Lending a Hand for Fresh Fruits and Veggies

Since participating in Bountiful Baskets, I've tried volunteering as regularly as I can. I'm also very limited in what I can and can't do since I'm now 7 months pregnant and they don't let me lift hardly anything. So, I counted the produce boxes, broke said boxes down after they were distributed, and manned the check-out table (I'm starting to get pretty good at that!)

This last time, we were so far ahead of schedule that I was just standing around for a bit before the site opened their doors for pick-up. So I decided to take a few pics of what goes into the volunteer work.

The glorious baskets of half fruit, half veggies were all lined up neatly for easy distribution and organization. Don't they look glorious?!

Then, the extras, if a person wanted to get more than just the conventional basket as seen in the previous picture. Behold, the Mexican packs, which I didn't get this time, but I've gotten both the Asian and Italian packs before, and talk about awesome!

And then there's the nine-grain bread or tortilla pack. I still have a few loaves left of the bread in my freezer, but it's some of the best bread I've had, and I grew up on home-made goodness.

Dad ground the wheat using an electric mill and mom would make the loaves every week. She now buys this bread too from Bountiful Baskets! Did I mention how incredibly healthy the ingredients are for it as well?

As for the tortilla pack, I got them this week (7 dz tortillas in varying sizes) and we've already put them to good use with some breakfast burritos this morning. Talk about yummmm...

Some of the volunteers in action.

A slightly closer look at the great stuff:

Top basket (fruit) + Bottom basket (vegetables) = one conventional basket and a great deal!

I just love bringing it home to then menu plan for the week.

Some of the produce still needs to ripen while others are ready to be put to good use. I love giving the kiddies apples during snacktime and can't wait to use the swiss chard as a side dish.

Of course there's always the ever popular garden salad (I tell you what, I am the Cookie Monster equivalent of salad, especially while being pregnant!) which even the rest of the family will consume with Chiz's ranch dressing. Seriously, once you've tried this ranch, it's hard to eat any other kind. I'm just sayin'....

Well, all this talk about delicious fresh food has made me hungry, and since I'm eating for two, I better act on it!

Fruit, Glorious Fruit!

Sidenote: I know that I posted on the previous blog about the April Fool's Day joke played on us, but as I was making a post about it, it really wasn't very funny anymore.

It was simply a freak snowstorm that we got after a previously beautiful sunshiney day, but then we got a blizzard on Monday that cancelled school for the first time this year (and it takes a lot to cancel school around here), so that wasn't so clever anymore.

I also pretended a round piece of chocolate on the floor was actually a little doodle that had flung out of Eliza's diaper that I made Chris pick up. But, I didn't execute the prank very well and he didn't think it was very funny since he was getting into police mode for training. Oh, well.

Sorry for the build-up, so let's talk some fruit, shall we?!




After yet another Bountiful Basket, I was able to make a delicious dessert for Easter dinner with some fellow cop families.


I used my family's sugar cookie recipe for the crust, then a cream cheese and whipped cream frosting. I added orange zest to both, then had fun with the fruit!

With the exception of canned mandarin oranges (I didn't want to section the tangelos I got), all the fruit's from my awesome Basket I get every few weeks: kiwi, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, and fresh pineapple.

We had corn on the cob for dinner a few days ago (which the kiddies LOVED) and smoothies for breakfast this morning. It's so fun planning a meal around the afforable yet fresh produce, and it's always SO delicious!

Now to make something scrumptious from the broccoli that the kiddies will also eat. Chris loves the small green shubbery, but I usually have to disguise it in order for the kiddies to partake.

Maybe they think they're eating trees and know that we don't normally do that? Not sure, but I'll figure something out!

Delicioius Fresh Fruits and Vegetables, Anyone?

I participated for the first time in Bountiful Baskets after my fellow cop wife and good friend Kimber kept praising it. I also forgot to take a picture of my bounty, so here's her post since she's a lot more efficient than I am to actually take pictures of the goodness before putting it away and pulling up recipes.

Chris's biggest concern of doing Bountiful Baskets (which was a liable one, I grant him that) was that we don't know exactly what we're getting and it could go bad before we use it. I tried to prove to him earlier this week that I'll use what we get by finally doing something with all the oranges we had received from Christmas.

So, I grated a whole bunch of orange zest which I've frozen to sprinkle on things (we'll be having rice krispy treats for dessert tonight with orange zest on top!), then I squeezed all of them for juice, which took FOREVER and only resulted in, like, 2 cups from over 15 oranges, so I've hoarded that for myself since the kiddies won't appreciate all that hard work.

Lastly, I soaked the remainder of the orange peel in vinegar, put a little sugar in with it and cooked it in the crock pot for a day until the vinegar smell got too strong. The result?

Orange-infused vinegar that I'll put on salads! I now feel so resourceful (and who doesn't love the smell of fresh oranges in the house?) that I felt completely thrilled to get my basket Saturday, knowing I'd use the produce.

And oh, boy, will I! (Note: I pulled the pics below up on the internet)

Right when I got home, I cut up one of the bosc pears and had some colby jack cheese sticks with it (a lovely fruit and cheese platter like above would've been nice, especially brie, but I worked with what I had), enjoying the fresh snack that I saved so much money on!

Such as:

Fajitas with the orange peppers and red onions,

maybe this Greek dish with the spaghetti squash,

and onion soup from all the onions I now have.



Yum! On to some fresh cooking!