

Have a great week everyone, and enjoy the produce. If you have any questions just send an email to hello@goldengateorganics.com or give us a call at 510-982-3026.

All Your Organic Awesomeness is Here

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Happy Friday! Your organic produce order is ready for you to make subs or add extra produce to. Just log in to your account and start subbing.

Are you looking for ways to extend your organic goodies’ shelf life? Since buying or growing organic produce tends to be a seasonal affair, you will want to be able to preserve your fruits and vegetables to use later in the year. There are several great food preservation methods that you can use to keep food for many months, all still retaining the organic standards you are looking for. The most common are canning, freezing and drying.

Canning

You can can things like pickles and tomatoes (high acidity foods) in just a boiling water bath, but for all other foods you will need to invest in a pressure canner. Food is packed into proper canning jars, made by Ball or Mason (not old jam jars) and heated under pressure long enough to kill any bacteria. When they are removed from the canner and cooled, a vacuum is created which seals down the lids.

Freezing

Freezing is the simplest method here but does require the ongoing use of your freezer to keep everything nicely frozen. Some vegetables can just be cleaned up and frozen just as-is but you will get better preservation if you blanch most first. That’s a quick bath is boiling hot water to stop the natural enzyme actions that would degrade your food, even in the freezer. When thawed, your food will be the closest to fresh of most preservation methods.

Drying

Drying is not ideal for all your fruits and veggies but it can be a great option to use as part of your overall preservation plan. Like canning, you can stored your finished foods without any special conditions (unlike freezing). All you need is a dehydrator. Food that is dried for preservation needs to be completely dry or it can become moldy while in storage. The food will shrink quite a bit once dehydrated, making for better storage. The downside is that the consistency of the food once it’s rehydrated isn’t as good as the other methods

None of these methods involving using artificial or chemical preservatives, making them perfect for the organic shopper or gardener.

Do you have your own tips for keeping produce fresh? We want to hear them! Share your tips on our Facebook page, Instagram, Twitter, or on the Golden Gate Organics contact page. Your tips might be in next week’s newsletter!


Let your friends know about Golden Gate Organics, and if they sign up we’ll give you a $10 credit towards your next order. Just our way of saying thanks, and a good way for you to get some free produce.

Please remember to leave your box from your last delivery out on your delivery day so we can pick them up and reuse or recycle them. Same goes for the eco-bags we use (although we just recycle those).

If you have any questions, just send us a note on our contact page.

Hope everyone has a fun and safe weekend!!

Corey, Owner/Founder

care@goldengateorganics.com
www.goldengateorganics.com

Produce Report Tuesday, August 9th

Posted by & filed under produce report.

oragnic tomatoesHappy Tuesday! Our drivers are out delivering boxes, so everyone should get theirs nice and early today.

Corn

We didn’t get all the corn that we wanted, so we had to sub in some other produce, if you are missing corn, then look for extra Green Bell Peppers, Lettuce, Grapefruit, or Eggplant, we tried to make sure everyone got something they liked!

All The Rest

The Mangos are fantastic (I’m eating one like an apple right now!) and have broken the meter at an 11. The oranges taste great (thank you Riverdog Farm) and everything else looked really amazing.

What Say You!?Rainbow Chard

We’d love to hear your feedback and we’re always looking for reviews or quotes. Have something to say or leave a review somewhere online? Let us know and we’ll give you some bonus produce in your next delivery.

Hope y’all enjoy the boxes!

green bell peppersOrganic Grapefruit

My Trip To The Top Of The World.

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My trip – I recently had the chance to travel to Barrow, Alaska this past week as a part of my duties as an active duty Coast Guardsman.  I was sent there to test a satellite-based broadband internet solution to see if it would work that far north. That particular device had never been tested so far north before. This, of course, is mostly irrelevant to this blog post. Mostly since I am writing as the owner and founder of Golden Gate Organics and not as a Coast Guardsmen, although I must say that each job has its perks. Not the least of which is free organic produce and traveling to the land of the midnight sun, but I digress.

