The Green City Market

Many do not realize this; however, most Farmer's Markets in the city accept food stamps.  In fact, many have incentive programs to encourage people to use their food stamps at the market.  For example, Green City Market will give you an extra $10 to spend if you use your Link card at their market.  The Green City Market is my favorite for many reasons. 1) It is open all year round, so I can purchase meat, eggs, honey and some fruits and veggies from this market all year long, 2) They are very helpful and 3) They have free parking in the winter and cheap parking in the summer.  In the summers you can park at the Chicago Historical Museum for $10 and in the winter you can park at the Diversy Harbor Parking lot for free since the market moves to the Peggy Notebaert Museum.  You can go to their website for more information: http://greencitymarket.org/

Some of my favorites at the market are:
1) Meadow Haven Farms:  We buy all of our meat from this farm.  It tastes great and the owner are very helpful and wonderful people to talk to.  From my conversation with the owners, they follow a lot of the values found on the Westin A. Price foundation website.

2) Bron's Bee Company at Heritage Prairie Farms:  This the best tasting raw honey I have ever had! It tastes like you're eating flowers!  And you can get 6lbs for $30.  This lasts us most of the month making our lemonade's for the kids and the occasional desert.  And the price is pretty comparable to Aldi's honey which makes it a blessing for a family on a budget!

3) McNichol's farms:  I love their apples!  I buy 20lbs at a time and dehydrate them. They make for great snacks on the go with little ones.  They are not certified organic, but they are sprayed minimally and taste really good!  They also sell organic greens that are pretty good as well.