Time to Order Bountiful Baskets!

5 Sep

Even though it’s a holiday, it’s still contribution time for Bountiful Baskets!  Here are the extra offerings this week:

  • 9 Grain Bread – 5 loaves – Contains Wheat. Baked in a facility with nuts – $10.00 ea
  • Bountiful Baskets Granola – 2 lbs, Oats, Honey, canola oil, roasted & salted cashews, dates, diced pineapple, sunflower seeds – $10.00 ea
  • ORGANIC Nectarines – Approx 18 Lb place pack – California – $21.00 ea
  • Fruit Lovers Pack – Add an additional pack of fruit to your regular basket! – $10.00 ea
  • ORGANIC 100% Honey Whole Wheat Bread – 5 pack -$12.00 ea
  • Thompson Naturals Grapes (seedless) – Approx 19 Lb – Good for eating or raisins! This grape has a very high sugar content! – $20.00 ea
I decided to order just a regular basket this week.  I’m excited to see what I’ll get!
If you want to participate, go here to find the site closest to you: https://contributions2.bountifulbaskets.org/

Shepherd’s Pie

5 Sep

A good friend of mine told me about a great shepherd’s pie that she made last week and sent me the link to the recipe.  As I was deciding what to make for dinner and thinking about what I had on hand, I remembered the recipe for the shepherd’s pie.  I looked through, had everything but the mushrooms, decided they weren’t really necessary, and decided to try it out.  Turns out it was pretty easy, a little time consuming, and totally delicious!  For this dish, I used the potatoes and celery I got in 9/3 Bountiful Baskets, and carrots and onion from 8/27 Bountiful Baskets.

Recipe can be found here: Beef Shepherd’s Pie

I recommend using leftover mashed potatoes or making the mashed potatoes first so they are ready to go.

The meat mixture goes in the baking dish first.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, you spread the mashed potatoes on top, leaving 1/4″ border.  I opted to sprinkle Parmesan cheese on top.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I ended up baking mine at 400 degrees F for 30 minutes to shave off some of the baking time since I was running late.  It turned out perfect and was mostly gone before I could even take a picture of the finished product.

 

 

 

 

 

 

This one is a keeper and I will be making again sometime!

Tags: , , , , ,

Banana Muffins

5 Sep

I had some bananas from either 8/20 or 8/27 Bountiful Baskets that didn’t get eaten, so I left them out to over-ripen to make either bread or muffins.  Today, I decided we would make muffins.  The recipe I use is Banana Banana Bread from allrecipes.com.  It is really tasty and very moist, something that can be tough for banana bread.  In order to make muffins, I just changed the baking time to 20-25 minutes.

K was a good helper with stirring

 

 

 

 

 

 

A trick I learned when making muffins or cookies is to use a scoop to get the perfect amount.  We used our Oxo ice cream scoop, which gave us the perfect amount for each muffin cup.

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, we got delicious muffins to have on hand for breakfast this week.

Tags: , , ,

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.

Tags: ,

Popcorn Sight Words

4 Sep

I really don’t remember learning sight words and I don’t remember ever hearing of them until recently when I started doing research on how to help my oldest learn to read (K is 4, almost 5).  We have the first 3 collections of BOB books, thanks to a generous friend who gave them to us since her boys were done with them.  K is doing great reading the first collection, and along with that reading, I wanted to start practicing sight words.  My first thought was flash cards, but I know those can be rather boring.  Then, in the Scholastic Book Club flyer we got at school last week, there was a POP for Sight Words game.  It didn’t really explain what the “game” part of it was, but I was considering purchasing it.  Then, browsing on Pinterest, a new fun way I kill time, I came across this Popcorn Word Activities, and remembered seeing that popcorn tub at Dollar Tree a couple weeks earlier.  So, I decided that we would make it ourselves!

Supplies:
– 1 large popcorn tub, $1
– 2 small popcorn tubs, $1 each
– 1 yellow posterboard, $.50
– 2 sheets yellow construction paper (used up all the posterboard), had on hand
– Sharpie marker, had on hand
– Scissors, had on hand

Since K wanted to help me make it, we decided it would be best to make the “popcorn” be rectangles, because she’s “not very good at cutting circles, but is very good at cutting rectangles.”  So, I measured out the posterboard into 2″ x 4″ rectangles.  Since it was 22″ x 28″, I got 77 rectangles total.  I cut the first 7, then K went to work on the rest.

K cutting the popcorn rectangles

She did a phenomenal job cutting all of them.  Yes, the lines weren’t cut perfectly straight, but honestly, the jagged edges give it a more popcorn feel.  Then I went to work adding the sight words in the best handwriting I could.  I used these Dolch word lists, the pre-primer and primer lists.

The finished product

I’m still working on what games we will play using these, probably at first use them like flashcards.  I found some sight word bingo cards that I can print off and we can draw words out of the bucket to play bingo.  I”m sure K will come up with some games of her own.

I also wasn’t sure what I would do with the 2 smaller popcorn tubs, but decided they would be used to hold the different sets of popcorn inside the bigger tub for storage.  I’m sure we’ll find a way to incorporate them into a game as well.

Smaller tubs labeled for storing the 2 sets of sight words

So, I took a $9 game, made it for $2.50, plus K got some cutting practice and it was a fun way to spend a couple hours on a Sunday morning.

Tags: , ,

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!

Tags:

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.

Here we go…

3 Sep

After much deliberating, I have decided to create a blog.  It’s something that I have been thinking about for a while and friends kept suggesting, so I figured it was finally time.  I hope you enjoy reading!

Newer Entries →