A Mom's Spare Time

Monday, February 10, 2014

Bountiful Baskets Start to Finish, Part 3 - Let's Get Cooking!

Yesterday, I made a loose meal plan for the week after looking over our basket haul. I say "loosely", because, let's face it, life happens! This is what the menu for the week looks like at the moment:

Sunday - Lunch - mini pizzas (leftover English muffins and pepperoni)

Supper - salad with chicken chunks (baked with roasted tomato slices from last month's BB), blue cheese stuffed mushrooms (last month's BB), turnip greens with bacon and garlic

Monday - S. has gymnastics, so we'll be eating out!

Tuesday - Turkey and Sausage Apple Stuffing (leftover from Thanksgiving...2012...but still yummy! Stuffing is from The Pioneer Woman's recipe.)

Wednesday - Autumn Pork Roast, Pinto Beans, Cucumber and Tomato Salad

Thursday - My late night to work. Leftovers all around.

Friday - Lunch - Cheesy Broccoli Soup

Supper - Meatloaf, Roasted Leeks

Saturday - Cheese Enchiladas, veggies and dip

Sunday (our Valentine's Day because of work schedules) - steak (it's good to have friends who raise cattle!), asparagus, mushrooms (sautéed or breaded and fried, I haven't decided)

The main dishes were already made and in the freezer, and the sides I will make fresh, so Sunday was baked goods day. I started with the cut up tortillas that came in the hostess pack. The instructions said to brush with oil, salt, and bake...but I already have bags of plain corn tortilla chips. I made about half of these into cinnamon sugar chips, instead. Just spread the tortilla pieces on a cookie sheet:

fighting the OCD urge to make them fit perfectly (it will just get messed up when you flip them!) Brush with oil or use cooking spray. Laziness won out over health, and I used the spray. Sprinkle with cinnamon sugar, then flip and repeat.

Bake in oven preheated to 400 degrees.

I have no idea why I felt the need to photograph that, but there it is.

Watch carefully! I burned several before I finally stopped trying to do too many things at once. If you are rotating four trays, by the time you finish getting two trays prepared, the other two in the oven will be ready to come out.

Let cool on the cookie sheet, then transfer to plastic container or baggie.

I also tried cocoa and sugar, seasoned salt, garlic salt, and paprika and lime as toppings. Several ended up too salty - I can be a bit heavy-handed with toppings - but all were sampled heavily by the crew!

Next up, something for breakfasts. I saw a recipe for Blueberry Zucchini Bread on allrecipes.com, and thought I would try it with blackberries. Zucchini bread is pretty much the only way Daddy will eat the things!

Quick breads give me a fit at this altitude, but I've found it helps to sift the dry ingredients, whether it calls for that or not,

and either reduce the liquids, or add flour. I added 1/4 cup flour, because I replaced the only liquid (oil) with a half pint of apple butter.

Pour into four mini loaf pans, or two regular. I sprinkled a few more berries on top of each. I baked as prescribed in the recipe, then when the outside looked done, turned the oven off and left them in. That helps the middle finish cooking, without burning the outside.

Perfect! Chewy crust, soft inside.

Hey! That was supposed to be for breakfast, you guys!

Next post: loaded fruit muffins, and blue cheese stuffed mushrooms. Do not mix the two recipes.

Sunday, February 9, 2014

Bountiful Baskets Start to Finish, Part 2 - Basket Day!

Basket mornings are a little like contribution mornings. I hit the main BB Facebook page after breakfast, and keep refreshing as people in other states add pictures of their baskets. Items definitely vary from state to state, but you can get a pretty good idea this way, and plan some possible trades. I love zucchini, but Daddy is not a huge fan, so I post an offer to trade (if we get some) on our local page.

I highly recommend volunteering (which you are supposed to do every couple months, anyway). For most sites, you just show up an hour early, find your site coordinator, and they will put you to work! Basically, the truck pulls in, and a couple volunteers jump in to help hand things down. Other volunteers grab the boxes and bags and stack them where the site coordinator points. The whole shebang is unloaded and neatly organized in minutes.

Next (here at least), the coordinator will tell you to find a partner, and assign you a fruit or vegetable. You'll move down the line of baskets with one of you holding the box of, say, bell peppers, and the other putting the prescribed number into each basket. It moves very quickly, almost like a dance, and soon you have 95 full baskets ready to go. Volunteers will then get to pick one extra item from the odds and ends that didn't divide out evenly, and anything else is divided again among the baskets. Add-ons are stacked neatly at another table nearby. I have seen volunteers with babies on their backs, and have volunteered myself while hugely pregnant, so you don't have to be able to heft a 25 lb box of tomatoes to help!

