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Bountiful Baskets 5/19/2018
I was so glad to see Saturday come this week. After missing our Bountiful Baskets produce csa last weekend due to my daughter’s college graduation, I was so happy to get my produce this weekend. The kids and I were up early so we could volunteer at our drop site again. As I have said before I really enjoy seeing the volunteers each Saturday. I love catching up with them. It’s fun to see what everyone has been up to, especially when it had been 2 weeks since we were there.
The weather this weekend was really beautiful. Summer is coming to Las Vegas, and we are being spoiled by having some respite from the heat. There was a light breeze and temperatures were in the 70’s which for mid May is beautiful weather. We took our time distributing the produce to enjoy the morning.
This week’s baskets were heavier on fruit than on vegetables. That’s not always bad except that I really regret that there wasn’t any citrus this week. Some weeks oranges or tangerines are plentiful, not so much this week.
My vegetable basket included 3 ears of corn, 2 cucumbers, 1 zucchini, 1 bunch of kale and a large romaine lettuce. I was happy with the vegetables, I was thrilled to see the romaine, with the romaine lettuce recalls out here in the southwest, we haven’t gotten romaine in such a long time. My dogs were excited too, they love romaine lettuce! My daughter gives them each a huge leaf of it and the dogs think it is the most amazing treat in the world. Nothing like happy puppies to make everyone smile. The only thing I wasn’t overly excited to see was the zucchini, I have a love/hate relationship with this vegetable. I love to hate it! Maybe I am being to hard on it, I don’t actually hate it, but I don’t really like it. I love it in zucchini bread but that is about it. My daughter tends to grate it really fine and tries to hide it in soup or something like that so that we use it and it doesn’t go to waste. Of all the produce I have to say I LOVE CORN! I am a Michigan girl at heart, and I have fond memories of fresh picked bushel burlap bags of sweet corn. We would eat corn on the cob all summer long. I don’t think my family could eat it as frequently as my brothers & I did when we were growing up, but what do they know, they aren’t from Michigan. They don’t know how good fresh from the field corn is.
Now for the fruit… We received a personal watermelon, a pineapple, bananas, 2 packages of organic strawberries, 5 tomatoes on the vine, 1 mango and 5 apples. Overall the fruit is great. I could do without so many pineapples lately, it seems like we get alot of them this time of the year. Summer is coming and summer is watermelon & berry season, so I very happy with the melon and berries. My daughter made a vegetable soup and used the tomatoes already and they were a nice addition. Can we talk about mango’s for a minute. Maybe I am doing it wrong, but are mango’s really worth the work? I mean, once you peel them and try to cut them off the pit, or seed or whatever that huge thing is in the middle, I feel like I get very little fruit. Generally we just freeze the chunks and my daughter uses them in smoothies. The organic strawberries were amazing, I sliced them up and tossed them with a little bit of organic sugar and made homemade pancakes and topped them with the berries. SO GOOD! Pancakes with strawberries is my favorite breakfast.
Remember last week when I posted my grocery store produce, here ? This week’s haul cost me $18.00 for the share of fruit and vegetables. That is a much more amazing deal than the nearly $40.00 that I paid last week for produce at our local Smith’s grocery store. If you are curious to learn more about Bountiful Baskets click here. They are amazing. They try to bring you produce as local and in season as possible.
*this post does not include affiliate links.
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No Bountiful Baskets This Week
This week we did not purchase out share of Bountiful Baskets. My daughter graduated from college today so we knew ahead of time that this week we wouldn’t participate. That means that we had to purchase our produce at the grocery store. After the graduation ceremony and our lunch out I decided to go to my local Smith’s grocery store. With tomorrow being Mother’s Day, I decided to have a nice relaxing day at home tomorrow and not have to worry about grocery shopping.
I did still have some produce left over from last week, but not much. I have alot of corn on the cob, green onions, broccoli & canteloupe. So I needed quite a bit to get us through the week until I pick up our produce share next Saturday from Bountiful Baskets. This is also a great opportunity for me to share the value of Boutiful Baskets compared to a regular grocery store. I know that every grocery store’s pricing will not be the same as mine, but Smith’s is one of my normal grocery stores, so it is a great guide for me.
This week I picked up: 2 personal watermelon’s, 8 apples, 5 oranges, a 3 lb bag of halo’s, bananas, 2 lbs of strawberries, 4 potatoes, 1 head of green leaf lettuce, 1 english cucumber, 1 head of cauliflower, green beans, mini sweet peppers, 1 lb bag of organic carrots, 1 bag of baby carrots, & a large container of sliced mushrooms (normally I would buy whole mushrooms but these were on sale for 99 cents for a large container, coudn’t pass them up).
