Bountiful Baskets: August 31

Oh, what a fun Bountiful Baskets morning!  Getting up wasn't so good.  As I was heading to bed way too late last night, I realized that I had a ginormous stockpot of apples simmering, and a regular stockpot of tomatoes.

So I had to stay up another hour to get the apples sauced, and the tomatoes too.  But, 1 quart of tomato sauce, 2 quarts of applesauce, and 1 quart of apple juice... yeah, probably worth a bit less sleep.

Anyway, today I got a basket, a 36 pound box of pears, a 25 pound box of Roma tomatoes, and something new:  a stew pack.

Here's a photo of my basket:

It includes:

• 2 ears of bi-color corn (I know, only one is pictured)
• 2 zucchini
• 1 bunch organic broccoli
• 1 head Romaine lettuce
• 4 big russet potatoes
• 3 green bell peppers
• 7 Hatch chilies (hot)
• 2 cantaloupe
• 8 bananas
• 3 peaches
• 4 Asian pears

My Stew Pack ($7.50) looked like this:

This includes:

• 5 pounds potatoes
• 1 pound bag of carrots
• 1 big bunch celery
• 4 onions
• 1 garlic bulb
• 1 big bunch kale
• 1 bunch parsley, I'm pretty sure
• 3 bay leaves

I have no idea yet what I'm doing with everything.  I'll brainstorm it a bit though:

• melons, Asian pears, peaches, and bananas will just get eaten, as will some of the Bartlett pears.
• Lettuce and potatoes are staples that just get used.
• Green peppers and Hatch chilies will probably both be used along with some of the tomatoes from the big box to can either some Rotel-type thing, or possibly salsa
• Corn we'll eat with dinner tonight
• Broccoli we'll roast with olive oil and salt and have tomorrow night
• Zucchini -- I'm still thinking about that.  I've got a bunch more to go with it.  
• Stew pack -- I'm hoping to do some type of potato-kale soup, and I want to do a crockpot meal with potatoes, carrots, celery and onions.