Bountiful Baskets

Each set of two baskets equals one $15.00 basket.

I recently began participating in a produce CoOp called Bountiful Baskets.  This is a wonderful find.  I order my baskets on Monday and pick them up on Saturday.  The cost is $15.00 for a regular basket or $25.00 for an organic basket.  If this is not good enough the best part is I show up and 15 minutes later I am heading home with my produce.  When was the last time you took a trip to the grocery store and it only took 15 minutes?

$15.00 Baskets

The first time I participated in Bountiful Baskets I decided to volunteer and we turned it into a family outing.  That is my daughter there in the red making a new friend. 

We showed up an hour early and helped unpack the truck and sort the produce.  There are a total of 86 baskets seen here that we put together.  Each site can fill orders up to 96 baskets. 

 

There are many benefits to volunteering. First you get to see the process and how the food is treated.  This gave me some peace of mind because all the food was treated very well.  If a piece of fruit or vegetable that was not acceptable it was tossed out. 

Secondly we got to choose which ever baskets we wanted out of the 86 we put together.

Extra Produce for Volunteers

Lastly each volunteer gets to pick one extra free item to take home with them.  I had my whole family with me and we all pitched in.  So volunteering is well worth the effort.   This is a picture of my extra produce for helping out.

 For my first order I decided to get one regular basket and one organic basket to compare items and price.  I was very pleased with both my choices.  All the fruit and veggies were in wonderful shape and stayed fresh the whole week.

Veggies from my $15.00 Basket.

Fruit From my $15.00 Basket

Organic $25.00 Basket
This actually comes presorted in a box.

Here are the items that came in my baskets.  I have to admit, my daughter and I could not hardly get enough of the organic plums.  They were so good.  I was considering making some plum jelly but we kept eating them. 

A gift from one of the participants for the volunteers. 

We had one 

 lovely lady helping us that brought all the volunteers a special gift from her garden; bags of these wonderfully hot jalapeno peppers.  I wish I could remember her name.  If I find out who she is I will give her credit.  She is the lovely lady wearing purple in the picture with all the baskets. 

So now what to do with all this yummy food...? 

 
My next few posts will be about how I decided to use all this wonderful food.  I will do my best to add pictures and recipes from each of my basket purchases to come.  You can also find wonderful support and ideas at Bountiful Baskets Facebook page.  Click on the Bountiful Baskets link at the top of this post to locate a site near you. 

and as always...

Happy Cooking!