Today’s grand total was $39.90! That is absolutely crazy! My produce share from Bountiful Baskets is $18.00. This is confirmation that Bountiful Baskets is an amazing deal for your money. I can’t wait for next Saturday. I love being surprised by what my baskets will contain. I love getting fresh produce for an amazing price. It makes feeding my family healthy food a wonderfully affordable alternative.
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Katie’s A Graduate
Today was a very momentous day in our family. My daughter graduted from the University Of Nevada Las Vegas. My husband and I are very proud parents. She graduated with a Bachelors Degree in Mathmatics with a Minor in Secondary Education. She is going to be a high school math teacher.
As my husband, son and I sat in the stadium and watched all of the other families come in and claim their seats I was amazed at how many people showed up to support their graduates. The stadium was huge and it was full. There were over 1500 graduates and I am sure that all of those families were just as proud as we were.
It made me so happy that the first glimpse I had of her, when her College of the Sciences walked out, she looked so happy! I am sure that she was happy & relieved to have made it to this point and to be receiving her degree.
What an amazing day we had…
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Welcome To Our Simple Days
When I was thinking of starting a blog I really wanted to share with you all how I try to incorporate natural and simple living into our daily lives. The more I thought about it the more I realized that natural and simple living have meant many different things to my family over the years and I can only imagine that I am not the only one who has ever experienced this. The internet is full of such a wide variety of people looking for ways to live a more simple life. There are people who struggle financially that living a natural life seems out of their reach, and there are people who are financially stable and are looking for more ways to live naturally. I want this blog to be for everyone no matter your age or income. I hope homemakers, single parents, full time working parents, men, women, young adults, retirees and people in their middle years feel equally at home. I hope that we can share something that is relavent to everyone in part or in whole.
My goal with this blog is to share what I have tried that works for my family, things that I am hoping to try, and things that we have tried that really don’t work for us. I hope that as I share things you will also share with us. I know that I have alot to learn but I also know that I have alot to share.
I am sure many of you have read my “About” post located here I would like to share bit more about myself and my family than I touched on in that post. I hope that through out my posts you all can get to know myself and maybe bits about my family too. I may share more about my daughter than my son or husband, as the men in my life are very private and I have to respect that.
I grew up in an very small town in the northern lower peninsula of Michigan. My Mother was a single mom with 4 children and even though she always worked, we were very poor. My childhood was spent thinking Kool Aid was juice, and government cheese made the best grilled cheese sandwiches. We were on governement assistance and even though my mom didn’t really talk about it I think she had W.I. C. also for a time. I remember going to the little store near our home that had a butcher shop and asking for 1/4 lb of hamburger and when money was a little better we could get 1/2 lb hamburger to put into the Hamburger Helper.
My brother’s and I were very fortunate to have had a wonderful Grandmother who loved us and did so many wonderful things for us, like giving us a dime and taking us to pick out Penny Candy at the Ben Franklin store and explaining that some candy was less than other candy and if we really watched the price we could get alot of candy for that dime. She would treat us to ice cream at the Dairy Queen, and to this day my favorite item from Dairy Queen is her favorite hot fudge sundae with Spanish peanuts. I remember fondly her taking me to the little diner she used to go to with her friends and treating me to a grilled pecan sweet roll that I could enjoy while she got to chat with her friends. Pure Heaven!
Growing up poor really made me understand the value of a dollar and how to make money stretch. I learned so many ways to be able to feed my family for very little money. I double couponed, I stocked up, I learned to make things from scratch, I learned to make substitutions when I didn’t have the items I needed.
These skills have served me well throughout my life. It enabled me to be a stay at home mother for several years, and even when the kids grew and I started working more and more it still helped me to be prepared.
So if any of our readers are struggling and are afraid to ask questions or ask for advice, please know I understand. I will never judge you, I will offer support and advice anyway that I can. You are not alone.
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What I Am Reading
Strawberry Shortcake Murder
By
Joanne Fluke
Strawberry Shortcake Murder After finally finishing my last book I am ready for some light reading. Right now I am reading the second book in Joanne Fluke’s Hanna Swensen Mystery Series.
I really struggled to stay focused on my last book choice (read about it here) I decided to keep it simple this time. I enjoyed the first book in this series and really could just sit back and enjoy the book and not really have to think to much about anything but enjoying the story and watching it unfold. I am really hoping for that again.
The main character in this series owns her own little shop called “The Cookie Jar”. Somehow in this small town she always seems to find herself right in the middle of a murder investigation. If this sounds familiar it’s because the Hallmark Murders & Mysteries channel has turned this into a tv movie series which is pretty good.
One fun note about the books in this series is the author also includes several baking recipes throughout the book. Some of them look pretty good.
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I Finally Finished Reading
The Sixth Day
By
Catherine Coulter & J.T. Ellison
The Sixth Day Ok, I have finally finished this book. I usually really love reading books by Catherine Coulter, and I really have enjoyed this particular series that she writes with J.T. Ellison. It’s about a British agent who works with the FBI. There are several books so far in this series and I have loved them all. This one however was a difficult read for me. I really struggled to get through it and with it being over 600 pages it took me what seemed like forever to get to the end.
