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How to Freshen up Wilted Lettuce

5 Sep

Between it being in the hot sun at Bountiful Baskets and me leaving it out on my counter to long, I often have wilted lettuce.  Instead of throwing it out, I now try a little trick I learned recently – give it an ice bath.

Here is my rather dry, wilty lettuce

So, I cleaned out one side of my sink, plugged it, filled with cold water, and added ice.

You just need to leave it in there for a few minutes, drain the sink, shake off some excess water and the end result isn’t always perfect lettuce again, but much perkier and in better shape for eating.  You can try leaving it even longer to help perk it up more.

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Making Raisins

4 Sep

In my Bountiful Baskets basket this week, I got table grapes.  Cute, little, sweet green grapes.  I decided that instead of just eating grapes I would try to make them into raisins.  I don’t have a food dehydrator, or the money to buy one.  It’s plenty sunny here, but I was concerned about bugs getting them if I left the grapes outside. Not to mention that it’s monsoon season here and rain sometimes comes from nowhere.  So, I researched if it could be done in the oven and it can!

Before

First, I washed all the grapes and removed them from the stems.  I laid wax paper (parchment paper would work too) on a baking sheet to prevent them from getting too stuck to the baking sheet.  I made a slit through one half of each grape to pierce the skin, then laid in a single layer on the baking sheet.. I set the oven to 180 degrees F, put the grapes in, set the timer for 1 hour so I could

After

check to see how they were coming along.  7 hours later, they finally looked more like raisins! I had the oven on long enough through the day, so turned it off and left them in the oven overnight.  They are great and taste so much fresher than raisins in the store!  However, I don’t think I will be making raisins again soon, it’s just too much time to have the oven on, so it will have to wait until I can get a dehydrator some day.

Please note that doing this in the oven may take longer than 7 hours, depending on the size of your grapes and on your oven.  From what I read, it can take as long as 12 hours for this process to happen.  The end result is worth it if you are willing to take the time!

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How I Spend my Saturday Mornings

4 Sep

A little over a year ago, I found out about a program called Bountiful Baskets and that a site was opening up in my town.  I wasn’t really sure what to expect, but I decided to make a contribution that week, and have been contributing most weeks for the past year.

So, what is Bountiful Baskets?  It is a food co-op that is run solely by volunteers.  People who want to participate make a weekly contribution of $15 for a regular basket or $25 for an organic basket.  Contribution time starts Monday at noon, local time for your pick up site, and ends Tuesday evenings.  The more people that participate and contribute, the better the deals they can get on produce, which is bought wholesale from distributors who also supply grocery stores and restaurants.  Along with the basket, there are also a variety extras available for purchase, breads, cultural food packs, and cases of fruits and vegetables.  You can learn more about Bountiful Baskets here: http://www.bountifulbaskets.org/

Baskets ready for produce

After you have made your weekly contribution, pick up is on Saturday mornings, the time varies by the site.  Each site is run by a Volunteer Site Coordinator, or a team of VSCs, and then they ask participants that can to volunteer to divide up the produce that arrives.  Baskets are lined up in pairs, one side for fruits, one side for veggies.  To give you an idea, here is a picture of the baskets lined up at one of the sites I participate and volunteer with.

The truck comes, the boxes are unloaded, the produce is divided evenly in the baskets.  This week was a pretty good week, we got a lot of great things.

Regular basket from 9/3 Bountiful Baskets

Pictured to the right is the regular basket that is a $15 contribution, plus an extra item for volunteering.  Great deal if you ask me!  Throughout this week as I prepare these items, I will post about how it gets used at my house.

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