Bountiful Baskets

Recently I heard about http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/, which is operated out of Utah. Basically, it is a food coop. It kind of reminds me of a CSA and Azure combination. Today was my first time picking up a "basket." The baskets are available for purchase every other week and contain both fruits and vegetables. I also volunteered this morning, since it is a completely volunteer run organization, which was kind of fun! Here's what I brought home from my basket...

From Instant Upload

It includes... 

5 apples

2 bags celery

2 avocados

5 heads garlic

6 bananas

4 tomatoes

8 oz. mushrooms

1 head romaine

2 bags grapes

11 plums

6 pears

9 sweet potatoes

Not bad for $15! I'm getting excited about planning meals for this week and figuring out what I'm going to do with the produce! 

I very rarely buy plums, so I was kind of at a loss for what to do with them. Then I went searching around online for some recipes and came up with a couple that I am excited about! One is for pork tenderloin with a balsamic-plum reduction. Yummy! That's on the menu for this week. The other is for an Asian plum sauce that I will make and (hopefully) can for the future. The plum sauce calls for applesauce, which we don't have right now, so I'm making some with a few of the apples from the basket. 

The pears are also something I'm trying to figure out what to do with, since I'm not much of a pear person. I'm confident, though, that I will find an amazing recipe, or that Leif will eat them before I get the chance to find a suitable way to serve them. =D If all else fails, I think they will be good with some cheese, smoked salt, nuts, and wine. A good, easy picnic for movie night?? We'll see. 

I am unsure of what to do with the avocado so far, but will be searching for recipes on that next. If nothing comes to mind, I will either make guacamole (yum!) or puree it for future use. 

The sweet potatoes will probably get cooked and pureed for Thanksgiving yambake (that's what Leif wants me to do with them), though I would like to use them for a sweet potato curry, so we'll see who wins out this week. ;)

I have some other ingredients I'd like to use this week, too, including potatoes, onions, 2 limes, cilantro, basil, and dill. So... seems like we'll have some good flavor to dinner this week!! Woohoo!