March Special: Save up to 25% on Essential Living Foods Products!

Start the year with healthy Essential Living Foods products available at all locations! Essential Living Foods offers premiere raw and organic SuperFoods in recycled and biodegradable packaging. All of the products are Vegan, Gluten Free, and Non GMO. Most of the products are Organic, Raw, and Kosher. Essential Living Foods works directly with farms and gives 1% of their sales to the small farms and indigenous groups they work with to support development in their communities and contribute to a higher quality of life.

Dr. Oz has been talking about SuperFoods such as Goldenberries, Sacha Inchi Seeds, Maca, Goji Berries, Chia Seeds and Essential Living Foods has all of these SuperFoods in their product line. Dr. Oz named Goldenberries the #3 Top SuperFood for trimming belly fat. He named Sacha Inchi Seeds (Incan Peanuts) as one of the best weight loss snacks and highlighted the seeds’ high omega 3, fiber and vitamin A content. Maca Powder and Goji Berries are in Dr. Oz’s Longevity Shake recipe below.

You can also make and enjoy delicious and nutritious fudge for the whole family using Essential Living Foods Organic Coconut Oil, Truly Raw Cacao Powder & Agave Syrup.

For Raw Chocolate Recipes

The Longevity Shake by Dr. Oz, featuring *Maca Powder

Ingredients (Serves 1):

1 cup almond milk

Fresh blueberries (Use the equivalent of 1 freezer pack of frozen berries – and use frozen blueberries when they are out of season.)

1 handful dried Goji Berries

Heaping tbsp of powdered MACA

1/2 a banana Directions

Combine all ingredients in a blender and enjoy!

*Join nationally acclaimed nutritionist and raw food expert, Andrea McNinch (owner of Regeneration Raw+ Heal Yourself Institute) at all 3 Plum Market stores during the month of March  for samples and a demo of her delicious & nutritious creations using Essential Living Foods products:

Wednesday, March 14, 4-6pm in West Bloomfield

Saturday, March 31, 1-3pm in Ann Arbor

Bell’s Hopslam Ale is now available!

Bell’s starts with 6 varieties of hops in this brew including Simcoe hops.  Hops are selected from the Pacific Northwest for their aromatic qualities including grapefruit, stone fruit, and floral notes.  Malt and a good amount of honey are added to provide balance, so the result is a remarkable, complex brew that Bell’s fans look forward to every year.  Hopslam contains 10% alcohol by volume.

What are hops, anyway?  According to Wikipedia:

Hops are the female flower clusters.  They are used primarily as a flavoring and stability agent in beer, to which they impart a bitter, tangy flavor, though hops are also used for various purposes in other beverages and herbal medicine.  Hops were cultivated continuously around the 8th or 9th century AD in Bohemian gardens in the Hallertau district of Bavaria and other parts of Europe. However, the first documented use of hops in beer as a bittering agent is from the 11th century.  Before this period, brewers used a wide variety of bitter herbs and flowers, including dandelion, burdock root, marigold, horehound (the German name for horehound means “mountain hops”), ground ivy, and heather. Hops are used extensively in brewing for their many purported benefits, including balancing the sweetness of the malt with bitterness, contributing a variety of desirable flavors and aromas, and having an antibiotic effect that favors the activity of brewer’s yeast over less desirable microorganisms. Historically, traditional herb combinations for ales were believed to have been abandoned when ales made with hops were noticed to be less prone to spoilage.

Join us for the Hopslam Release Party at CRU Winebar in West Bloomfield: Purchase tickets here.

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Perhaps you’ve been to one of the New York farmer’s markets and have already tried award-winning Rick’s Picks.  If you haven’t, now is your chance to embrace your love for pickles because we’ve got some of Rick’s Picks favorites on our shelves.  You’re sure to find one to suit your pickle style with tastes from sweet to savory to spicy:

Phat Beets:  Aromatic spices accent the sweet-tart flavor of these fresh pickled beet slices and have won over even stubborn beet skeptics. Pickled in rosemary, ginger and lemon, they’re perfect with fresh goat cheese on a cracker or in a salad, and an excellent source of fiber, iron and vitamin B.  

Windy City Wasabeans: One of the most popular varieties in the product line. The great wasabi flavor is transformed into a subtle smokiness in these addictive crispy, pickled green beans. They’re irresistible as a healthy snack or hors d’oeuvre – a great alternative to potato chips! Use the brine to marinate chicken or tofu, or add it to a stir-fry. Windy City Wasabeans have twice won Best in Show at the Rosendale International Pickle Festival.

People’s Pickle:  What’s up with The People’s Pickle? Simply put, the people have spoken! For years, folks have wondered when Rick’s Picks, which is based on the Lower East Side of New York, would come up with a pickle that evoked the mouth-watering spirit and classic flavor of New York deli pickles. The People’s Pickle is a chunky, garlicky slice with hints of coriander and dill. Just try to have only one! Even better, The People’s Pickle is all-natural and LOW SODIUM.

