Veggies!!

We received our Bountiful Basket today. I made granola/cereal, pineapple cake, roasted cauliflower, roasted peppers, baked a spaghetti squash, made pita crackers, and chopped three large mangoes (for smoothies). I also washed and prepared radishes, apples, oranges, orange peppers, and more. We had a good Bountiful Basket this time.

This week we received:

VEGGIES:
3 lb bag potatoes, Lg head cauliflower, Romaine lettuce, Broccoli, Asparagus, Bunch radishes, Orange peppers.

FRUIT:
6 apples, 6 Roma tomatoes, 5 oranges, 4 lemons, A Pineapple.

The produce is fresh-looking and luscious. It not only tastes better, it looks better. So of course I took photos, lol. The colors, shapes, and design of these pieces of produce are exquisite.

Last Bountiful Basket day

It's Bountiful Basket Saturday, but it is a day of mourning. It is the last Basket pick up for our location. There is no volunteer who can step up consistently to administer the site so it shut down. It's been a good year and a half.

This week we received:

huge head of cauliflower
bag carrots
red potatoes (lots)
onions (lots)
'big-as-a-baby's head' tomatoes
celery bunch

papaya
yellow plums
mangos almost as big as a baby's head
Black Corinth champagne grapes (small that look like blueberries)
cantaloupe

Photo is NOT representative- does not include cauliflower, carrots,
potatoes or onions which I already put away and was too lazy to get out
for the picture. I traded my cantaloupe away, too, for more mangoes.
One of the tomatoes of from the swap box.

I read the champagne grapes are susceptible to mildew
so I will need to eat these quickly. I received two containers.

Succulent doesn't cover the magnificent taste of this grape.

About Black Corinth Grapes (AKA Champagne grapes, Zante currants)
--the smallest variety of all seedless grapes.
--one of the few parthenocarpic fruits commercially available.
--in botany and horticulture, parthenocarpy (literally meaning virgin fruit) is the natural or artificially induced production of fruit without fertilization of ovules. The fruit is therefore seedless, says Wikipedia of parthenocarpy.

One of my go-to sites for learning about these different fruits and veggies is SpecialtyProduce.com Here is what they say about champagne grapes:

Description/Taste

Champagne grapes are the individual pearl-sized fragile skinned fruits, aka the berries, of the seedless grape variety, Black Corinth. When eaten fresh, they are known as a table grape. In dried form the Champagne grape is transformed into a raisin, in which they are known as the Zante currant, or dried currant. When the berries are fresh, at their peak maturity, they are intensely sweet and succulent with a mere hint of tartness. As a currant, the grapes' sweetness is magnified, their size dramatically reduced and their texture typical of a raisin

I've just eaten a bunch and they are the BEST GRAPE I ever tasted.

Applications

Champagne grapes are ubiquitously utilized for garnishing champagne flutes and decorating desserts and cheese trays. These traditional uses as an accoutrement merely celebrate the fruit as a table grape. The grapes can also be used in many other forms, added to pastries, such as scones, muffins and cakes. Like many other fruits, Champagne grapes make a great addition to fruit cereals, granola and yogurt. They can also be cooked and reduced down into a jelly, added to sauces for savory pairings with lamb, game and pork. In dried currant form the Champagne grapes can also be added to pastries as well as couscous, rice, fruit and green salads and paired equally with aged and fresh cheeses alongside charcuterie meats.

Not bad for $15!!! I sure will miss this. In addition, at the pick-up I chatted with a bunch of friends. It was a nice time.

I will roast the cauliflower, onions, and carrots, and bake the potatoes. I will make pasta and a sauce out of the tomato. I will enjoy the fruit with yogurt, plain, or atop the on-sale pound cake I got.

So I am back to routine for school. Saturday mornings I don't deny myself a leisurely cup of coffee, and I read my bible. But while it's cool, and early, I do chores. I vacuum, put a load of laundry in and do the dishes. On BB Saturdays I clean out the fridge and process the old fruit if I have any left over. This week, I did. I cut up three oranges and threw in a few of the grapes I had left, for an instant fruit salad later. I re-arrange the myriad tupperwares containing left overs and get the fridge ready to receive a batch of new produce. My Basket of fruits and veggies is being soaked right now in a sink full of water and white vinegar.

The vinegar cleanses the produce and a happy bonus is it makes it last a bit longer too. In a moment I'll dry it off and put it away.

I am done with chores and it is only 11:30 in the morning. I have the rest of the day to myself.

