Hey Champaign-Urbana! In case you missed it, check out this great write-up from this Sunday’s News Gazette, front page of the Arts & Entertainment section.

Lucky us, rain is a farmer’s best friend. I guess, so long as it doesn’t flood. Though we are a bit later to blossom than many of our neighbors, our organic gardens are really starting to come of age this season. Slow and steady wins the race, right? This week, look for gorgeous red ace beets, tons of green bell peppers and several varieties of chile peppers, green and purple basil, scallions, cucumbers, baby carrots, zucchini and much, so much more to come!

Our first peppers of the season are here! Available in limited quantities tomorrow at Green City Market, we are proud to bring the peppers eponymously known as Banana Bills, for Bill Bagby, of course! With thin, crunchy walls and a mildly sweet heat, banana bills are a very popular pepper for pickling later in the season when more plentiful. However, enjoy these early beauties thinly sliced on a pizza or in a quesadilla–don’t forget the baby micro-cilantro!– or stuff them with a bit of Brunkow’s Jalapeno Brun-uusto cheese, then batter and deep-fry for a spicy, crunchy chile relleno appetizer.

While most of our baby micro-greens take only one to two weeks from seed to table, we’ve been nurturing our baby micro-basil since early April and we’re so excited that the sun and heat have done it well. We’ll be bringing a purple variety to the market this weekend and selling it live, in soil, $4 for 3.75″x3.75″ containers and $14 for 10″x10″ trays. Unfortunately, the basil cannot be cut to order, as with our other baby micro-greens, because the oxidation reaction resulting from being cut with a metal blade would turn it brown within days. However,  it is very easy nurture your baby micro-basil plant at home and cut it as needed for maximum freshness. Store your baby micro-basil at room temperature or outdoors and water daily.  Cut as needed. Because the basil is kept alive with its roots in tact, your baby micro-basil will stay absolutely fresh for weeks– if you don’t eat it all up sooner!

Hey sprout, fans! Check out this video with Martial Noguier of one sixtyblue at ChicagoLive. He stopped by Tiny Greens a few weeks ago during his chef demo at Green City Market.

See you all tomorrow at the market!

This weekend we’re mixing up our greens! If you liked the baby kale, look for our mixed bags of baby rainbow chard, spinach and red Russian kale. More tender, baby lettuces, red and French Breakfast radishes, as well as white and purple bunching onions.

This past Wednesday in Chicago, we were so excited to encounter the very first strawberries of the season from Ellis Farms. They’re the most magical touch on our Magical Morning Breakfast Tart, also featuring Tomato Mountain’s strawberry raspberry preserves, Prairie Fruits Farm chevre, Ellis Farms honey and crushed walnuts on our sprouted wheat tortilla

In Chicago, we’re also very excited to have Christie Phillips helping out at the Tiny Greens Kitchen this weekend while Chef Daniel Asher is exercising his culinary prowess at a special event in Colorado. And be sure to stop by the Green City chef demo at 10:30 to see our friend Greg Christian of Greg Christian Catering showcase the best of late spring in the Midwest.

This Wednesday our organic gardens have bequeathed us with radishes, bunching onions, chives, and finally baby lettuces! We’ll be giving the kale a rest this week. We also have limited amounts of sage and peppermint.

We’d also like to give thanks to the many vendors who have been supporting our kitchen so early in the season with fresh, organic, local products for our wraps, sandwiches, quesadillas, pizzas and salad. Thank you to Bennison’s for your light, chewy, whole wheat sandwich bread. Thank you to Mick Klug for your tender, crisp asparagus. Thank you to Ellis Farms for your thick, sweet honey. Thanks to Tomato Mountain for your tart, sugar-free strawberry jam in our “magical breakfast tart.” Thank you you to Growing Power for your early but juicy and sweet beefsteak tomatoes. Thank you to Brunkow Cheese for the Jalapeno Brun-uusto, Mozzarella and 2-Year Raw Milk Cheddar. And thanks to our neighbors at Prairie Fruits Farm for your sweet, light, creamy chevre. And starting this week, thanks you to Iron Creek for your crisp romaine. All of these amazing vendors at the market make us so happy to be in the Midwest year-round, but especially this spring. We are proud to support you, our fellow market vendors. See you all tomorrow, bright and early!

