Healthy You Network Symposium... & our next Dining Club event...

Last weekend May 4-5th we participated as a vendor at The Healthy You Network Symposium which was held at The Doubletree here in Tucson.  It was a wonderful experience, and we want to express our sincere gratitude to the Healthy You Network for allowing us to participate again this year. Congratulations to the event organizers... and our very special thanks go to all of the Healthy You Network volunteers for their outstanding efforts in making the weekend such a great success!!

We met many new friends at the Greenheart Bakery vendor's table, and hopefully these new beginnings will grow and flourish as time goes on.....

Our booth at the Symposium last weekend.....

There is also some upcoming news to share....

---- Our next Greenheart Dining Club event will be held on Sunday, June 9th, 2013.... and the theme of this dinner will be "Vegan Mexicana" --- Mexican food that will be delicious, nutritious, and very vegan! The invitations will go out very soon, so if you have not been to one of these events... please let us know and we will be sure to keep you fully informed.

---- Greenheart Bakery will also have a vending table at the new UMC Farmers Market starting this Friday, May 10th at the University Medical Center off of N. Campbell, between Speedway and Grant here in Tucson. The market will be in the plaza located at the south side of the Main hospital, and runs from 10 am until 2 pm. .

---- We still have our regular table at the St. Phillips Plaza Saturday Farmers Market, as mentioned in our previous blog posts. Hours are from 8 am until 12 noon, every Saturday morning.

Any questions? Please call me for more info at 323-236-8788.

Hope to see you soon,

Thanks,

Alaine

Our Dining Club event on 4/28, and more.....

We recently held our Greenheart Dining Club event on Sunday 4/28/13 at our home on the east side of Tucson. It was a great success, and we had 20 guests that came to enjoy dinner served outdoors in the shade of our Arizona Territorial-style porch. The theme of this meal was "Vegan Italian-style... and featured my favorite Vegan Lasagna dish, along with a rich garden salad ---- with many of the greens and vegetables coming from our very own garden!

We received so many compliments on the homemade salad dressing that I will post the recipe here:

" Dining Club" Salad Dressing:

1/4 cup of water  
4 ounces of fresh tofu, preferably silken
3 tablespoons of fresh lemon juice
2 teaspoons of rice vinegar
1 ripe fresh avocado
1 teaspoon of kelp powder
1 tablespoon Chia seed

lots of fresh fennel leaves
fresh cilantro leaves
fresh basil leaves
fresh squeezed limes, to taste
fresh pressed garlic, to taste

What made this dressing so tasty was that the cilantro, basil, fennel, and green garlic all came from our own garden.


Mix all ingredients together in a food processor. Season to personal taste. Chill and serve over salad. Yields approximately 1.5+ cups.

For dessert we had my very special Tiramisu-style tofu cheesecake which was a delicious finale to a very satisfying meal. It was also my birthday which made this "finishing touch" especially nice!!!

 

If you attended this dinner and would like to post your comments.... please do so at the end of this blog post, thanks!!!

 

---- COMING UP: Greenheart Bakery will be a food vendor at The HealthyYou Network's Symposium to be held at The DoubleTree here in Tucson on May 4-5th. Please look for us .... and peruse through a great selection of healthy baked goods for sale during this event. Hope to see you there!

At the Healthy You Network Symposium

Due to our participation at the Symposium on Saturday, May 4th... We will not have our normal booth at the St. Phillips Plaza Farmers Market on the particular day... but will be back again the following week of Saturday, May 11th.

 

We are also pleased to announce that we will be a regular vendor at the weekly "Friday" UMC Farmers Market starting on May 17th..... in the plaza by the University of Arizona Medical School and Hospital.

 

 As always..... we welcome your comments and feedback!

Take good care,

 

Alaine

Saturday Mornings at the St. Phillips Plaza Farmers Market in Tucson

Hello Friends,

We are pleased to inform you that Greenheart Bakery now has a vendor's booth at the weekly Saturday Farmers Market at St. Phillips Plaza in Tucson. We will be there every Saturday morning  from 8 am until 12 pm ---- and please note that this is the Saturday market only, and not the Sunday one.

 

 

 

Our table at the Saturday St. Phillips Farmers Market...

 

 

 

 

We hope that you will come by and visit us there...... You will find our delicious assortment of wonderful muffins, brownies, cookies, apricot date bars, special cakes by-the-slice.... and cool treats like tofu "uncheesecake", fresh creamy parfaits, and fruit tarts.....

You can select items and make purchases there, as well as place special orders for pick-up the following week. This is a great chance to stock up on baked items and bring them home.

You can count on our exceptional quality, the healthiest ingredients... and all of our products are vegan, egg and dairy free, with no refined sugar, using only whole grain flour, and no preservatives at all.....

