Our Perks

Hi Lisa! Thanks for sharing your absolute favorite item in the store with me today.

One of the nice perks that we have as employees here at Nature's Bin is that we have a direct source to really good food! It is easy to fall in love with some (most!) of our products, get to know the brands and figure out what "staple" items to tell customers about and gobble up ourselves. We all have favorites and great things that we are passionate about. Lisa, who works in grocery, sang the praises of this gluten-free cereal, telling me that it is honey sweetened and is a favorite for her right now with both soy and whole milk. She told me that even after a really good meal she was "dreaming" about a yummy bowl of cereal for the next morning. I have to say that staying in pajamas and eating a big bowl of cereal is my dream most of the time!

Lisa's favorite is on sale right now in the store for $3.49 a box. Look for organic Nature's Path Honey'd Corn Flakes in the 10.6 oz box. Thanks Lisa! I look forward to finding out what other staff members favorites are (and I am really nosey!).

Party!

Wouldn't you be proud to have this on the table for your next party? This is our deluxe deli tray that is part of our catering menu. Our chefs were busy today working on catering to be delivered and this beauty was part of that order. Someone had a beautiful lunch!

We can spoil you!

Vegan sticky buns and vegan toasted coconut cupcakes were a pleasure to make today! Find these in the case along with vegan cookies and cream chocolate bark, priced by the pound. I use Newman's Own vegan sandwich cookies for a decadent surprise.

We've got the POWER!

Power Muffins are on the menu today! It has become a Sunday afternoon tradition to make Power Muffins! I am happy to report that the bakery will try to make these once popular muffins more often as the customer demand has been so great. Brittany has been working with me in the kitchen to get this recipe just right. Power Muffins are a dense treat containing fresh cranberries, bananas, flax and wheat flower. These are a perfect start to the day or in between meal snack. They don't often last far into the week, so hurry to try this treat!

Sunbutter peanut cookies, vegan oat and peanut butter muffins, strawberry rhubarb and walnut bread pudding join savory vegan cracked black pepper and cheddar scones in the bakery case. I am so happy to have at least half of our bakery case filled with vegan treats. No one should go without sweet or savory treats no matter what the diet restrictions. Also keep in mind that for us, the store is our pantry. We use items that are sold everyday on our shelves. Enjoy Life Vegan and Gluten Free Chocolate Chips are in aisle #2 if you are feeling inspired!

Brand New

Lots to talk about in the kitchen today! We have all been busy creating new and exciting things for you to taste. In the kitchen it was hard not to notice several new entrees including the Peach Roasted Chicken with Citrus Almond Green Beans. This combination of fresh flavors will blow you away. Just look at how mouth watering it is!

Also, be on the lookout for Denise's Alfredo Pasta with Broccoli and Chicken, Eric made a smoked turkey and Black Bean Salad as well as a Three Bean Dip, made with chick peas, great northern and white beans, olive oil, parsley and spices. I am planning on buying a bag of blue tortilla chips and making this my snack for the night!

Customers often ask where we get recipes for the items that we make in the deli and bakery. Beyond the traditional items that you can always expect to see in the cases, we research recipes from all sources to find interesting and healthy from scratch items that we think our customers will love. We are always looking for new sources and inspiration, often coming up with new flavor combinations and creating recipes of our own. If we get great feedback about particular items, we continue to make them. Some items depend on seasonal ingredients or ingredients that are available but be sure that we will keep the popular items coming back for you to enjoy. Please let us know what you are happy to find at Nature's Bin.

Go Greek

Would you care to try the best baklava ever? Some of you may have noticed that on occasion, we have home made baklava in the bakery case. I always watch in amazement when Chef Sije makes this in the kitchen. She is incredible when it comes to making anything with Fillo.

Recently Heather, who works in our Deli, attended the Greek Festival and commented that our baklava towers over any of the baklava offered at the festival. Her family agrees that when it comes to this Greek inspired treat, waiting for a festival each summer is not necessary when Nature's Bin is so close at hand.

