Bountiful Baskets: October 26

Any local friends who want to be doing Bountiful Baskets, I have to say that we really do need more participation in Ellicott.  We're debating whether we need to drop back to every other week.  That is sad.  I love having baskets every week, but wow, are our numbers low!

That being said, it was a wonderful basket today, and amazing volunteers and wonderful participants.

Check out the photo of one of my baskets:


Included in my TWO baskets:

• 4 fennel
• 4 romaine lettuce packages
• 16 red onions
• 4 yellow squash
• 2 6 oz packages blackberries
• 15 bananas
• 10 Asian pears
• 12 persimmons
• 2 pineapple
• 2 personal size watermelon

I also got a 40 pound box of Honeycrisp Apples and a 25 pound box of tomatoes.  One thing I love about the Honeycrisp apples is that I paid about HALF of what they are on sale for at Sprouts this week.  And they are big and gorgeous.

What will I do with this stuff?

• bananas, Asian pears, pineapple and watermelon will simply be eaten.  As will the lettuce.
• With the blackberries, I want to do something fun and special, but honestly, they'll probably just be eaten too.
• Persimmons will probably mostly be dried.  We'll see.
• Fennel -- I foresee a whole lot of potato-fennel soup.  Of some sort.  Yum.  I love fennel, and never would have discovered it without Bountiful Baskets.
• Squash -- we've been adding it to spaghetti and such.  Maybe I'll do up a chunky veggie-rich spaghetti sauce to can.
• Onions -- we have an awful lot of onions right now.  Some will get canned with the tomatoes, I am positive.  Some will just be used in making meals.  
• but I'm considering dehydrating a few onions also, because I really want to be able to use them but there are just too many around.