Organic Pick of the Week: Organic Chicken and Beef from Greensbury Market

When you return home from a long trip, there are always surprises -- good and bad. When we got back to Chicago after wrapping up the East Coast Tour last week, we were greeted by a swarm of fruit flies (bad) and a freezer full of organic meats, courtesy of Greensbury Market (good).

Although I loathe the term, Dorothee and I both fall into the "flexitarian" category, meaning that we don't eat much meat, so when we do, we try to get the best, and the Greensbury Market samples we got certainly qualify as some of the best meats I've had in recent memory. We enjoyed the 100-percent grass-fed sirloin steaks with some fried carrots, kale, and fingerling potatoes. For the four boneless chicken breasts, I invited my sister and her fiancé over and made a big chicken pot pie (pictured below) with some heirloom carrots and potatoes from Chicago's City Farm, fennel and leeks from Green Grocer, and sage from my mom's herb garden.

I don't usually think of mail order as the first option for purchasing any type of food, but it's becoming more popular in the organic meat industry, as cattle ranchers and chicken farmers who can't get their products in regular supermarkets try to reach untapped markets. Our shipment arrived in a large (recyclable) styrofoam box containing two packages of vacuum-sealed steaks and chicken breasts that were kept cool with dry ice.

Greensbury Market offers both 100-percent grass-fed beef and organic beef that's raised on both grass and grain. All of their products are USDA certified-organic, and although they don't say which farmers produce the meats, the website claims that it is all produced by small family farms.

-Mark