After spending about a week just north of the Arctic Circle, I could not help but notice both the price and quality of food available in  this small town of 4,200 residents. For instance, I had breakfast at a quaint little restaurant called Pepe’s, three times. On Monday I had; two eggs, hash browns, three pieces of bacon, a slice of orange, two pieces of toast (with margarine not butter), and a pancake. To wash it down, I had two cups of coffee and a glass of orange juice.  The cup of coffee was  $2 since I had it with a meal, $3 originally.  My glass of orange juice was the typical size with a clear red color that you would find at any greasy-spoon restaurant, and cost $5. The whole meal (with tip) cost me close to $30. Now I understand that connecting a small town on the edge of the Arctic Ocean with no roads from the outside and having to have all sustenance either flown in or shipped in during the great summer sea lift that prices may be a bit high there. What disappointed me most about the food is that there was almost not fruit or produce with any meal. Even the First Lady Michelle Obama has done a public service announcement  about eating a half plate full of veggies or fruit for each meal. The USDA has rewritten the food pyramid to reflect this too.

But word travels slow to the Arctic Circle and understandably so. I mean they have broadband Internet and 150 cable channels, but no fresh produce. It makes sense to me. Of course those are bits and bytes and produce is more tangible. With six months of darkness followed by six months of sunlight, it can be difficult to grow your own garden there, let alone a full farm – especially when summertime lows dip into the 30’s through much of the summer and lows of 18 below throughout the rest of the year are normal.

As I write this from the airport in Fairbanks, AK it’s close to midnight and daylight is still coming in through the sound-insulated windows. I have a thought – I wonder if a giant green house could be erected in Barrow? Nothing fancy, just a greenhouse to provide fruits and veggies year round for a small town on the edge of the world. Would the heating and electricity demands of such a green house be to much of a demand on their local utilities? Would a facility like that even be possible that far north in such an inhospitable climate? I don’t know but it would be worth the health of the residents to investigate it.

Some Background on Barrow, AK – Barrow, AK is the municipal capitol of the North Slope of Alaska. The entire North Slope covers something like 9000 Acres of the northwestern and northern tundra of Alaska. I was fortunate enough to tour the Inupiat Heritage Center while I was there. The heritage center is a museum chronicling the history of the native people for the last couple hundred years. I went into Alaska, and especially the Arctic Tundra, with my own visions and ideas of Eskimos, igloos and dog sledding, courtesy of elementary and grade school teachers many years ago. My visit to the heritage center was enlightening. When I first arrived in Barrow, I noticed that the roads were all dirt. It looked like a dirty, dusty, poor place. Of which it is. What I didn’t know was that the locals hunt caribou, wolf, and foxes in the summer. They do this for food and furs. The latter of which is for sale for prices between $25 and $600 at the Fur Shop in Barrow (which is the same place I bought my wife, Tiffany, and I a couple of sweatshirts; I did my duties as a tourist and contributed to the local economy of which my hotel, rental car, and meals were of no doubt also a vital part).  The winter brings the activity of which it is most critical to the native residents: whaling.

My Hotel
For hundreds, and no doubt, thousands of years the residents of the North Slope have hunted whales from the edge of the Arctic Ocean, and they still do! As I was sitting in the lobby of King Eider’s Inn surfing Twitter on my iPad, I overheard a Paleontologist talking about his “best interview yet!” with a 13-year-old boy in town. The boy had apparently killed his first Caribou at age 6 and was now teaching younger residents how to hunt. I saw many pictures in the heritage center of children participating in the great whale hunt and subsequent butchering, sharing, and celebratory feast of the hunt. It was not brutal or savage as presented, but a vital part of survival on the North Slope. The whale hunt was a part of the people. It kept them sustained throughout the winter. They used every part of the whale from the meat for food to the intestines to make into bags and as waterproof shoe linings. It was amazing to see how they used the entire whale. They also had much respect for the whales they hunted. I learned that they do not speak during the hunt and kill of the great swimming mammal. Only after the whale is caught, killed, and a prayer is said do the hunters celebrate their catch and begin the community involved harvesting of the giant carcass.

With as big a part of the local heritage and survival that the heritage center presented the whale hunts, I never did see any whale food on any local menus. I did see steaks, hamburgers, tacos, Korean food, Chinese food, sushi, and even lobster in just about every restaurant. Keep in mind there is no more than about five restaurants to eat at in Barrow. Even now I am trying to think back to remember if I ever saw a salad on a menu. It may have been at one of the restaurants. The quality of food in Barrow was mediocre at best. The only thing I could rave about would be East Coast Pizza. I had a calzone from there and it was great! I was happy that it had onions and the sauce had pieces of tomatoes. I wouldn’t imagine anything offered during my trip was organic.

