Shriveled Peppers in our $15 Coop Produce Basket

Other than the eggplant fiasco from last week, this week’s offerings from our local produce co-op called Bountiful Baskets was tied for the snore category.  Don’t get us wrong, we love our basket – but the variety we normally see when we buy the organic basket has been a bit lacking in the last few conventional baskets.

• 11 Roma tomatoes
• 3 shriveled red bell peppers – yes, these peppers have seen better days
• 2 cantaloupe
• 1 bunch celery
• 1 head green leaf lettuce
• 1 bunch asparagus
• 5 plums
• 5 bartlett pears
• 5 nectarines
• 1 head cabbage
• 1 bunch bananas
• 5 mini cucumbers

The other notable item is the quality (or rather, lack) of the red bell peppers.  We really do love our co op, but sometimes the quality of some of the items aren’t the same as we would buy in the store.  When you get your basket – what you see is what you get.  There is no trading in the three withered red bell peppers for three of better quality.

But even with those thoughts, we believe this week’s basket was another great value.  We are pleased with the dueling cantaloupes and the other items our family loves!

We have also posted this information before, but we wanted to keep posting it in these posts so that everyone reading can have some ideas on how to get involved with a produce coop:

There are many produce co-ops and grocery co op groups and it’s various forms across the nation that you can join and be a part of.  A good place to start looking is at a the site localharvest.org (which is going to help you get organic local food) or coopdirectory.org (I am not sure how updated this site is as our area’s listings were old and many not listed, but at least worth a shot!) or search produce co-op your state under google and see what listings come up.