In Our Fridge...On Our Plates

Despite my {sarcastic} rant against quinoa and EVOO in a previous note, I really have been working on eating healthier.  The main way that has been happening has been by ordering a Bountiful Basket (a $20 box filled with 3-5 different fruits and 3-5 different kinds of vegetables)! All said, it is probably a good 10-15 pounds of produce that needs to be consumed in some way!

The last two baskets have filled our refrigerator with apples, pears, oranges, a pineapple, green, yellow, red, and orange peppers, squash, zucchini, onions, tomatoes—cherry and regular, 2 avocados, 3 heads of lettuce, celery, beets, 2 cabbages, radishes, carrots, and asparagus. (And I feel like there were a couple other things, but I can't remember what they would be.)

Because it is a lot of fresh produce for the two of us to eat, the key to making sure we’re not wasting our money is to make sure that we don’t let it rot in the refrigerator… Sooo, the responsibility lies on me to make meals that use up these things! 

Here is a list of the dishes that I made/plan to make with the produce from the last 2 Bountiful Baskets:

Cucumbers – cream cheese/cucumber dip (to go with potato chips!)
Cabbage – Runzas! Also thought of making stir-fried vegetables, but didn’t get around to it.
Lettuce – Taco Salad, Grilled Chicken Salad
Squash/Zucchini – Zucchini Skillet (with black beans, tomatoes, green peppers and corn to make into a Southwestern-style quesadilla), Zucchini bread
Carrots – Baked Carrots and Potatoes (seasoned with rosemary and olive oil [or if you prefer, EVOO]), Hobo Foil Dinners
Celery – Celery and Peanut Butter sticks
Beets – Pickled beets (still need to get my mom’s recipe for those!)
Avocados – Guacamole
Green/Yellow/Orange/Red Peppers – Chicken Caccatori (or however you spell that dish), Fajitas or Fajita Chicken Bake, Porcupine Meatballs, Scrambled Eggs/Home-fried Potatoes, Zucchini Skillet, Biscuit Pizza
Onions – In anything and everything!
Tomatoes – Zucchini Skillet, Fresh on Santa Fe Sandwiches
Radishes – Dipped in Ranch (I admit, Isaac was the only one who ate any…)
Asparagus – Sauteed with garlic and soy sauce
Fruit – Fresh for breakfast, Apple pie, occasionally an apple for Isaac’s lunch

And so far, we’ve only had to throw out some of the radishes, part of the asparagus, a carrot, and a little bit of the lettuce…I’d say that’s a pretty good track record! 


(By the way, you should check into whether Bountiful Baskets are offered in your area!  Just pull up www.bountifulbaskets.org and it gives a list of the states and cities that offer basket pick-ups.  Sign up is free!)