 

Alaine serves a slice of our Orange Coconut Pineapple coffee cake

 We hope to see you there,

            Thanks,
                           Alaine

Tucson's Saturday St. Phillips Farmers Market and our upcoming April Dining Club Dinner

At our table at the Healthy You Network Symposium last year......

We are very pleased and excited to be starting the Saturday Weekly St. Phillips Farmers Market here in Tucson this Saturday, April 6th! This event is located at St. Phillips Plaza, on N. Campbell just south of the junction of River. Hours are 9 am until 1 pm, and there is plenty of off-street parking in the Plaza.  You will be able to come choose from a wide displayed assortment of our healthy baked goods in a market setting---  without having to place a special order.  But don't get us wrong - you can still place special orders, and pick them up at the farmers market each and every week.  I have really missed doing the farmers market in Hollywood that I did for 13 years, so this should be fun!  Once again: market hours for April are 9 am to 1 pm.  (In May, it changes to 8 am to noon). We would also like to remind you that we will have a vendor's table at The Healthy You Network's Symposium at the Doubletree in Tucson on May 4th and 5th.)

Each week, we will post what we are planning to bring.  This week we will have:  Fruit Fusion Bars, Diabetic-friendly Coconut Cake, assorted muffin flavors (Carrot Cake Muffin, Lemon Raspberry, Pumpkin Cranberry, Peach and Blueberry Oat Bran, Banana Chocolate Chip), Chocolate Cherry Cake, Fresh Fruit Tarts (individual size), Fresh Orange Coconut Pineapple Coffee Cake, Brownies, Oatmeal Applesauce Cookies, and Parfaits.  We hope to see you there!

In March, we did not have a Dining Club Dinner as Ted and I had to go to Northern California for my mother's 91st birthday, my parents' 61st wedding anniversary, and my niece Lauren's wedding.  Then we rented a 16 ft. truck and proceeded to load up all my baking equipment, farmers market tables and canopy, etc, including a storage shed, and drove it back here to Tucson.  Ted was the hero, organizing, dismantling, carefully packing and loading... and then driving all the way back. Since returning, we have been busily dealing with all the stuff we now have at home, much of which goes to the commercial kitchen.

My parents, Everett and Pherne

Patrick and Lauren's wedding

With the start of April we are free to host another Dining Club dinner at our home on the east side of Tucson, and so we have scheduled it for Sunday, April 28th, at 5 pm.  This will be our fourth event, and we are looking forward to it!  The weather is fine this time of year, and so we shall be back out on the veranda again, enjoying  Springtime outdoor dining at its best.  Please email alaine@greenheartbakery.com if you would like an invitation.

Greenheart Bakery will also participate in the upcoming Vegan Bakesale to be held on Saturday, April 20 at All Saints Lutheran Church at Speedway and Campbell from 10 am to 3 pm.  This event is organized by Healthy You Network, in conjunction with the Worldwide Vegan Bakesale; groups all over the world are holding vegan bakesales on that day!  The proceeds will be donated to The Humane Society here in Tucson :-).  Last weekend we donated an 11-inch Fresh Fruit Tart to Equine Voices fundraiser for their silent auction:

Alaine's Fresh Fruit Tart

Dining Club, La Mariposa, Birthday Cakes

Yes, I am holding a huge Chocolate Cherry Cake!

Our 3rd Dining Club Dinner last Saturday February 9th was really fun!  We had miso soup with wontons that I stuffed with vegan sausage that I made without oil, baked spring rolls with 2 dipping sauces --- a hot mustard, and a sweet apricot-plum "duck" sauce.  Hot Jasmine or Bancha green tea accompanied the buckwheat soba noodles with asparagus, bean sprouts, carrots, cucumbers and green onions.  We flavored brown basmati rice with dried basil we'd grown last summer.  And Ted created a tasty garnish of pickled ginger, radish (some from our garden), cucumber and jicama.  We took a break so that the people who wanted to feed carrots to the horses could do so before dark.  When we returned, we had Chocolate Cherry Cake, herbal tea, and fortune cookies.  By all the exclaiming, I understand that a lot of folks were pleased with their fortunes.

If you attended this dinner please feel free to post your comments in the box provided at the end of this blog entry, thanks!

The juice bar at La Mariposa

We also delivered the first order to our new wholesale account here in Tucson last Wednesday, February 6th:  La Mariposa Resort and Health Club.  It is located on Houghton, over here on the east side.  The manager, Francesca, wants to carry very healthy options for her members, and is very enthusiastic about carrying Greenheart Bakery muffins, brownies, bars and oatmeal cookies.  If you're in the neighborhood, you can come in to the juice bar w/o being a member.



Mike and his love, Brenda, are regular customers...

And so I was pleased when Brenda called and ordered Mike's birthday cake, in addition to a dozen muffins in her 2 favorite flavors:  Blueberry Oat Bran and Pumpkin Cranberry.  Happy birthday, Mike!