What I will do is:

--watch this week's episode of The Quest,
--read more of Elmer Gantry (more on my book buying spree and of good writers in the next essay)
--take a nap
--late this afternoon, write an essay for the other blog.

So that's it, have a good day everyone.

Bountiful Baskets this week

Today is Bountiful Basket Saturday. Every other week, we receive from the produce co-op a basket of fruits and vegetables that can't be beat. Fresh, pretty, nutritious, and inexpensive. For $15.00 plus an administrative fee (total $21.50) we receive a delicious pot of produce gold at the end of the rainbow. Our local chapter's pick up is in a town just 6 miles away. I am loving this accessibility to quality fruit and vegetables, the variety, and the location.

However, the co-op won't continue in our town if there are consistently low numbers. It isn't cost effective to ship via 18 wheeler to a location with only a few contributors. The 18-wheeler makes many stops in a logical path, and soon, a stop with low numbers is dropped off the list in order to keep it cost-effective for everyone.

Two weeks ago we only had about 20 out of a quota limit of 95. This week we only had ten. Oh my. People, get on board with this, it is a ministry also. Good food that's accessible to families is a God-send to many. If these low numbers keep up, they'll cut us. They already cut one co-op in Georgia for that reason.

That's my plug.

This week we received red grapes, bananas, oranges, limes, figs, lychee nuts, avocados, zucchini, broccoli, cabbage, cherry tomatoes, and radishes. I think that's everything. Here are the lychee nuts. They are actually not a nut but are a soft fruit. You sit it on its stem and look for the little seam at the point, and slice it gently along the seam. You can also use a long fingernail. Gently squeeze from the stem and the alligator skin's exterior peels back. What is exposed is the fruit. Unfortunately it looks like a jellyfish or an eyeball. But the fruit's good. There is one large inedible seed inside the fruit.

Often called alligator strawberries due to their size, color and shape, except the skin is tough like an alligator

See what I mean about the eyeball situation?

The skin peels away easily to reveal the grape-like fruit inside

The fruit comes out easily

You can pop the whole thing in your mouth and chew around the seed
or you can nibble around it.

The seed

The lychee seed can be planted. It is planted in a starter germinator container or a pot by placing the seed sideways as above, an inch or so beneath the soil. Keep moist, not wet. YouTube abounds with lessons on planting lychee seeds.

I like the fruit but I would not buy it or be especially excited if we got it in the Bountiful Basket again. It's not that it's hard to deal with, I find oranges more of a struggle. It's not that it's tasteless, they actually have juice and flavor. But I'm not a huge fan.

The radishes we got have that tart pepper afterbite that I love. And the avocados are plump and large. The figs are large and as a happy surprise, organic. And the Basket beat goes on.

Bountiful Basket Day: ideas and recipes

OK, this is an incredible Bountiful Basket this week. For Veggies we got:

2 bags carrots
13 large red potatoes
2 huge bunches asparagus
7 large tomatoes (not Roma)
2 med bunches fresh spinach
2 leeks

For fruits:

a pineapple
5 bananas
9 golf ball sized tangerines (Murcotte)
7 small-med. green apples
3 avocados

I also purchased the blackberry add-on. The flat turned out to cost $1.18 each, and seeing that they usually cost $3.00 each I could not resist. I already ate 2 of the packs.

I plan to make:

Blackberry cobbler
Leek and potato soup
Spinach salad
Roasted asparagus, roasted carrots (also will roast the other half cabbage I got in the last basket 2 weeks ago and 4 green peppers from same)

I might try grilling the pineapple on the George Foreman...we'll see.

Here are some frugal tips

1. Turn oven or stove off before food is finished cooking. Not long, but a minute or two. Saving 2 min of electricity 3X a day is 6 minutes, 300 days a year saves 1800 minutes per year. You do the math. No really, you do the math. I can't figure out the kilowatt hours. Anyway, as Depression Cooking Clara Cannucciari said, "Anything to save anything."

2. Use what you have. In the BB today we received potatoes and leeks so I'll make potato leek soup. We received avocados and tangerines, so I'll make avocado tangerine salad. Driving to the store to buy one or two special ingredients to make one certain dish is expensive in terms of money, time, and gas.

3. Save twist ties. Don't throw them out after once.

4. Save the elastic bands wrapped around bunches of scallions, leeks, asparagus.

5. Save (and wash out) plastic bags that produce comes in. I bought shredded carrots in a packaged ziploc bag. Now the spinach is inside it.

