Ask, Green Aislers, and you shall receive! Today we start selling sandwiches, and not just any sandwiches. These butcher paper-bundled beauties are coming from American Meat & Provisions, takeaway arm of chef (and former PW food scribe) Tim McGinnis’s upcoming South Street restaurant project. McG fills Ba Le baguettes with sustainably raised meats and fish he brines, smokes, cures himself, then kits them out with the likes of balsamic-strawberry mostarda, Maker’s Mark syrup, picholine olive tapenade and more.

Check out the full menu after the jump.

And did I mention we’re running samples all day?

American Meats & Provisions

Russian Lox $10

vodka-cured salmon, preserved lemon, thyme-and-caper cream cheese, red onion

Summer Turkey $8

herb-brined roasted organic turkey, brie, strawberry-balsamic jam

Bluegrass Chicken Salad $8

Bourbon-glazed smoked organic chicken salad, celery, red onion, oregano

Cajun Ham & Cheese $8

house-made Tasso ham, Cajun mustard remoulade, Emmental cheese

Montreal Tuna Salad $10

olive oil-poached tuna, Picholine olive tapenade, sliced Meadow Run egg, red onion

Filed under: Green Aisle Exclusives, Local, Local Restaurants, Prepared Foods ]]> http://greenaislegrocery.com/2010/07/28/earl-of-sandwich/feed/ 1 greenaisle Back Camera Back Camera http://greenaislegrocery.com/2010/07/27/this-just-in-july-27-2010/ http://greenaislegrocery.com/2010/07/27/this-just-in-july-27-2010/#comments Tue, 27 Jul 2010 20:01:32 +0000 greenaisle http://greenaislegrocery.com/?p=739 ]]>

We’re looking very purply today!

Click to view slideshow.

Attention, shoppers! Please meet Shamus Jones, ginger-haired pickle maven and head of Brooklyn Brine. If you like pickles, you will like Shamus. We brought the Brooklyn Brine line to Philly this spring, stocking several varieties of vinegar-soaked, unusually spiced, Lancaster-sourced heirloom veg, including the spicy cukes given the seal of approval by Esquire scribe (and Philly girl) Francine Maroukian and a nod in Details recent feature, “Artisanal America” (also included: Green Aisle purveyor Mast Bros. chocolate). “Sorry I’m a little spaced,” Shamus explained when we picked up 150 jars of pickles last Thursday, “I’ve just been drinking Guinness and making lavender asparagus all day.” After the jump, peep a (very-amateur) video we took of Shamus making pickles off-hours in Greenpoint’s Lamb & Jaffy, followed by our current Brooklyn Brine selection.

Brooklyn Brine / Currently Available / all $9

NYC Deli-Style Pickles

Damn Spicy Pickles

Chipotle Carrots

Moroccan Beans

Serrano Beans

Kaffir Lime Garlic Scapes

Curried Squash

Fennel Beets

Lavender Asparagus

Ras el Hanout Eggplant

Filed under: Condiments, Green Aisle Exclusives, Local Tagged: Growers & Purveyors ]]> http://greenaislegrocery.com/2010/07/25/pickle-man/feed/ 0 greenaisle http://greenaislegrocery.com/2010/07/19/intern-saras-debate-to-crumble-or-to-cobbler/ http://greenaislegrocery.com/2010/07/19/intern-saras-debate-to-crumble-or-to-cobbler/#comments Mon, 19 Jul 2010 17:28:32 +0000 cozyherbivore http://greenaislegrocery.com/?p=716 ]]> That is the question.

The Crumble...

...and the Cobbler

Whether ’tis nobler to bake the gorgeous local fruit now being sold at Green Aisle into a crumble or into a cobbler is purely a matter of personal taste: are you hankering for a sweet crunchy oatmeal topping or a sweet cornmeal biscuit topping? Whatever your pleasure, both recipes are linked after the jump.

Unlike some chemical-laden commercially grown fruits, our local produce is best eaten right away. And if you find it going a bit soft after a few days at home, baking it into a sweet summer dessert is the perfect use for fruit that’s a little beyond the snacking phase.

The best thing about both of these recipes? They are easily adaptable to any type of fruit you’ve purchased at Green Aisle. Out of our Three Springs Rising Star yellow peaches? Try our house-grown Red Angel plums or Eden Garden Farm apricots instead! Our Green Meadow blackberries can be substituted for our Eden Garden Farm blueberries with the greatest of ease.

Best of all, from the flour to the rolled oats to the cornmeal to the honey to the cinnamon, most of the topping ingredients for both recipes can be found at Green Aisle as well. Talk about your one-stop shopping!

So head down to Green Aisle, stock up on our gorgeous summer fruit and impress your friends with these easy and delicious desserts.

Three Berry Crumble (recipe courtesy The Cozy Herbivore)

Peach Blueberry Cobbler (recipe courtesy smitten kitchen)

*above photos courtesy The Cozy Herbivore

Just a small selection of our awesome mixers...

Well hello there! Green Aisle Intern Sara here, coming at you from a rainy East Passyunk Ave.

The heat is ON this summer, and what better way to cool down than with a refreshing adult beverage? Green Aisle can help. We’ve got a large selection of fancy and delicious mixers that will elevate your summer cocktails from the boring (and HFCS-ladden) margarita mixes into something truly sublime.

