Sunday, April 29, 2012

Bountiful Baskets: April 28

So I have posted about practically every Bountiful Basket I have received.  I figure even though I didn't like this one, I needed to post.  Because if nothing else, *I* want to be able to look back and see what types of trends there might be.

Fortunately for me, I chose not to purchase the extra strawberries.  Because those didn't get on our truck.  It sounds like some of them were intended to be in our baskets as well.  Strawberries would have helped me have a better attitude this week.

No pictures.  Because the idea of figuring out how to arrange a bazillion potatoes just doesn't do it for me.  I suppose I could take one photo of potatoes and broccoli and one of everything else.  Hmmm.

I got two baskets this week, but am listing what was in one basket.

So, in the baskets this week, we had the following vegetables:
  • a 10 pound bag of butter red potatoes
  • Plus another 16 potatoes, totaling another 6 pounds (the other basket contain 13 potatoes, weighing 5 pounds) (and yes, I got out my kitchen scale)
  • 4 heads of broccoli
  • a head of green cauliflower
  • an English cucumber
  • a big bag of green beans, almost 1.5 pounds
To be honest, the green beans were the only veggie I was actually happy to see.  I love broccoli (Dale hates it) but 8 heads of it is too much for even me.

The fruit was better.  There each basket contained:
  • one pineapple
  • a 3 pound bag of Fuji apples
  • a mini watermelon
  • a mango
  • 7 incredibly green bananas (8 in the second basket)
 I still love Bountiful Baskets, but 15-16 pounds of potatoes per basket is a bit excessive.  And for me, it is a bit depressing.  We had 60 pounds of potatoes in the house already.  Most of those are russets, so I guess it is nice to have some variety.  And four heads of broccoli?  I'm excited about the watermelon, even though I'm allergic.  English cucumbers are the one Bountiful Basket item I seem to consistently end up throwing out.

So, what are we going to do with all of this stuff?
  • I made eggs & potatoes for brunch yesterday.  And we had a potato-heavy beef stew for dinner.  I have plans to do corn chowder, and crab chowder.  I'm sure we'll have mashed potatoes a time or two.  I'm going to dice, saute and freeze a bunch of potatoes.  I've promised that I'll do homemade french fries too.  Oh, I have some smoked sausage, so I'm going to do up a sausage and potato skillet one night. 
  • Broccoli -- I'll put broccoli in our lunches all week while Dale is at work.  I'm planning broccoli with dinner next weekend when my parents are here.  I'll probably need to get about half of it frozen.
  • The cauliflower?  I have no idea.  I probably better freeze one, and maybe do cauliflower fritters for dinner some night.  So that we don't have an entire week in a row of potato-based soup.  I usually use cauliflower to stretch alfredo sauce and do chicken alfredo, but I'm not sure I want to have green alfredo sauce.
  • English cucumber?  Honestly, we'll end up slicing one up and using it as snacks during the day, and the other one will go bad in my fridge and get thrown out.
  • Green beans -- some went into last night's stew.  I've got chicken in the fridge I need to use, so these will probably be a side with those one night.  I don't know, but they will get used.
  • Fruit is always easy.  The mangoes will probably go into smoothies a couple days this week.  The pineapple and melon will be served as dessert with dinners.  Apples and bananas will be snacks.
Sorry to sound so negative in this post this week.  I'm mostly overwhelmed.  I purchase Bountiful Baskets to be sure my kids are eating fruit (which works this week, as always) and to get veggies besides potatoes into my family's diet, because we always have potatoes (and onions) around.  I know when I pay for the basket that I could end up with potatoes.  A five pound bag of potatoes per basket would have made me laugh -- and groan.  But bringing home THIRTY-ONE pounds of potatoes made me cry.

At least it was tortilla week.  The Bountiful Baskets tortillas are simply amazing.  That's the other thing happening with potatoes.  We'll be doing breakfast burritos 3-4 times this week, and I use three to four pounds of potatoes in those each time.

And yes.  I will still be ordering Bountiful Baskets next time.  This is the first basket in almost a year now (Bountiful Baskets started in Colorado Springs the first Saturday in June last year) that I don't think was really worth the money I paid for it.  And even this is close.  If the location in Ellicott was open -- which is about 25 miles closer to me, one way -- I would have felt that I broke even on this basket.

But that fact that Dale can stop on his way home from work and pick up a 50# bag of potatoes for a couple of dollars right now, makes the value of potatoes to me practically nothing... 


1 comment:

Tricia said...

I did notice the excess in potatoes and was not a huge fan of that. But in our family (3 teens and one young adult, plus my hubby and I) we rarely have potatoes go bad. I just get tired of them. :) When all else fails, I have one of my girls make a ton of mashed potatoes and freeze it in meal size portions and I pull it out for an easy side.

That's funny about the English Cucumber. We LOVE them! We usually eat them first, but occasionally if we have a lot of cukes I will throw one in a the juicer with an apple or two and give it to the kids to drink. That's always a hit.

I will cook broccoli with meals some, but I think I'll also just leave cut up broccoli and cauliflower out with some ranch dip and it'll get eaten throughout the day.

This one did not have kinds of veggies I liked, but overall it was okay.

We did get strawberries, and I ordered an extra flat of them. They are really good. I'm sorry you didn't get any this time :(