6. Cook ahead. If quality food is already cooked it is available when you get peckish and want a snack. This saves on buying junk food. It also saves on buying lunches out. Bring your lunch from home. Invest in good plastic containers and bring your soups and salads to work. I also bring a lot of fruit and have several pieces throughout the day. Thanks to Bountiful Baskets, I have plenty to spare.

Here are the results of my labors. The green peppers were from the last basket. The mushrooms were $1 from the grocery store because they were brown.

Just a very few of the fresh goodies we received today in the basket

Clockwise, potato leek soup, roasted peppers,
sauteed mushrooms, roasted carrots, blackberry cobbler

Anyway, I hope you can find a Bountiful Baskets co-op near you. Or start one! It is not hard.

Bountiful Basket Day

Here is the basket for this week:

7 bananas, 7 oranges, 6 apples, 5 kiwi, celery, 3 avocados, 6 baking potatoes, 2 Acorn squash, bag Brussels sprouts, box of cherry tomatoes, 4 artichokes, Romaine.

There were leftovers and everybody got an additional item, but not all baskets received the same additional item. My overflow item was squash, that's why I have two. It cost $21.50 for everything. I also received an extra bag of an item of my choice because I volunteered. I picked a 2nd bag of Brussels sprouts- not pictured. The next rotation is in two weeks. I can't wait!

I'm excited. I would never buy artichokes but I like them and will eat them. Same with Brussels sprouts.

Of the things I'm not so much a fan of...oranges. I like oranges OK but they are a pain to cut up and messy. They take a long time to work with so I'm not so much a fan. A banana is something I can bring with me, and eat as I'm going up the hall at school, or chow down on in one minute as my snack during the work day.

As for the veggies, I'll steam the artichokes all at once. I'll make a ratatouille with the celery and tomatoes and a yellow squash I have and peppers. I'll throw in some quinoa. Later on the acorn squash will become soup- but I'll roast the squash first.

Today was cold, only 26 degrees as we unloaded the truck and distributed the veggies. It was the biggest Basket day ever, with 47 people signing up. There are 95 available. I'm glad that about 10 people showed up to help distribute because many hands made light work. As it was we barely got it all sorted out into the customer's baskets before the people started arriving.

First you yank down everything from the truck, which is an 18 wheeler. This is harder than it sounds because what you are taking down are flats of potatoes and bananas etc- HEAVY. Then we open every box to do a quick eye scan to make sure nothing drastic is happening in there. Next the Coordinator sends us down the rows of baskets (which we lay out in order of number) with an item. She has done the calculations of how many items go into each basket, based on how many are in a flat and how many people signed up for a basket. So we had 47 people and she told us to start with putting 5 bananas into each basket, 6 potatoes, etc.

At the end when there are leftovers of stray bananas or potatoes or kiwis, etc, she tells us to put one certain item in each basket till there are no more left of that item and to start putting into the next basket where you left off of the next item. So if we had 30 bananas left over the first 30 baskets got them and then the next 17 baskets got a potato. If we still have leftovers we just start again at #1. So everyone gets something extra but not all baskets get the same extra. All produce is distributed as evenly as humanly possible.

The Basket co-op took a rotation off last time so since they come around every other week we had a month off. I was dying on the vine so to speak. I went to the grocery store in between basket weeks, but there is no way to reproduce the amounts you get for $15. The co-op cost for the food is $15 and the other $6.50 is for processing and fuel for the truck. The Basket people like to say it costs $15 but since $21.50 is coming out of my pocket is just say it's $21.50 for the produce. It is still a great deal.

It is an extra God-send because January is the time when our school payroll goes a long time between paychecks. We are paid monthly on the last work day of the month but in December the kind payroll people work hard to get us our money before Christmas break. This year we were paid on Dec 18. But the next paycheck isn't until January 31. So the 6 weeks between paychecks is hard to budget for and the last week certainly is a stretch. So I appreciate access to quality produce at such an affordable price. The baskets usually last me two weeks.

It is still cold here, a mere 35 degrees, but the sun is strong and the day is early. I cleaned and changed the sheets and straightened up before I left to get the Basket. This afternoon, I'll do some writing, take a nap, and get ready for a party later this evening. A friend graduated from college and she earned her teaching certificate, the fulfillment of a long-time dream she has been working toward for a while. Not easy with two kids and she worked as a parapro. So her friends and family will celebrate her accomplishment tonight!

The Forgotten Leeks

These have been there for weeks...leeks...placed on a mower only to be forgotten