Bountiful Baskets

I decided to try this fresh produce Co-op called Bountiful Baskets, where basically you pay either $15 for a regular basket or $25 for an organic basket of fresh fruits and vegetables. There's various picks ups throughout our area, and luckily one about 10 minutes away from me. I've heard fantastic things about it so I was really really excited to try it out. This morning I picked up my first basket, and here's what it contained.

Doesn't it look delicious? I got 12 oranges, 11 apples, 4 pears, 1 asian pair (which I have never had before, but am excited to try), 1 onion, 2 types of lettuce, broccoli, celery root (the weird root thing in the front right), a bundle of cilantro, strawberries, snow peas and 4 tomatoes. And I only paid $30 for all of this ( I got the organic basket, then there's a $3 first time basket fee and a $1.50  processing charge). There's no way I could have gotten all this organic produce at the store for $30.

You may be wondering about the quality of it, and so far I've found that it's pretty darn good. The strawberries aren't the best I've ever had, but I'm also taking into account that it's not strawberry season right now and any strawberries I eat never live up to the one's I get from Spooners Berry farm, which have the most phenomenal berries I've ever tasted. I also ate an orange and it was really good, very juicy and ripe.

I really love that this is encouraging me to eat more fruits and veggies, often times I find myself just buying the same things every time I go to the store. I kind of love not knowing what I'm going to get and then looking up new recipes to see what I can make. The celery root had me really stumped, I had to post a picture of it on facebook to find out what it is, but somebody suggested grating it along with some green apples and making a slaw which I think sounds absolutely delicious. I'm so excited to experiment!