Check Out My Booty

Ready steady?

It's story time.

So a month or so ago, I received a comment (yay, commenters!) from another Arizona dweller. I went and looked at her blog (Check it out here - Lacie Josephine) and discovered that she was getting lots of fruits and vegetables on the cheap through a program called Bountiful Basket.. She even had pictures of all the great stuff that she was getting. I immediately commented on her blog asking her to share more details. Turns out, you contribute fifteen dollars at the beginning of the week and then you pick up your basket (or baskets) of fruits and veggies. You don't get a say in what you get, it's just a big ol' surprise.

Jeremiah and I tried it out last Saturday, the day after I got back. I was nerdy excited because fruits and veggies? Yes, please. Saving money? Oh, yeah. All about that. Our first basket was three dollars more because you contribute that extra amount your first time. And here is what we got last week:

Ready?

• Bananas - 4
• Broccoli - 3 heads
• Cauliflower - 1 head
• Baby carrots - 2 bags
• Carton of mushrooms
• Bundle of spinach
• On the vine tomatoes - 5
• Carton of FIGS (more on these, later)
• Plums - 4
• Apricots - 5
• Red pears - 3
• Pineapple 

We are working our way through the basket still, but most of the fruit is gone and we've made quite a dent in the veggies.

Knowing that ordering a second basket might provide us with tons of different fruits and veggies, we ordered one on Monday and today we got this:

 Here we go:

• Kale?
• Romaine Lettuce
• Cauliflower
• Broccoli - 3 heads
• Green onions/chives
• Carton of blackberries
• Bananas - 5
• White Melon
• Tomatoes - 4
• Mangoes - 2
• Plums - 12 (yum.)
• Nectarines - 6 (I'm not even going to pretend to share these.)
• Cucumber - 1

Not a bad haul. One of the benefits to getting the variety is that there (so far) is something for each of us. For example, we'd never had fresh figs. Neither of us. Jeremiah and I both liked them, but did you know those little things are furry? Yeah, no. So Jeremiah got all the figs. I don't eat things that are furry. Here's my list of things that are delicious, but I shiver just thinking about the nasty fuzzies all over them:

1. apricots
2. peaches
3. and now - figs. 

Sigh.

I'm planning on bogarting the pineapple and the nectarines, though, so all is good. And the point of that whole furry story was that there hasn't been anything in the basket that at least one of us wouldn't eat. We're screwed if we ever get a pumpkin...or certain squashes. But until then, we're happy campers eaters.

So a big shout out to Lacie for introducing me to Bountiful Baskets and I urge you to check it out. It's a great deal and everything we've had so far has been super fresh and delicious.

p.s. You do have to volunteer at the co-op pick-up site once every six to eight visits. I'm sure you'll hear about that when my butt gets up at 4:45 on a Saturday. I'm not a super late sleeper, but that's pushing it on the weekend.