Bountiful Baskets!

Hi all!

Today's post is dedicated to this awesome co-op that Anton and I joined called Bountiful Baskets.  This week was our first time trying it and we are already hooked!  For more information, go to http://www.bountifulbaskets.org.  It's a volunteer run program and everybody is encouraged to help.  This morning we went early and helped fill the baskets.  There are about 50 baskets and 8 volunteers and a huge pile of cases of produce but in about an hour every thing is divided up as evenly as possible and everybody comes to pick up their baskets.  The neat thing about volunteering is that you get paid in an extra piece of produce for every person who helps, so we got an extra cantaloupe and pack of these beautiful heirloom baby tomatoes.  This week we split the regular basket with the neighbors, so after splitting up what was in the basket, we still had:

4 mangos (the most amazing I ever ate!)
1 cantaloupe
3 bananas
1 head romaine
2 heads cauliflower
1 onion
4 sweet potatoes
1 pack baby heirloom tomatoes
1 lb strawberries

The amount we paid for all of that was only $8.50!  We also bought 5 loaves of this super tasty nine grain bread (sooo good!) for $10 and 20 lbs of peaches for only $16.50.  So for less than $40 we got a TON of healthy stuff to munch on.  And there are other things offered that we didn't get, like yummy sounding coffee cakes and honey wheat bread and special groups of produce, this week was a Mexican one that looked amazing.  What more can I say, this program is just awesome, and if it's available near you, I highly recommend signing up!  I hope to post pics next time we go to volunteer, but in the meantime check out the website and if you have any other questions, feel free to shoot them my way!

Not too much otherwise today on the culinary agenda, I think dinner with be chicken or steak with an herbed cauliflower mash and sauteed sugar snaps.  Then it we are feeling ambitious we were thinking of experimenting with some peach soju.  Also thinking about trying to make my first granita, so I will let you know next time!

Elyse