If you are not volunteering, just show up a few minutes before your appointed time, with your receipt printed out (or pulled up on your phone). No confirmation number = no baskets! We actually have two sites at the same business, because 95 baskets were never enough. Participants are always cautioned to make sure they gave the right line - nothing like getting to the front and finding your
name is not on the list!

One line - mine - is going to the covered area, the other is going into a nearby warehouse. I was running late, so my line was almost through, and most of the baskets are gone.

The wait usually isn't long, though, and you inevitably see old friends and make new ones. One of my older girls came with me once, and remarked, "Everyone is pregnant!" I told her that's because moms are cheap. When weather is nice, and kids are running around playing, it's almost like a party atmosphere - one of my favorite parts of the whole thing, really!

C. commandeered the new cart.

When it's your turn, you'll show your number, and get your basket(s). Every site does things a little differently - here, the person checking numbers will call out how many you have

My hero! Super organized, super friendly, super patient - Super Woman!

(followed by, "Really? Three again, Ami? And, where's the baby?") and a volunteer (or volunteers) will plop them all on a table.

Here's where it helps to have another person with you - of course, when the baskets were put together, heavy things were placed on the bottom. Now you have to transfer them to your own container(s), and you don't want to just dump them. I like to bring C to carry the lighter stuff in a bag, then I can dump the heavier things into my container.

C. is putting Romaine, strawberries and blackberries in his bag.

Next you'll pick up any add-ons you contributed for. You'll have to show your number again. The main basket items are usually inspected as they are distributed, but you'll want to check the add-ons yourself (they come prepackaged, so no one at your site will have looked inside). In almost a year of doing this, I only once found mold on some strawberries, and it was just a couple. I accepted the case anyway, tossed the moldy ones, and made jam first thing the next morning. If something is not in acceptable condition, you can refuse it and get a credit on your account. It happens, especially in summer! An entire truckload of fruits and vegetables travelling all day is bound to have an occasional bad spot.

No problems here!

C. taste tested just to make sure.

Now you have to fit it all in your car. No, you are not allowed to leave children behind so that you can fill their car seats with apples. Make any trades (of food, not children) if warranted. Reward your helper with a stop at Sonic on the way home.

When I get home, I like to spread everything out in nice little piles.

The kids like to help with this part, and we have a mini botany lesson as they ask what each thing is, and what part of a plant it comes from.

They both kept kissing things!

By the time we finished, one pack of strawberries was noticeably emptier than the others. Can you really complain when your kids are sneaking fresh fruit?

This week, I decided to weigh everything, and compare prices with the local grocery chain. In three baskets, we had:
7.62 lbs. bananas
3.82 lbs. zucchini
3.9 lbs. cucumber
4.37 lbs. oranges
3 lbs. strawberries
18 oz. blackberries (HUGE ones!)
2.98 lbs. asparagus
3 heads Romaine
3 bundles leeks
8 lbs. Granny Smith apples
3.52 lbs. broccoli
5 grapefruit

This cost $45, as opposed to $75.03 at grocery store prices - a savings of 40%. The quality is much better, too - the heads of Romaine are bigger than the store's, the strawberries fresher, asparagus much better-looking, etc.

The hostess pack was harder to compare, because the local store didn't have jicama, sugar snap peas, or cherry tomatoes (seriously?!). What they did have would have cost $21, so that was probably a decent savings as well.

I got the bread pack because I love the English muffin bread.

I decided to serve the garlic rosemary baguette with supper tonight (mock chicken marbala), and omigosh! I am not a huge fan of rosemary, but this bread is fantastic! Most of the baguette disappeared by the end of supper, and the rest became a bedtime snack. One loaf of English muffin was saved out for breakfasts, and the rest went into the freezer.

Once my mother had placed her order and I had that bagged up, I started planning. Nothing looked like it was on the verge of overripe, but I had some apples from the store getting soft, and some huge mushrooms that need to be used soon. So, salad with baked chicken and blue cheese stuffed mushrooms for supper tomorrow. Apple muffins for breakfasts this week. I made similar plans for the next two weeks, balancing freezer meals with fresh sides, and a few baked goods for breakfasts. Decided which items I want to make tomorrow, and set appropriate ingredients with printed recipes on the kitchen counter. Everything else was wedged into the refrigerator or placed in bowls on my very full buffet. (NOTE: many BB participants rinse everything in a vinegar-water solution and dry before storing. I didn't do that this go-round, but it does seem to help things keep longer.)

