Bountiful Baskets: May 26

Today was the day!  A new Bountiful Baskets site opened up TODAY, and it is so, so, so much closer to me!  This marks a year that I've been getting Bountiful Baskets, too, so it was doubly special.  Last June, I started driving about 70 minutes (one-way) to get baskets every other week.  In October, that almost halved, as I could drive about 40 minutes.

And as of today, it halved again... the new location is 20 minutes away.

I'm also training to be a backup for running this one.  Eeeek!

Anyway, since we've been out of town, and were basically without produce (besides potatoes, onions and sweet potatoes) in the house, I went for THREE regular baskets.  I brought home a ton of stuff.  

Pictured is ONE basket --

 The fruit included:

• 4 bananas (one basket had 5)
• a cantaloupe
• 7 peaches (one basket had 8)
• 3 enormous Red D'Anjou pears (and I chose two more as my volunteer extra)
• 7 oranges

The veggies contained:

• 5 ears of corn (this basket had 6)
• 1 head of leaf lettuce
• 3 tomatoes
• 3 artichokes
• 6 carrots
• 3 large to HUGE beautiful orange bell peppers

I loved, loved, loved that I didn't get anything that I had in my house in any sort of quantity!

So, what will we do with all of this?

• Corn on the cob for dinner this week, and corn on the cob for dinner next weekend when we have extra people around
• At least a couple dinners with carrots as the veggie
• salads
• I'll "just use" the tomatoes, some of the carrots and some of the peppers
• I'll undoubtedly need to freeze some of the peppers
• I'm thinking I'm going to can a quart or two of peaches, and maybe a quart of pears
• Otherwise, peaches, bananas, and pears will be eaten this week
• The oranges will probably be our main fruit next week
• One cantaloupe will be a breakfast this week.  The other two will wait for the weekend with company.
• Artichokes.  I've got 9 of them.  Yikes.  I've gotten some great facebook advice to steam 'em and dip in lemon butter, or in garlic butter.  I figure we'll ALL eat a couple tomorrow, and if it is a hit, I'll do it again for everyone.  Otherwise, methinks I'll be eating artichoke for lunch every day for the next week....

Oh, it is SO NICE to have produce in my house again.