Thomas's Chocolate Brownie Cake w/Walnuts

The past month has been a flurry with birthday cakes and wedding cake tastings.  Thomas is a hairdresser at Wild Orchid Salon here in Tucson.  He ordered his own birthday cake, he said, because he wanted to make sure he got the cake he wanted and would eat.  I delivered it to the salon for him, and he shared it with other staff and clients that day - and it was a hit!  When I stopped by 2 weeks later, I was peppered with questions about how I had made it without eggs, dairy, fat, sugar or white flour.  "But what did you use for chocolate?"  I was asked.  "I use organic cocoa powder from Peru that has not been alkalized - so it's real chocolate!"

New Year Update

Baghdad and I just before Christmas 2012

Greenheart Bakery had a very busy holiday season; thank you to everyone who ordered, whether dinner or dessert dishes.  We always enjoy being a part of your holiday celebrations!  Rainforest Cakes went as far as Australia and France, although most were for folks here in the U.S.  (I love mailing out those cakes!)  *Just a reminder to read the post just before this one, in case you'd still like your own Rainforest Cake - yes, it is possible!

We have chosen the date for the third Greenheart Bakery Dining Club dinner:  Saturday, February 9th.  We shall celebrate Chinese New Year with a 3-course dinner and dessert.  It will also be my Thoroughbred horse, Baghdad's, 15th birthday - and that means cake :-).  It's a circuitous story, but it was Baghdad's actions that led us here to Tucson two years ago, and he should be acknowledged, as we are happy here.  Email us for an invitation, if you haven't already received one.

Whole Foods update:  they were unable to answer the questions on their 18-page New Vendor Packet, and so the process bogged down in November.  I did receive an apology last Friday, and my original contact who discovered that I am in Tucson is now back from maternity leave.  Her intention is to get the items they have chosen (an assortment of muffins, bars, the vegan parfait and the glazed mini-bundt cake) into the new River store and the Speedway store for "now".  So we shall all have to be patient....

Meanwhile, I am taking samples to other stores around town.  I shall post here as items become available at locations around Tucson.

And, weddings are in the air!  I meet with two brides this week for wedding cakes later this year.  So, please remember that yes, Greenheart Bakery does do wedding cakes, which includes the currently popular cupcake towers.  We shall soon have a new page up showcasing some of the cakes I have done in the past 20 years (we have a new scanner!).

Speaking of additions to this site, Healthy You Network will record me this Saturday making my pizza recipe, which I have long wanted to tape.  Then it will be "viewable" on their website as well as this one.  It's a crowd-pleaser, and one that I have successfully served to vegans and non-vegans alike.

Alaine's Rainforest Cake

You may or may not have received... or given all that you desired for Christmas and the holidays, but it is never too late to order Rainforest Cake -- either for yourself, or someone else.  The weather is chilly, and that seems to make the Rainforest Cake taste even better!



Here's a Rainforest Cake, still looking holiday-ish.



And, actually, there are still Rainforest Cakes en route around the world as gifts for the new year.  For customers, I mailed cakes to Australia and to France, which should be reaching their destinations soon.  These cakes are gifts to people who love the Rainforest Cake and look forward to it every year.

Besides being delicious with a hot cup of tea or coffee, Rainforest Cake is a great energy food.  There's no "sugar rush"; it gives a good, slow-burning, sustaining energy.  Rainforest Cake was my first product that I sold in stores, back in 1993, and then, we sliced it and wrapped individual slices that were displayed in burlap-covered baskets.  Many customers during those early years called the phone number on the label, to let me know how much they loved it, and what they used it for:  mountain-climbing, cycling, backpacking, golf.  One customer wrote and said he had a loaf in his backpack in Tibet, and due to circumstances, ended up "living on it" for several days.  Two young men called and said they were planning a cross-country bike trip, and that of all the energy bars on the market, Rainforest Cake tasted better, and got them farther.  They had me mail small boxes of slices to post offices along their route, so they had a constant supply.  After their return, they appeared with me in my booth at the Outdoor Adventure Fair at Moscone Center in San Francisco in 1996, with a video monitor showing scenes from their ride. 

Rainforest Cake can also be made without the Brazil nuts, and in fact, was called Rainforest Lite.  When I was taping a couple of segments on Dr. John MacDougall's show (back in the '90's), he told me that he and his wife, Mary, liked to travel with the Rainforest Lite (we all know he avoids nuts!) in their suitcase.  That way, he said, they knew they had something good to eat.  I mailed cakes without nuts to customers this year, too.

Whatever you may do to enjoy life, Rainforest Cake gives you the energy to do it.  And although it tastes deliciously decadent, it is a very healthy food.  Don't hesitate to give us a call if you would like to order.  You deserve it, after all you've been through!

Rainforest Cake in its shipping box, and notice the white burlap bag that it comes in.

 To Order Rainforest Cake, please CLICK HERE