Tomorrow: let's get cooking!

Saturday, February 8, 2014

Bountiful Baskets Start to Finish - Part One

I have shared several posts involving items I got through Bountiful Baskets, and always get questions (usually private messaged) about the whole process. Here I'm going to share this week's experience, start to finish, and hopefully answer a bunch of those questions at once.

First, you'll want to go to bountifulbaskets.org and look around. The Locations tab will tell you if there is a site near you, and the New Participant Instructions will give you the basics. Please read it! Sooooooooo many people on the main Facebook page ask the same questions over and over, or complain they didn't know something that is clearly spelled out.

In a nutshell, BB is a Co-op that shares fruits and vegetables, occasionally items like breads and granola, coconut oil, etc. The main basket comes for a $15 contribution. It is not delivered, you go and pick it up, usually on the Saturday after you make your contribution (some sites are Fridays). It is not organic (but you can pay extra for that), and it is not locally grown. It is, however, really good quality, for a very low price. You don't know what you are getting in the main basket until it arrives, which makes Saturdays a little like Christmas! We often get things we wouldn't have tried otherwise, or things we can't even get here.

There are also add-ons, which you can contribute for if you want. Recently it was bulk tomatoes, carrots, and blackberries, different types of bread and granolas (we LOVE the granolas!), and a Superbowl hostess pack.

If you want to try it out, set up an account (My Account tab). Contributions open on Mondays at noon, so you won't see your site until then - but, if you are in the western part of the country, you can start clicking on the Participate Now tab at 8 or 9AM, and take a peek at what other states are getting - it's almost always exactly the same! This is when a lot of wheeling and dealing happens - people in an area messaging each other with, "who wants to split a nectarine add-on?" By noon, you should know what you want, and be ready to place your order. Some sites, like ours, sell out very quickly! Certain items will also sell out before others. All contributions close on Tuesday evening.

I forgot to get a screen shot of this week's offerings, but here is what I contributed for (with my contribution number blacked out):

Dear *****,

Thank you for making your contribution to participate in Bountiful Baskets this cycle.

This is your Contribution Confirmation.

Please bring a printed copy or electronic copy of this document with you to the site below on the day of your pickup. This is mandatory to pickup your items.

Your Contribution Number is *****

You have made contributions for the following items:

Product Name	Qty	Price	Total

Conventional Baskets	3	$15.00	$45.00
Valentine Hostess Pack	1	$25.00	$25.00
Blackberry - 12 - 6 oz clamshells	2	$14.25	$28.50
5 loaves - 1 garlic rosemary baguette, 2 savory 9 grain, 2 English muffin bread	1	$10.00	$10.00

Handling Fee:

$2.50

Total Price:

$111.00

Item Name: Conventional Baskets

Description: Roughly 50% fruit, 50% vegetables, and 100% healthy, fun and delicious!

Description: Valentine Hostess Pack - Hoping for 3 lb chips, a dozen Valentine day Butter Cookies, Veggies to dip; grape tomatoes, baby carrots, mushrooms, sugar snap peas, jicama. Fruit to dip; pineapple & strawberries 2 lb. Cookie Ingredients: Flour (cake and pastry), butter, sugar, whole eggs, salt, baking powder, vanilla. Corn Tortilla Chip pack - Pre-cut for frying or baking. 3 Lbs Must be refrigerated. No preservatives. Ingredients: Corn, water, lime Cooking Instructions: To bake: heat the oven to 400 degrees and arrange the racks to divide the oven into thirds. Place the chips in a single layer on a cutting board. Brush them with a light coating of vegetable oil and sprinkle with salt. Flip the tortillas and repeat. Transfer single layer on a baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining tortillas and arrange on additional baking sheets. Bake til crisp and golden. To fry: heat 1-inch of Canola Oil in a large, deep frying pan over medium-high heat to 350 degrees. Fry a few chips at a time, turning occasionally, for 45 seconds-1 minute, or until crisp and lightly browned. Place in serving bowl, and sprinkle salt to taste. You must open & quality inspect your case before you leave. Once you have signed for the case and left we can not give you a credit for quality issues.

Description: Blackberry - 12 - 6 oz clamshells - product of Mexico You must open & quality inspect your packs before you leave. Once you have signed for the pack and left we can not give you a credit for quality issues.