Moral of the Story – All of us living in the Bay Area are extremely spoiled and do not even realize it. We have seemingly limitless options for healthy, natural and organic food. Barrow has zero. Too often, we get so caught up in our daily lives that we take for granted the abundance of services and options available to us. I know I did. A trip like that really reminds me about my humble beginnings and where I grew up. It puts into perspective the options available to me. I am a lucky person. I have everything I need and then some. But going to Barrow for a week really made me conscious of what I have available to me. Up there I said to a co-worker of mine, “If I lived up here I would gain 15 pounds in about a month just because of my diet.” And I still believe it.

I am happy to be going back home to Alameda. I am excited to get back to Tiffany, my friends, and my pets. Seeing the tundra was an awesome experience for me and one I will not soon forget. I hope that everyone reading this will take a second to reflect about their eating habits and think; “What is preventing me from eating better?” Is it cost? Is it time? Is it laziness? No matter what the answer, you can always make a conscious decision to start now. Eat more veggies and less meat. Eat organic and local. Purchase cage free eggs and meat that was raised without steroids or growth hormones. Your choice is your vote on health. We can make a difference in how we all live and eat. I honestly believe this or I wouldn’t be writing it. Please let me know your thoughts on this.

Produce Report: Wow!

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Organic Box of Fruits and Veggies

Some delicious looking fruits and veggies!

Hello all! Everything looked amazing this morning!

Some of you may have noticed that your box contains more or less of certain items listed on your menu. There were less grapefruits than expected this morning so we  substituted apples, bananas, or peaches in some boxes.

golden gate organics - organic broccoliWe also gave everyone an extra Easy Girl tomato because they’re so good that we felt the need to share more. For those who ordered mushrooms, you will also be receiving more than listed – and they are looking delicious!

The bananas were a little on the greener side, but put them on top of your refrigerator and they’ll be ready to eat in just a few days.

Golden Gate Organics Raspberries

mmm.... organic raspberries!

We hope that everyone enjoys their delicious and nutritious organic goodies this week! As always, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop us a line on our contact page. You can also contact us at 510-982-3026.

So long, April! Weekly updates 4-29

Posted by & filed under organic produce delivery, weekly update.

April is on it’s way out and here comes May! We’re looking forward to the growing season really gaining it’s legs here, and more wonderful local produce is coming down the road.

Looking forward to some awesome eggplant this week, and the radishes have been popping with color so we’re finally getting some on our menu! Also some Fingerling Potatoes in some boxes to change it up from the normal potatoes we’ve had lately.

Your order is ready for you to log in and make subs. Just sign into your account and if you see something you want to sub out, all you have to do is click on it and choose a replacement.

If you have any requests for types of produce to be in your box next week, just let us know. We love hearing your ideas and will do our best to get anything you want.

Let your friends know about Golden Gate Organics, and if they sign up we’ll give you a $10 credit towards your next order. Just our way of saying thanks, and a good way for you to get some free produce.

Please remember to leave your box from your last delivery out on your delivery day so we can pick them up and reuse or recycle them. Same goes for the eco-bags we use (although we just recycle those).

If you have any questions, you can reply to this email or send us a note on our contact page.

Have a great week!!

Tiffany

Golden Gate Organics Weekly Update 4/22

Posted by & filed under organic produce delivery, weekly update.

Happy Friday! Your order is all ready for you to check out! We have some delicious navel oranges coming in this week from the J&J Ramos Family Farm out in Modesto, a short little drive East of here.

The California Strawberry season is in prime time now, the weather has been cooperating a bit more, and the rain hasn’t been flooding the berry’s. All that adds up to some amazing strawberry’s for our menu this week!

Your order is ready for you to log in and make subs. Just sign into your account and if you see something you want to sub out, all you have to do is click on it and choose a replacement.

If you have any requests for types of produce to be in your box next week, just let us know. We love hearing your ideas and will do our best to get anything you want.

Let your friends know about Golden Gate Organics, and if they sign up we’ll give you a $10 credit towards your next order. Just our way of saying thanks, and a good way for you to get some free produce.

Please remember to leave your box from your last delivery out on your delivery day so we can pick them up and reuse or recycle them. Same goes for the eco-bags we use (although we just recycle those). 

Have a great weekend everyone!

-Tiffany