Goodness in Our Eatery

My name is Pekka Woods and I am the Director of Prepared Foods and Culinary Experiences here at Goodness Me! What does that mean? I’m the guy that gets to feed YOU healthy, delicious food! I have spent over 20 years as a Red Seal Chef working with Canadian top-chefs like Mark McEwan and Lynn Crawford. But, I love my job here at Goodness Me!, innovating and creating delicious culinary dishes with healthy twists that nourish our bodies!

These last few months the world has gone through some incredible hardships, and so has our eatery! We were forced to close our central kitchen, and shut down our hot lines and salad bars as we adapted to new protocols, but we were up for the challenge. We have gone ahead and hit the reset button, and have been putting our heads down in isolation to dream bigger, and yes, even tastier food for all.

We have been working hard over the last 6 months to create a new experience for you, familiar but evolved, same but different. We’re now safer than ever before. We went out and found local kitchens to help us make healthy, delicious food, that adhere to our high standards. We will now be serving you at the hot line, and salads will be packaged in a variety of sizes. You will always be able to find a quick dinner for your whole family or household. There are new dishes that I am hoping will inspire new creativity and new habits in our homes, like easy to use pizza dough, or an array of premade sauces that work by themselves or can be amplified by your favourite recipes. I’m sharing my experience with food with you all, through every meal made and served here in our eatery – and note, I almost always add hot flakes to my pastas – yum!

Enjoy new tasty treats like in-house baked croissants and scones. Soups are available from the fridge for a quick cook lunch or dinner. Our staff are coming back after a very long summer and they are excited about the changes and looking forward to seeing the familiar faces of our loved and appreciated customers once again.

One of the new pieces in our Eateries is the rapid cook oven. A 500°F mini convection oven that sits on our back counter and is used to heat sandwiches, lunchables, and more. It will be used on new products like individual chicken pot pies, and old favourites like samosas and mac & cheese, or my favourite… burritos. Doesn’t that sound good? Our burritos are wrapped in our Goodness Me! tortillas, filled with organic brown basmati rice, organic black beans, organic corn and local cheddar cheese. There’s also a splash of fresh Sunflower Kitchen salsa to kick the flavour up a notch. We will pop them in the oven for you to enjoy a delicious, healthy, hot meal!

We are all eating at home more often and while it’s great for our health to be cooking from scratch, sometimes we need a break. We have revamped our antibiotic-free beef and organic vegetable lasagnas to serve 2 or a family of 4. They are made with local Ontario tomatoes and easy on the tummy, with no-gluten-added rice noodles. Both are layered with mozarella cheese that is packed with flavour and ooey, gooey, goodness! They now come in a recyclable tinfoil package that pops straight from the freezer into the oven, then into the blue bin when you’re done. We will also be serving individual portions in our hot line during lunch, with a quick reheat during the rest of the day. If you are a fan of lasagna, we can’t wait for you to try these new additions!

I have been developing good-for-you and great tasting sauces that are as versatile as they are convenient. Available

in our fridges, our newly launched tomato sauce inspires many of our Eatery recipes. Our Butter Chicken style sauce can be used as a marinade, in a bake or just as the sauce with chicken or tofu. Dressings like my favourite, Vegan Caesar, are great on any fresh greens and my Sesame Dressing is perfect for adding a little eastern flair to noodle salad or a home made Poke bowl. I really can’t wait to see what you can create with these easy to use sauces and dressings, and am so happy about all the time it will save you!

We have added plexiglass barriers to our hot food lines. We are now able to have hot and healthy food ready for you 7 days a week, from 10am to 6pm. Come in and let our staff serve you our crowd pleasing antibiotic-free beef chili or Goodness Me! faves like Indian Split Pea soup or Roasted Tomato Basil soup (have this with one of our Grilled Cheese sandwiches out of our rapid cook ovens). More recipes will follow like meatball subs, vegan stew on roasted Goodness Me! spiced potatoes and my Hungarian style antibiotic-free Turkey Goulash... eat it as a soup or a stew.

Looking ahead into the fall and the long cozy nights of winter, we have lots more planned for you! Preorder your turkey dinner this Thanksgiving with stuffing, mash, cranberry sauce, gravy and roasted vegetables, or come in for an early morning, all butter croissant baked in-store beside our organic fair trade coffee. Our breakfast cookies are perfect for busy folks on the go. We’re starting little lunchboxes full of good things like organic vegetables, free-run eggs, Ontario cheeses and vegan cookies for those seeking a healthy lunch during a busy day! Make our organic Basmati Pilaf or Moroccan Beet salad a regular side at dinner time so you can have fun trying our new sauces! Paired with one of these great plate specials: Beyond Sausage with our Goodness Me! BBQ sauce, seared Ontario Trout with our Goodness Me! lemon pepper dressing
(page 32), or home made pizza with our tomato sauce on ready to use dough balls or par baked crust (page 31). Just add your favourite toppings and you’ll have dinner in no time! Come in for lunch or dinner, hot and ready at our reopened hot lines with monthly chef inspired specials and in-store created dishes.