Quick Update

Hello! Just had a few pictures to show everyone.

I thought I'd show what we've received in our bountiful baskets these past two weeks for those of you who are interested but agonizing over whether it would be worth it to you or not.

This picture is this week's basket:

1 pineapple

3 grapefruits

1 head of green leaf lettuce

2 crowns of broccoli

1 thing of savoy cabbage

8 roma tomatoes

12 red potatoes

6 pears

9 lemons

7 apples

1 bunch of asparagus

1 bunch of bananas

This one is last week's:

1 pineapple

2 bags of bosc pears

1 bunch of spinach

1 head of green leaf lettuce

6 peppers (dunno if they were serano or anaheim. some were hot, others were not)

3 butternut squashes

7 oranges

1 basket of cherry tomatoes

3 apples

5 kiwis

4 asian pears

1 bunch of asparagus

So as you can see, they change it up quite a bit. It's fun! We have to be creative about trying new meals, but we have eaten all of our basket both times, and we plan on conquering it this week too!

Here's just some recent photos of Peter:

He looks bored here.

ooooooohhhhhh! How sweet!

big smile!

That's all folks!

The Truth!!!

This isn't the order that I meant for the pictures to be in, but I'm not uploading them again so I'll just do it like this. I would like to discuss three truths with you.

#1, the truth about bountiful baskets

Bountiful Baskets is a food co-op. where you pay a fee to the co-op on monday, and on saturday you go and pic up a basket full of produce. Since it was our first time, there was an extra $3 on our bill, so it cost $19.50. In the future it will only be $16.50 I assume. You can order a half a basket up to two baskets I think and then they have all sorts of extra things you may buy if you want and you pick it all up on Saturday. The goal of the co-op is to get less expensive produce and to get local produce. They also offer organic food baskets some weeks I guess and those are $10 more. So here's how our first experience went:

2 big heads of romaine lettuce

2 big crowns of broccoli

2 huge english cucumbers

6 big tomatoes

3 formidable yellow squashes

5 large granny smith apples

6 small oranges

6 bananas

1 small pineapple

1 bag of brussle sprouts

7 kiwis

1 80z or so container of blackberries

My review:

Price=Good. I'll do an exact comparison today when we go to the store, but I'm fairly certain that the basket is much less expensive than buying all of that in the store.

Quality of Produce=excellent I think. All of it is big and clean and good looking.

Local= Well . . . I can't help but notice the blackberries that are a product of mexico distributed by florida. I guess it kind of depends on your definition of local . . . but I do think that it's mostly comprised of stuff from the midwestern United States.

Seasonal= Tomatoes? I'm no expert with seasonal stuff so I'm not sure, but I doubt that it is very seasonal. But what can I say? I would've bought the tomatoes anyway.

All in all, I think it's a good thing. I think we'll keep doing it. Another plus I think for budgeters such as ourselves and all of you is that when you buy food, you have to utilize it or else you'll be hungry at the end of the week/month. So we've gotta eat all of this stuff this week, and that's probably a good dietary habit you know? Eating lots of fruits and vegetables.

So it's not perfect, but it's pretty cool. You save money, you eat healthier. Hooray for Bountiful Baskets. Look at their website for a pickup point near you. We'll have to try an organic basket sometime and let you know how that goes.

We had to pick up the basket at 7:30 am. The co-op is run by volunteers so you have a pickup time and if you aren't there in 20 minutes your basket is donated to a community fire station or shelter or something.
Peter didn't mind going at all. Let's move on to the next truth.

2, The truth about Peter.

Peter is adorable.

These are my favorite jammies! I love it when we put him in bed with us and he just squeals and laughs and talks and rolls around with us (especially when I get in, he comes rolling straight to me cause of the dent I make in the mattress).

He loves his belly these days . . . I think . . . We put him down on his back and within a few seconds he will have flipped over. He can never get back to his back though so he gets a little distressed, and we help him and flip him back. Within a few seconds he's on his belly again, and within a few more he's distressed again. It's almost like he can't help it :)

Here he is playing with his bird that Grandma W. gave him. It kind of looks like he's killing it! Especially with the little vibration sound slowing down as he sinks his gums into it's flesh.

Next truth.

3, The truth about our new wheat grinder.

IT ROCKS!

It grinds the wheat so fine! I was making the bread on Sunday and Andrea was nursing and I needed her to tell me when I was done adding flour and she couldn't get up to look so I made this video. It's kind of dumb but visual aids are fun in blog posts so there you are.

Anyway, the bread is so delicious! Our other grinder worked well but it didn't grind as fine and our bread was pretty dense etc. It wasn't very good for PB&J cause you could never have enough J to compensate for the density of the bread. With the new grinder . . . They have been the best PB&J's I've had in my life! And the best toast, and sandwiches . . . thank you thank you thank you Santa and Mom W!

So there you are.