Bountiful Baskets

I am so excited. About a year ago my sister-in-law Jerlyn told me about a new thing that they were doing down in her area called Bountiful Baskets. You sign up on their web site during the week and then go on Saturday and pick up fresh produce. It is a co-op run by volunteers. They have a conventional option ($15) and some sites have an organic option ($25). You receive 50% veggies and 50% fruit. They have no sign up fee, and you are not committed to do it every time. You just pay if you want it that week. When she told me about it I looked and they were not in our area yet. I just found out they were here last week. They have been here about 2 months now.

The only draw back of this is that you can't choose what you want. They try and get everything they can as local as they can. I love it because it is fresh and I am supporting the small guy.

This is a picture of what I got this morning. For the veggies I got 2 bunches of celery, 2 heads of butter lettuce, a head of cabbage, an acorn squash, 2 pks of radishes, 4 cucumbers and to bunches of asparagus. For fruit I got 9 bananas, a pkg of strawberries, a pkg of blueberries, 6 kiwi, and 10 apples. Not bad for $15.
They have some other "basket" options that you can get for a little more depending on the supply and the week. They weren't available this week. The web site had some problems. Too many people got on early and tied it up. It kind of crashed. They were telling everyone to stay off until about 10 minutes after the pay options go up. Ours is open from noon Monday to 10pm Tuesday. You have to buy within that time frame or wait until the next week.

They have two bread options. For $10 you get either 5 loaves of white bread or 5 loaves of a 9 grain bread. They have a $10 tortilla option. That is 3 doz 13" flour tortillas, 2 doz 6" flour tortillas and 2 doz corn tortillas. They have a Mexican ($6.50) and Italian option. I'm not sure what the Italian option has, it wasn't listed on the site, but the Mexican one was. Some of the examples were: red chilies, jalapenos, poblano peppers, cilantro, garlic, limes, green onions, yellow onions and Mexican grey squash. (I googled that... it is like a zuchinni).

I want to try the multigrain bread option for Chris. My friend at work got it and she said it is really good. She said her kids are even eating it. I want to do the tortilla and Mexican option too. We love Mexican. I have talked to a couple of people that have done this and they said it has given them the opportunity to try things that they don't want to buy in the store. Yeah for co-ops!