Produce Co-op Basket Needs to Be Right-Sized Plus 250 lbs Organic Beef

We just had to share how shocked we were at this week’s Bountiful Baskets produce co-op offering!  First note just how large some of those items are.  The two mangoes, some of the spinach leaves and the gargantuan roma tomatoes made us feel like we were being cast for Honey I Shrunk the Kids.  But alas, the movie references don’t stop there.  No, we were on the set for Gulliver’s Travels when we noticed the miniature grapes, the tiny plums (almost the size of raisins – well, close), the small head of cauliflower and the miniature potatoes.  Yes, this produce basket needed to be right-sized in a major way.  Are we complaining?  Nope.  Just loving the fact that each weeks produce baskets give us something a bit different and exciting to look forward to!

Earlier this week we mentioned our temptations towards eating out in our latest installment of our Deep in Debt to Debt Free Series, The Seven Debtly Sins of Eating Out.  We loved Shelly’s comment how the variety of her produce co-op basket plus the deep desire to not have any go to waste helps encourages them to eat at home – we have found the same!  But to add to that, we have found that filling our freezer with yummy meats and frozen foods help as well!  Why do we share that?

Earlier this month we shared with you that we we purchased 80 lbs of skinless, boneless chicken breasts for an amazing price of $1.39/lb!   Well to add to that, just yesterday, we used our GroupOn for $75 of organic meat for $35.  But while I was on the phone placing our order we received another call – a friend of ours asked if we wanted to purchase approximately 250 pounds of organic beef at just $1.60/lb (yes, that’s $400 – but at a HUGE savings) – we’re going in with three of our friends with the result of buying a quarter of a cow!  We’ve mentioned before how much we love buying our meat in bulk and freezing it – well here’s our big stock up!  In 2-3 weeks it will be ready for us to pick up – we now need to find room in one of our  three freezers!  🙂

If you’re keeping a mental track of each week’s basket, here’s the list of goodies:

• 2 bunches of green-leaf lettuce
• 1 bunch of large-leaf spinach
• A bunch of tiny potatoes
• 5 nectarines
• 5 smaller bartlett pears
• 9 tiny plums
• celery
• 4 gigantic roma tomatoes
• 1 petite head of cauliflower
• 2 gargantuan mangoes

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.