Karcher Ranch Market

As soon as you walk into the Karcher Ranch Market in Nampa, you feel like you have stepped back in time.  It looks like an ordinary produce stand from the outside, but once inside it feels like an old-fashioned country store full of interesting things.  Other than fresh fruits and vegetables, there is a wide variety of products to check out. There is a room full of bags of rice, grains, flours and seeds like Amaranth  grain, red Bhutanese rice, Scottish oatmeal, toasted wheat germ, soy protein flour, yellow quinoa and organic brown flax seed.  There are a lot of candies, including old- fashioned stick candies, honey, seasonings, spices, dried fruit, beans, lentils and peas.  And, one corner looks like an antique store complete with cast iron pans, old lamps and vintage lunch boxes.  

All that is good, but what I really came to the Karcher Ranch Market for is the Fat Daddy’s Barbecue sauce.   It is absolutely delicious on grilled meats or used as a dipping sauce.  The sauce comes in seven  flavors, but our favorites are Raspberry, Island Paradise and Mesquite.   I am thinking about coming up with a recipe using the Island Paradise poured over chicken breasts with chunk pineapple, green bell peppers and chucks of onion baked in the oven till done and served with rice.   I think that would be a great recipe!   I almost forgot to mention that the Fat Daddy’s  Barbecue Sauce is locally produced in Nampa, Idaho.

Just before you get ready to leave the market, take a look at the large variety of bottled soda pop in the wall cooler.  You will be amazed at the many flavors available.  If you would like to try a cream soda, I like the Sioux City Cream Soda or the Jersey-Crème.  Also good is the Nesbitt’s  Peach  and Dr. Brown’s Black Cherry Soda.   Other sodas that sound interesting are the Dog n Suds Root Beer, Cool Mountain Green Apple, Olde Brooklyn Orange Soda and Eli’s Blueberry or Root Beer. It’s fun to try something different  once in a while! Karcher Ranch Market: 2302 West Karcher Road Nampa, ID

Fat Daddy’s Barbecue Sauce   $6.99 

Bottled soda pop- price varies