Bountiful Basket - November 13, 2010

My Saturday morning routine for the last few months has been to drag myself out of bed at 7:30 am (way too early for a Saturday, I think), grab my big clothes basket and head over to a park nearby to pick up my basket full of produce. Bountiful Baskets is a co-op run and staffed entirely by volunteers, and it gives the participants the buying power that individuals just don't have. For $16.50 ($15 for the produce plus $1.50 handling fee), we get a variety of fruits and vegetables each week -- at least 6 different varieties of fruit and 6 of veggies. I order each week on Monday or Tuesday and pick up on Saturday morning.

And yes, we really do use actual baskets -- volunteers unload the produce trucks and distribute the goods into 2 round clothes baskets per person, one for vegetables and one for fruits. I take a big, rectangular clothes basket that I've now designated for use solely for that purpose and transfer my stuff from their baskets to mine for the trip home. (With a run by Starbucks, of course. Hey, I drive right by it!)

Since I've been doing the Bountiful Baskets thing, I've been trying to be a little more creative in what I do with it. And if not creative, at least productive. We don't always get to eat everything before it turns, but for the price, even if a few things go bad, I'm still coming out ahead cost-wise. And it really does get us to eat more fruits and veggies.

One thing that I thought was interesting when I first signed on is that you don't know what you're getting until you pick up your basket. Some people don't care for that -- the anal meal planners! -- but I think most of us think it's kind fun that way. I really enjoy getting there and seeing what I have to work with the following week. And frankly, we get some things that I'd probably never buy at the grosto, but actually enjoy using when I get them in my basket. So it really does inspire creativity in the kitchen!

If you've been following along on my blog so far, you've seen me mention items in my basket in probably every post. I've been posting the inventory and a photo each week on Facebook, but now that I've started this blog, I thought I'd do it here, as well. It is, after all, the reason for a lot of the recipes I come up with (for better or worse). So in case you've somehow missed my whole weekly basket routine -- now you'll know just what I'm talking about!

Now, on with it!

This week's stuff:

13 Brussels sprouts

12 potatoes

6 ears of fresh corn

1 head of leaf lettuce

1 bunch of celery

1 acorn squash

9 Fairchild tangerines

7 persimmons

7 Granny Smith apples

6 Concorde pears

6 bananas

1 bag of red seedless grapes