Before and After

Years ago, when I was attending school at Kent State, I would go to the nicest little diner and have home made soup and "treasure bran" muffins. These little gems had a pocket of cream cheese in the middle and I have always wanted to re-create them. Today I found the time to make something similar but in a carrot version. These are made with a blend of whole wheat flour and white, coconut, pineapple, carrots and crushed walnuts. They baked up exactly as I had hoped they would and I look forward to making many other varieties of these in the future!

Inspired!

Simply mention that you have had a wonderful meal out in a restaurant and Chef Ernie sees it as a challenge to create a brand new entree for the deli case that could rival it any day. Reconstructing it with his own flair is one of his many talents. One of the highlights today, was tasting this Mexican pesto pasta dish that contains black beans, corn, red peppers, grilled chicken and the most amazing pesto made with cashews, cilantro, cheese and spinach. This entree should not be passed by.

Find me at Liquid Planet

Did you know that you can find some of our goodies featured at Liquid Planet? Whether you visit the Clifton, Crocker Park or Cedar Road location, not only can you enjoy a tasty lunch or smoothie made just for you but also enjoy our own vegan buckeye bliss bars, vegan oat squares, brownie or muffins. Pretty fancy huh?

Thinking pink today

Save room for dessert! Fresh from the bakery today are vanilla cupcakes, a few cute pink and sprinkled ones as well as vanilla on vanilla.

We have a great recipe for vegan scones and have decided to make a savory flavor with plenty more to come. Today you can find spinach and pepper jack cheese! Daiya cheese is part of this recipe as we find that it melts perfectly for a non-dairy cheese. Daiya is a product that you can always find here at Nature's Bin and we all love working with it and it's results.

Another batch of vegan everything cookies is ready to roll as well as vegan cherry oat squares, vegan blueberry cheesecake and both versions of carrot cake.

Salad Days

The freshest fruits and veggies inspire our chefs to make some of the most beautiful and colorful salads you will ever taste. Today was no exception as everyone was mixing up bowls of tasty creations. Come in to find our caprese salad with a new twist, along with chopped green basil, we have added purple opal basil- a gift from our produce department. Every bite will have mozzarella and juicy tomatoes and a little something extra this time.

Chef Sije impressed us all with her grilled holumi cheese and watermelon salad. This is definitely something different to try with chopped, creamy pieces of cheese, sweet watermelon and mint. In the future, look for watermelon paired with feta cheese as well! Also pictured is a colorful chick pea and veggie salad. It is an understatement to say that we eat with our eyes.

Got ya

Everyone here in the deli and kitchen staff takes part in bringing you creative, delicious and healthy food. How often do you see food of this quality being made on the premises of a local grocer? Believe it or not, all kinds of magic happens behind the scenes just for you!

Here is Sabrina arranging some of the black and white brownie bites and pastry shells for the case. Her sweet tooth is showing incredible restraint!

Chef Eric is a new addition to our kitchen, today he put together the mango and pea salad. It is so nice to have a professional staff to bounce ideas off of.

Watch this!

We were stirring up lots of delicious items in the kitchen today. Chef Ernie, who is in the kitchen at the crack of dawn, started off with fluffy breakfast casseroles. These will be sold by the slice in our entree selection area.

Also available now are entree containers of curried tofu and rice, medditeraian chicken and veggies over cous cous, and mango pea salad with sprouts will be a new addition to our deli case. Look for slices of this beautiful roasted lamb stuffed with fennel pesto over roasted potatoes.

Feedback is always appreciated!

Todays bread pudding flavor was a customer suggestion and everyone in the kitchen was happy to try it when I set out samples right out of the oven. For those of you who have never tried a slice of our home made bread pudding, the best way to eat it, is simply by warming it up (putting a scoop of ice cream on top doesn't hurt either) but this particular kind will blow you away. Thanks again, kind customer who was hoping to try the chocolate peanut butter pretzel variety. I hope you can come in this week to try it! This one has peanut butter filled pretzels baked inside, crushed pretzels on top along with a peanut butter glaze.