Confession: my first day of interning at Green Aisle was concluded by Adam pouring me a glass of our Dry Cucumber Soda with a splash of tequila. (Really. You must try this drink. It’s amazing.) The Green Aisle cocktail bug bit me big time that day and I’ve been slowly collecting drink ideas ever since.

Got a bottle of bubbly chilling in your fridge, waiting for an occasion? Well friends, the occasion is now. The occasion is summer! The occasion is that  it’s hot as a mother outside and adding a splash of Bionaturae’s Organic Apricot Nectar to your champagne will give you a bubbly, fruity cocktail that will help you to remember all those reasons you love summer so much. (Apricots! Drinking outside! Cold drinks on hot days! I could go on and on…)

And how could we forget about that most classic of summer drinks, the Gin and Tonic? Class up your G & T by using Q Tonic and pretend you’re in India, battling malaria with the quinine. (Hey, it’s medicinal!) Garnish with a slice of lime– yep, we sell limes too!

Feeling more Caribbean this summer? How about a Dark ‘N’ Stormy, made with dark rum and our Boylans Ginger Ale? Sweetened with cane sugar, this ginger ale is clean and refreshing, a perfect balance to the dark rum. And while you’ve got the rum out, why not mix up a few Rum Swizzles with our Fee Brother’s West Indies Style Falernum? Shiver me timbers, those drinks sound mighty thirst-quenching, matey!

A post about Green Aisle mixers would be incomplete without mentioning our awesome line of Fee Brother’s Bitters. Bitters are enjoying a bit of a renaissance in modern mixology, thanks to their aromatic and complex flavors. And here at Green Aisle, we stock the best! Currently on our shelves we have Fee Brother’s Lemon, Grapefruit, Cherry, Peach, West Indian Orange, Celery and the standard Old Fashioned Aromatic Bitters.  Just a few drops of the celery bitters will make your classic martini stand up and shout. Your old  favorite fruity cocktail too sweet for you these days? Try a dash of one of the fruit bitters to add depth and a little pucker. Experiment, create and hop on the bitters bandwagon!

After a night of summer revelry, you might be feeling a little fuzzy-headed the next morning. Don’t give in to your hangover! Fight it with a hair-of-the-dog Bloody Mary, made with Fee Brother’s spicy and flavorful Mary Mixer. 5 ounces of tomato juice, 1 1/2 ounces of vodka and 3 dashes Mary Mixer (if you like to play it safe) or 6 dashes Mary Mixer (if you like to live on the edge) will set you right for the day.  Bonus points if you garnish your Bloody Mary with our very own cerignola or kalamata olives, preserved lemons from Fond or pickles from Brooklyn Brine Co.,  all available right this very second at Green Aisle!

So forget the heat! Get to Green Aisle (we’re air conditioned!), stock up on our mixers and impress your friends with your cooling yet sophisticated adult beverages. Intern Sara advocates truth, justice and refreshing cocktails for all!

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Intern Sara’s shameless plug time: check out my blog, The Cozy Herbivore, for lots of perfect-for-summer vegetarian comfort food recipes!

courtesy of Bodhi Coffee

Exciting news today! In a month’s time, we’ll be setting up a mini version of our Passyunk store in the back of Society Hill’s smashing coffeeshop, Bodhi. We’re psyched to be working with Bodhi boys Bobby and Tom, as we not only share a love of Stumptown, but also have a lot of the same business practices: composting, working with salvaged woods, sourcing from the local farmers at Headhouse. We feel our small indie ops go together like, well, coffee and cream. Over the next few weeks, Bobby will be building out some sweet custom shelves for us to stock with Brooklyn Brine pickles, Mast Bros. chocolate and more. Look for Green Aisle at Bodhi soon!

Thank us in December.

no polar bears were harmed in the making of these slippers

Right now, Philly is in the thick of fruit season. Peaches, plums, blueberries and more abound. We like these things, even in winter when they’re not in season here. What’s a locavore to do when the urge for a smoothie or pie strikes in October or January?

You could buy “fresh” fruit with origins in Chile or Mexico, or buy sacks of frozen, which is arguably “fresher” than the aforementioned option since it’s usually packed within hours of being picked. Still, meh. At home, we buy extra fruit in season, vacuum seal and freeze it. And that’s what we’ll be doing at Green Aisle, too. We call it the Mr. Freeze Project, because we’re geeks like that, and we’re buying double of all the local fruit and vegetables you see in our store and stockpiling the bounty in the ice chest till fall and winter. So even when there’s snow on the ground, you can have local produce in your pantry.

On tonight’s freezing agenda: apricots and blueberries. Brr.

That sounded kind of more leprechaun-y.

We love Stumptown Coffee so much, we wish we could carry every roast the Portland and Brooklyn boys make. Alas, square footage limits us to their flagship Hairbender, plus two or three seasonally rotating varieties. So we’re instituting special ordering for our Stumptown customers. Order by Tuesday, and your coffee will be roasted Wednesday, shipped Thursday and ready for you to pick up at Green Aisle Friday. Check out the offerings after the jump. For tasting notes visit Stumptown’s website. Bolded offerings are currently in stock.

$15

Costa Rica Herbazu

Costa Rica Montes de Oro

Costa Rica Verde Alto

Guatemala Bella Carmona

Guatemala Finca Chicua

Hondouras Finace el Puente

Indonesia Gajah Aceh

$16

Guatemala Finca Antigua Buenavista

Guatemala Fince el Injerto

Panama Duncan Estate

Ethiopia Michelle

$28

Kenya Ngunguru

*special orders must pre-pay*