Description: 5 Loaves - 1 Garlic Rosemary Baguette, 2 Savory 9 Grain, and 2 English Muffin Bread Garlic Rosemary Baguette Ingredients: enriched flour (wheat flour, malted barley flour, niacin, reduced iron, thiamine mononitrate, riboflavin, folic acid), water, cultured wheat flour, yeast, honey, salt, extra virgin olive oil, rosemary, vinegar, garlic, enzyme. Garlic Rosemary Nutritionals: *Percent Daily Values (DV) are based on 2,000-calorie diet. Serv Size 2-in slice (53g) %DV* Serv. per container about 7 Calories 130 Calories from fat 10 Total Fat 1.5g 2% Sat. Fat 0 0 Trans Fat 0g 0% Cholesterol 0mg 0% Sodium 270mg 11% Total Carb 27g 9% Dietary Fiber 1g 4% Sugars 1g Protein 4g Vitamin A0% - Vitamin C 0%, Calcium 2% - Iron 10%

All this is followed by pick-up time and directions. I always get 3 regular baskets - two for us and one for my mother. The Valentine pack sounded like fun, and the English muffin bread is to die for! I will freeze most of the bread, keeping one loaf at a time out. Mom and another lady wanted to split blackberries, so half of those will be theirs.

Once you have ordered, start collecting recipes for the add-ons you ordered. Bountiful Baskets has a great blog, and a Pinterest page with recipes organized by main ingredient. Clean your canning supplies and organize your freezer. Fridays are leftover nights all across the country, as participants make room for their haul! Our house was no exception, and I used the 'extra' time to clean out the back of the van and throw in my new wheeled cart, and some cloth bags. I also made sure I had my receipt printed out and in the car, although those of you with those new-fangled phone thingies can just show your receipt that way.

Tomorrow - basket day! (Well, actually, today - Saturday - is basket day, but I'm BUSY, so you can read about it tomorrow!)

Friday, February 7, 2014

Read These!

Did I say I was going to have more time to read books and write reviews when I was on maternity leave? I'm a really funny person, aren't I?

I did get a few books read - only so much you can do when you are sitting there nursing Mr. Piggie, and trying to convince his older siblings that just because they are out of arm's reach that does not mean they don't have to do what they are told (such a PERFECT time for someone to enter her testing-my-independence stage). Typing with one hand got old fast, though, and was mostly reserved for important things like Facebook posts.

Maternity leave is over (wah!) and I have a stack of books I need to return before I owe my whole $6 paycheck (long story involving messed-up disability payments), so here are some quick descriptions and reviews.

9780689862786

"I refuse to speak further of the Ten-legged One...but the more I think about it, the more I like it. Why mess around with Catholicism when you can have your own customized religion? All you need is a disciple or two...and a god."

Fed up with his parents' boring old religion, agnostic-going-on-atheist Jason Bock invents a new god — the town's water tower. He recruits an unlikely group of worshippers: his snail-farming best friend, Shin, cute-as-a-button (whatever that means) Magda Price, and the violent and unpredictable Henry Stagg. As their religion grows, it takes on a life of its own. While Jason struggles to keep the faith pure, Shin obsesses over writing their bible, and the explosive Henry schemes to make the new faith even more exciting — and dangerous.

When the Chutengodians hold their first ceremony high atop the dome of the water tower, things quickly go from merely dangerous to terrifying and deadly. Jason soon realizes that inventing a religion is a lot easier than controlling it, but control it he must, before his creation destroys both his friends and himself.

One of our reference librarians pointed this book out to me, and I was immediately intrigued by the presence. The initial description I read implied that the religion spread much further than this small group, however, so I was disappointed by something that was in no way the author's fault. It was an enjoyable book, and brought up some interesting points to discuss, but I was also disappointed in how shallowly some were explored. Jason's relationship with his father, for example, and how religion is treated in his family (basically, blind faith - not in a cult-like way, just in a complacent, don't-think-too-hard way). While his father's final decision jives with the story and his character, oe of his final comments doesn't.

I did like the fact that things aren't neatly tied up in the end (as we know, I hate unrealistic endings), and that (spoiler alert) Hautman did not feel the need to let the 'good guy' get the girl. Jason's character is well-drawn, the others not as much so, but still distinct enough to go beyond initial stereotypes. Will appeal to midle or high school students who fancy themselves a bit of a rebel. Will probably cause hysterical outcry if used as classroom reading (discussion questions available on bn.com).