Keep in mind, at anytime that our kitchen and bakery staff LOVE suggestions from customers. What can we make with you in mind?

Cake Pops are here!

Oh, Cake Pops! has delivered five flavors of cake for us recently. Two of which are gluten-free!! Perfect for a sweet little treat for yourself or for a fun party that you might be planning. We are so happy to have this local Lakewood produced item in our case! Welcome Oh, Cake Pops!

Forward Thinking in the Kitchen Everyday

Did you know that here at Nature's Bin, we choose to recycle and compost everyday? It's true, in our kitchen, offices and backroom we separate our cardboard, glass, plastic and food waste and in conjunction with Rosby's Resource Recycling, items that we dispose of are safely recycled or recovered to process into organic mulched materials that directly benefit Rosby's Greenhouse and Berry Farm in Brooklyn Heights.

I think about this circle everytime I make something wonderful with raspberries in the kitchen, turn around and fill my compost bucket and later in the season get the chance to pick my own raspberries at Rosby's Farm. It's funny how things come back around again!

Each employee here at Nature's Bin takes the time to make sure that recycled and composted items are put in place to be used to it's fullest potential and not just thrown "away". It is just another way that we organize our kitchen, work with local businesses and simply care about all aspects of what we are doing as a company.

Wise Man in the Kitchen

Today I would like to quote Chef Ernie as he told me "You are never promised a tomorrow, so you should eat lots of good food today." Pretty smart cookie.

So if you choose to take that good advise today, treat yourself to some of the great things that we have made in the kitchen. This afternoon, Chef Lafayette made BBQ lamb ribs that smelled amazing! Chef Ernie made his famous double corn and quinoa salad as well as his traditional quinoa salad. He made vegan black bean and corn enchiladas and a curried sweet pea soup.

Bakery case surprises include pink lemonade cupcakes (yes, they are vegan!!), brand new monkey bars that are chocolate, peanut butter and white chocolate chips, banana chips and coconut on top of a graham cookie crust. Chocolate cookie cake and a vegan lime cheesecake will be ready to serve. Special thanks to Kenya Banks for helping out in the kitchen today, she certainly made everything full of love for us and I was happy to have her company!

Strawberries!

The majority of the compliments that the bakery receives swirl around our creamy vegan cheesecake. Strawberry topped is the latest version in the case today. Half sheet cakes are always available for birthdays or special occasions when one piece is not enough.

Other items ready for the bakery case are lemon blueberry bread pudding and lemon squares, our congo bars that are made with macadamia nuts, butterscotch and chocolate chips and shredded coconut on a cookie crust and our cinnamon and sugar snickerdoodle cake.

Put a lid on it!

Each day, our chefs make lots of entrees that can be found in front of our main deli case. You can count on us to have a variety of vegan, veggie and meals containing meat. Pick one up and lunch or dinner is DONE. In our kitchen today the stand out entrees were jambalaya with rice- a spicy concoction with sausage, okra and veggies and the morrocan veggies and cous cous- curried cauliflower, sweet peppers and carrots. Wouldn't your co-workers be jealous if you brought this to work tomorrow? Entrees are in microwave-safe containers that can easily be re-used after your meal.

The entrees pictured here join countless others in the case including veggie ravioli, chicken and biscuits and turkey meatloaf.

Sunday Dinner

Ever get stumped for dinner ideas? Catering can come in handy even if you aren't feeding an army. Keep us in mind even if it's for feeding your small army at home. Pictured here is a fancy garden salad and pan of lasagna that are going out for a catering order. Problem solved!

Whoopie!

These are the latest Whoopie Pies in our bakery case today. Vanilla cake with a sweet cream filling, rolled in crushed pistachios will melt in your mouth! The things we made today are the wide awake cake, vegan cranberry orange and walnut muffins, walnut brownies, regular carrot cake and vegan banana brownies. Enjoy your weekend and keep us in mind if you could use a treat or two!