Classic Sours: We all puckered up to simple, classic flavor of deli spears as kids. Now we can revisit delicious past with these crunchy, all-natural pickles… minus gunk of artificial ingredients.

Kool Gherks: Kool Gherks are an aromatic take on the traditional whole dill pickle. Crunch them whole or slice them up thin and serve with cheeses, charcuterie, even on bread and butter. We use a lot less salt than most picklers, so the brine is great for sipping, and a wonderful aid to digestion. Kool Gherks were prizewinners at the Rosendale International Pickle Festival.

Mean Beans:  A spicy take on what Rick’s Mom in Vermont calls dilly beans. This version comes with extra heat. These prize-winning crispy beans are pickled with cayenne and fresh dill and have an unusually fresh flavor. They make a great hors d’oeuvre wrapped up in salami. Garnish your Bloody Mary with Mean Beans and add the brine for an extra-potent kick. Use the leftover brine to pickle sliced carrots!

Hotties:  Hotties are crinkle-cut spicy pickle chips with bold flavor notes of dried habanero and sriracha. Heat lovers are discovering that Hotties are an irresistible snack, and healthy eaters appreciate that Hotties are low sodium, gluten-free and contain no fat or cholesterol.

Smokra: Spanish smoked paprika gives our okra a deep, zesty flavor. With its vibrant taste and firm texture, Smokra is a knockout healthy snack and a great addition to an appetizer plate. Wrap Smokra in ham and halve it diagonally for a tasty treat, and use the brine for marinating brisket, tofu or pork! Smokra was featured in Oprah magazine in a Cubano sandwich.

Information from www.rickspicksnyc.com

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We’d like to introduce you to our newest friends from Mindo Chocolate Makers.  It all started in 2008 when Jose (Joe) took a trip to Ecuador with a plan to retire.  His entrepreneurial spirit wasn’t prepared to rest, however, and he began roasting coffee and processing cacao on his property.  Soon after, the chocolate-making process was imported to Dexter, Michigan with the help of an Ecuadorian farmer growing  cacao trees intermixed with other plants promoting midge population (cacao pollinators) which also maintains habitat for birds and other animals.

The chocolate is made with 100% Ecuadorian “flavor” beans (these are often mixed with a lower cost and less flavor bean to make other chocolates) and they are never exposed to contaminants, fertilizers or pesticides.  The flavor is pure, smooth, and absolutely decadent.  You can find the Mindo Chocolate in our specialty candy department.

Learn more about the chocolate making process.

So, last week we introduced a fantastic new beverage, Mamma Chia.  Our guests and team members are going nuts for this drink!  Every time you turn around, someone is raving about the taste and health benefits of Mamma Chia.  Youtube videos are on repeat, the refrigerator in our office is stocked, and some of us are even talking about it in our sleep.   

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Skinny is everywhere these days:  Skinny Jeans, Skinny Bitch, Skinnygirl Margarita, Skinny Dipping, and of course Skinny Pop Popcorn. 

Plain and simple: It tastes great and there’s “no artificial anything.”  It’s just popcorn and they’ve popped it so it tastes shockingly delicious and is insanely addictive. Oh *munch, munch* there are only 39 calories per cup.

 Check out what our Facebook Fans are saying:

Author: Jamie Rusling

I have a friend who said to me recently that he knows what’s in my refrigerator before he opens it. He said the same thing happens when he visits his parent’s home. However, he said the difference in the flavor of cooking at the two houses is astounding and he can rely on the tastes being the same at home, but at my house the flavors seemed endless and always changing. The secret is simple and lies in the foundation of the oil used in the marinades or in the sauté process.
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If you are a tea drinker, you absolutely must try Tea Haus loose teas available in Plum Market Ann Arbor and West Bloomfield (packaged loose tea is sold in Bloomfield).  Learn more about the story and quality of Tea Haus…

From Tea Haus Website:

Lisa McDonald, owner of TeaHaus, has an exorbitant amount of knowledge of all things tea and began the TeaHaus in Ann Arbor with the mission to provide experience and education along with the highest quality tea available on the market. Plum Market is now partnering with TeaHaus to provide more people with the experience.

TeaHaus is a privately owned small business by Lisa McDonald and her husband Marc Hewko.  After a ‘backpacking trip’ though Europe which became a 14-year residence in Germany and Sweden, Lisa returned to the US with her husband, Marc (an Ann Arborite she met in Germany) to start a family.  After a few months though, she began to miss getting quality loose tea in any village she visited.

Inspired to open TeaHaus, Lisa chose to work with Europe’s most reputable and highest-quality tea company, located in Germany for her tea. They are the only tea company that has their own testing facility testing for both pesticides and heavy metals residues.  Also, the company does not use tea brokers or buy tea in the markets. They go straight to source, the gardens. Germany is the world’s largest tea purchasing country and has the a long standing tie with the tea world.

The TeaHaus mission is to provide experience and education along with the highest quality tea available on the market.  For more information visit: www.teahaus-annarbor.com