9780547738505

"Grace Pizzelli is the average one, nothing like her brilliant older sister, Emily, who works for Rasmussem, creators of the world’s best virtual reality games. The games aren’t real, though—or at least they weren’t. Now Emily has hidden herself inside a pink and sparkly game meant for little girls. No one knows why, or how to convince her to come back out, and the technology can’t keep her safe for much longer. Grace may consider herself average, but she’s the only one who can save Emily. So Grace enters the game, hoping to talk her sister out of virtual suicide before time runs out. Otherwise Emily will die—for real."

I have been a longtime fan of Vivian Vande Velde. The basic premise of being stuck inside a video game is explored in her earlier title, Heir Apparent - note similar cover:

The difference here is that Emily is purposely stuck inside, and Grace discovers very quickly that the game itself is not behaving as it should be. Offers a somewhat plausible explanation for how game characters could, through their own programming, begin acting independently. Parts of the adventure wear a bit thin in places, and the reveal of Emily's big secret was more of a "Really? That's it? Huh." moment. Unlike Godless, this one does wrap up a little too neatly in the end. I currently have it in the YA collection, but I think I will move it to Juvenile Sci-Fi. Should appeal to girls around 10 years old, an interest in computer games not required.

9780439757799

"16-year-old Alex decides to get even. His parents are separated, his father is dating his former third-grade teacher, and being 16 isn't easy, especially when it comes to girls. Instead of revenge though, Alex ends up in trouble with the law and is ordered to do community service at a senior center where he is assigned to Solomon Lewis, a "difficult" senior with a lot of gusto, advice for Alex, and a puzzling (yet colorful) Yiddish vocabulary. Eventually, the pair learn to deal with their past and each other in ways that are humorous, entertaining, and life-changing."

Contented sigh. Does Sonnenblick write anything that is NOT brilliant? Here he takes an old theme - young kid screws up, old fart teaches him the meaning of life - and makes it seem completely fresh and new, as if no one had ever come up with such a concept before. Sonnenblick is a master at using humor - the kind of humor that has you continually reading passages aloud, until your husband finally tells you to shut up so he can read it himself - around the darkest subjects, while still bringing you to tears. (Drums, Girls and Dangerous Pie - funniest book about childhood cancer I have ever read.)

The main characters are very real, and if the plot 'twist' was obvious miles before it happened, I didn't care. Okay, so I'm smarter than a 16-year-old boy - that was obvious from the first chapter. I'm not as funny, though, and nowhere near as charming as Sol - but then, I always did have a thing for little old men. Definitely the best one of the bunch, and an easy crossover for adults who aren't put off by the YA label!

Saturday, February 1, 2014

Blue Cheese Stuffed Pasta Shells

I made generic stuffed pasta shells last week, and as we were eating them, Daddy mentioned that they might be good with blue cheese instead of Mozzarella.

He mentioned it again at least three times in the next few days.

Because I can take a hint, and because I still had leftover ingredients to use up, I made them again for supper - with blue cheese. It's a simple dish, and one everyone in the family can be happy with.

Start by mixing your filling. Plenty of room for changing things up, but I used ground hamburger (browned, of course), a small container of Ricotta cheese, a small container of blue cheese, and just enough pasta sauce to stick it all together.

You can also add onions, garlic, mushrooms, veggies, spices, or other cheeses. Since the pasta sauce I used had most of those things in it already, I left it simple.

Cook the pasta shells al dente - by which I mean, just a tiny bit flexible, especially if you are planning to freeze this. Mushy pasta just ruins a meal, no matter how good the flavor is!

Pour enough pasta sauce into a baking dish to cover the bottom, and start scooping filling into the shells with a spoon. Fill them to bursting!

Lay them in the dish, closer together than the ones in this picture.

Once you have wall-to-wall shells, pour more pasta sauce over the top. Sprinkle with another container of blue cheese (saving out a bit for Daddy's salad) and a handful of Parmesan. Or Mozzarella if you prefer. Or shredded Swiss. Or just blue cheese.

Cover with foil and either freeze for later, or bake, covered, at 350 for about 45 minutes. Uncover and bake for another ten or so, then let sit for a few minutes (out of the oven) before serving. Mmmmm, cheese!

Thursday, January 30, 2014

Birthday Girl

A certain young lady who is turning FOUR today is working on her letter sounds, and wrote her own alphabet book. So, if you will indulge us:

A is for Sheridan, because Sheridan is

Adorable