We’re so excited to be bringing our own gorgeous baby greens to the market this week! Unfortunately, we do not yet have enough to sell for take-home, but we hope you’ll enjoy their sweet and tender flavor when you order the Salade du Jour from the Tiny Greens Kitchen, also featuring Mick Klug’s asparagus and Prairie Fruits Farm chèvre. We’ll also be bringing more of the baby kale, which we here call “kale flavored lettuce,” for it’s mild, almost sweet, cabbagey flavor and so soft a bite, you don’t even need to cook it! Enjoy our baby kale raw, lightly dressed in an acidic vinaigrette for a mind-blowing kale experience! Also try it tossed into a quick stir-fry or gently wilted by the warmth of fresh pasta with extra virgin olive oil, a squeeze of lemon, a grate of parmeggiano reggiano and a pinch of chile flakes. We’ll also have radishes, white bunching onions, flowering chives, and 8 oz. bags of our spring mix, a jubilant toss of clover and china rose radish sprouts, sunflower greens and snow pea shoots.

There is even more cause for excitement this Wednesday as the chef demo will be our very good friend Martial Noguier from one sixtyblue. See you there tomorrow, Chicago!

Wow, Chicago, wow! Thank you so much for coming out this Wednesday for opening day of Green City Market. We know it’s been a long winter but we had no idea you would all be so hungry! We’ll be amping up production of all our baby micro-greens and those phenomenal sprouted wheat tortillas in the coming weeks to meet your demand, but please forgive us if we run short these next few markets. Sprouts and wheatgrass we have a lot of on hand and we promise to fill the fridge and keep the juice pumping this Saturday! We’re also very excited to see our gardens beginning to take on an ever-more edible appearance and we can’t wait to share the seasons with you all. Tomorrow we’ll be bring more of those tender, baby red Russian kale leaves, beet greens, radishes, chives and bunching onions.

Saturday is also Green Fest at Navy Pier and the 10th Anniversary Rally for Local Sustainable Farming at the Market. Mayor Daley will be on hand with many other notable figures in the sustainability, local and organic food movements. It looks to be a great day for food, community, environmental sanity and well-being in Chicago. You won’t want to miss it!

For all of you who found us at Urbana’s Market in the Square this morning, thank you for stopping by! And thanks again for visiting our website and blog. We had a great time seeing all of you this morning, old friends and new, and we hope to see more of you in the weeks to come. We’d like to give a special thank you to Lisa Bralts, the new market manager, for helping us and all the other vendors get off on what looks to be a fantastic season. Now that we’re off to such a great start, we’ll be keeping this blog updated with all kinds of things: new produce we’ll be bringing to the market, new products from other vendors we may be featuring from our kitchen and new ideas we’re always looking to bounce off each other and all of you. So thank you again, Urbana, for a beautiful Saturday morning and we hope to see you all again next week and for the rest of the season.

For all of our friends in Chicago, we can hardly wait to see you all again this Wednesday in Lincoln Park. Look for us on the corner straight south of the info booth, across the paved walk. In addition to our sprouts and baby microgreens, we’re bringing back our full menu of internationally inspired, locally grown vegetarian cuisine including the Quesadilla Verde, Pizza del Mercato, Sunny Crunch Wrap, Breakfast Quesadilla, The Sproutwich and our new Salad du Jour, all featuring our sprouts and/or baby microgreens and other seasonal produce from our own farm and other Green City Vendors. We’ll also have our famous sprouted wheat tortillas for sale by the half dozen, beautiful bunches of chives and fresh wheatgrass juice, pressed to order. Come hungry! It’s going to be an amazing day!