Food Co-op Time!

   We participate in a food co-op called Bountiful Baskets. It's a great way to get fresh produce while paying at least half of what you would pay at the grocery store. The co-op operates in several states and is all run by volunteers. If you are interested just head over to www.bountifulbaskets.org. The baskets change every week which helps to expand my eating habits and keeps us from getting in the "what's for dinner" rut. Often times we get things that I'm not familiar with so it provides me an excuse to do some online research and ask people for recipes to try. This week's basket was no exception as we got a couple things I'd never bought before.

   The basket had baby yams [one of my favorites!], romaine lettuce, green bell peppers, cabbage, celery, strawberries, nectaries, plums, grapes, a melon called Piel De Sapo and tomatoes [which I forgot to put in the original picture]. There were also bananas that I just realized I put away before I took the picture. Every basket is only $15! We've been doing the food co-op for a few weeks and I've now developed a system for making sure that we use everything because no matter how cheap something is, if you end up throwing it a way it was an expensive purchase. I don't do my supplemental grocery shopping until after I pick up the basket and do my menu planning around what we got for the week. Another great thing is that they try to give you somethings that are not quite ripe yet so you can make it last a little longer and not feel that you have to gorge yourself on produce for 2 or 3 days.
   I had no idea what Piel De Sapo was so I hopped on my laptop and googled it. On my quest for information I discovered a new food website that I've since used about 4 times. It's called foodista.com and it basically can answer any questions you have about any ingredient. I've learned that the Piel De Sapo is a Spanish melon similar to a honeydew in texture. I took it over to my family's BBQ today and everyone liked it and compared the taste to something like a crenshaw. I've never had a crenshaw so my opinion on the melon is that it was slightly sweet and somewhere between a firm watermelon and honeydew in texture. 
  I'm not really experienced with cabbage so it will be the experimental item of the week. I asked several family member what they do with cabbage and think I'll be trying a fried cabbage recipe that my Grandma Rose gave me and maybe cabbage rolls [which were suggested by both Aunt Wendi and Penni]. We still had some Roma tomatoes left over from the last baskets so tonight I am making my own sun [oven] dried tomatoes. I did some research online and it seems fairly simple just time consuming. I put them in the oven tonight at 200 degrees and will set my alarm to check on them at 6 hours. Wish me luck!

In 6-12 hours these will hopefully be "sun" dried