On a Roll!

Wrapping up the week in the kitchen, Chef Ernie is working on two awesome flavors of eggrolls. Drumroll please as we unveil the loaded baked potato eggroll with cheese, bacon and chives inside. I think with a little bit of sour cream these would be the BEST treat. The other flavor is veggie avocado.

Look at the Samosa Pies that will go into the case soon. Inside are curried peas, potatoes, cauliflower, golden raisins and spices. This can be purchased by the slice with sides of tomato chuttney. Other goodies that will appear in the case are two kinds of seveche- veggie and seafood. Both are loaded with citrus and colorful veggies and have the kick of jalapeno peppers. Chef Sije made a pink and green pea salad with snap peas and crunchy radishes in it.

OH Cakepops!

Today we had a chance to try a yummy new type of cake- cake on a stick! Oh! Cakepops is a local lakewood product that I am looking forward to finding here at Nature's Bin soon. Stay tuned for more details as we bring the product in. The flavors we sampled were delicious- Buckeye, Strawberry Lemonade, Peanut Butter, Chocolate and Yellow Cake. All were beautiful little cakes and they made so many of us happy, they are sure to be a hit! Pictured here are the grocery girls, Ryann, Brittany and Angela- all loving the cake! I am also proud to say that these little cuties will come to us in gluten-free varieties. What a good idea for a birthday party or baby shower!

Wrapping up our day!

Have you ever had one of our wraps for lunch? This is what the veggie ones look like before our chefs roll them up. Pretty nice, huh? In our grab and go case you can find pre-made sandwiches, salads and wraps and our awesome chicken salads. Cold items for lunch or dinner is what it's all about when temperatures are in the 90's!

Other goodies to look for that we have been working on in the kitchen are the chilled thai coconut lime soup, morrocan chicken and cous cous, homemade veggie burgers and spicy peanut noodles. Shrimp skewers are in the case now as well as Chef Sije's kidney bean salad with crunchy veggies and parsley. I never go hungry sampling all of the creative things that are made around here each day. We had a great time in the kitchen today, singing and dancing around to our 80's soundtrack and making each other laugh. What a great place to work!

Today in the bakery, vegan chocolate raspberry cupcakes made a second appearance. My first batch sold in just a few hours. These filled cupcakes are some of the most popular ones that I have ever made! Look how shiny the fudge frosting is on top. These are cupcakes meant to be eaten with a napkin or two because raspberry filling oozes out once you take a bite and nothing beats a fresh organic raspberry on top!

Also ready for the bakery case today are vanilla and peanut butter cupcakes, vegan cherry almond cheesecake, coffee brownies, walnut brownies, vegan everything cookies, cashew and honey bread pudding and vegan strawberry and almond chocolate bark. Stop in and choose something yummy for your picnic!

80's dance party in the kitchen today!

For the last week, we have been bugging Chef Ernie to make his famous green gazpacho. There was a large crate of avocados on his table today and I am happy to announce that today was the day. Gazpacho alone is heavenly enough but imagine one made with crunchy cucumber and creamy avocado. This makes an appearance every now and then in the store, now is the time to file in to try it. All I can think of are crunchy blue corn chips and a big bowl of this for my dinner tonight! As you can tell by the photo, avocados were in perfect shape for the prep table today and it all came together very nicely! We love Chef Ernie and the great things he makes.

Sweets!

Hello vegans! I have a few surprises for you in our bakery case today. You will find our vegan cookies and cream cupcakes for sale as well as the vegan coconut haystacks. This item rivals any candy bar craving that you may have, I promise!

Also fresh today are the M&M brownies, vegan vanilla cupcakes, home made baklava (the best you will ever try) and vegan banana brownies.

Also, our chilled strawberry soup is a must try. Chef Ernie impresses us everytime with this treat!

My Window

This is my window onto the world! I see you shopping out there!