I didn’t really hate the book, there were parts that I really liked but as a whole I found it hard to become invested in it. There were so many characters, and the story seemed to jump around. I think I would have enjoyed it more if it focused on the 2 main characters more and less on the minor ones.
I know that there will be other books in this series, and I will absolutely buy them. One book out of many doesn’t detour me from enjoying a book series.
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Bountiful Baskets 4/28/2018
As usual the kids and I volunteered at our Bountiful Baskets produce co op. It was a beautiful morning and it is always good to see my “Basket Friends”. There was a fairly large turn out of volunteers this morning and it made our time spent there go very quickly. There were several ladies who I hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks so it was nice to catch up as well. It’s always nice to catch up and find out how everyone is doing. I work so many hours each week at my job, that I welcome my Saturday morning volunteer time. I find it relaxing to spend the time with my children and the other volunteers. I love that even through my kids are grown they really don’t mind going with me. Hopefully as they continue through life this Saturday morning ritual of ours will also be passed down to their own families.
I am always amazed at how much fruit and vegetables that an $18 share provides and this week didn’t dissappoint…
This week’s basket contained the following fruit: 6 Lady Alice apples, 5 oranges, 15 tangerines, 1 package of strawberries, 1 mango, 6 lemons, and 11 roma tomatoes. The fruit looks amazing and everything smells so sweet and wonderful.
This week’s basket contained the following vegetables: 1 bunch kale, 1 cabbage, 2 bunchs of green onions, 2 sweet potatoes, and 4 broccoli crowns. I am pretty happy with the vegetables also.
My only problem I have with the produce this week are these monsters:
size comparison Oh my gosh, can you believe the size of these sweet potatoes? My problem isn’t with the size it is with the sweet potatoes themselves. I really do not love sweet potatoes, I don’t even like them! Normally I just ask any of the other volunteers if they would like to take them, but this week my daughter decided that we would keep them and she is going to try to make sweet potato dog treats with them. Ok so here we are with a double share of our produce which means I have 4 massive sweet potatoes! I sure hope she finds a recipe that our dogs love and that once the treats are made they can be frozen to be thawed and eaten at a later date. My poor daughter has her work cut out for her…
I am not sure what I am going to do with the rest of the produce this week. The fruit will be eaten fresh with meals or for snacks. The vegetables will be used for our dinners. Again, I am not sure what we will be eating yet.
I have been toying with the thought that I really need to start menu planning. My work schedule has been quite busy lately and for as much as I would love to work less hours, that just never seems to work out for me. I think maybe menu planning and doing some food prepping on the weekends would really help me. We’ll see…
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Who Wouldn’t Love Free Items
Does your local grocery store have a program for their customers that allows you to try products and then provide honest feedback on them? Programs like these are free to members. I am a member of My Magazine Sharing Network, which is a program sponsored by the Kroger corporation, where I have the opportunity to receive free full size items to try and leave feedback for the items. I can also participate in discussions with other shoppers about the products I have tried or other general topics that Kroger is interested in finding out opinions on. I am even sometimes given product coupons that I can share with my friends so that I am not the only one who benefits from a great program. You can also be featured in their My Magazine (their store magazine).
This program isn’t difficult. First you need your Kroger store rewards number or alternate I.D. then you sign up and fill out your personal profile as completely as possible. Complete your Introduction Mission, and complete any survey on your dashboard. They use your profile & answers to your survey’s to start assigning missions to you.
It is recommended that you connect your social media accounts to your profile at My Magazine Sharing Network. You earn points for sharing pictures and reviews and posts about the items that you will be receiving. The more points you earn, the more opportunities you can receive for furture product trials.
In the past I have reviewed things like herb and spice rubs, potato chips, snack crackers, received coupons to try their private selection line items and received reusable shopping bags.
reusable shopping bag Today I received my Simple Truth Mega Mission Level 1 box and it was loaded with great items for me to try and also share with friends. I received:
One Simple Truth reusable shopping bag.
Simple Truth Reusable shopping bag One box of Simple Truth Organic Strawbery Fruit & Grain Bars (6 count).
Simple Truth Organic Strawberry Fruit & Grain Bars One Simple truth Organic Moisturizing Lip Balm Srawberry Lavender variety.
Simple truth Organic Moisturizing Lip Balm Srawberry Lavender One Simple Truth Organic Roasted Almonds single serving size
Simple Truth Organic Roasted Almonds One Simple Truth Organic Coupon Booklet filled with a variety of coupons for Simple Truth Organic products
Now that I have my box of goodies. Next thing to do is to try the items included in the box and take my coupons to my local Smiths grocery store and redeem them for more items to try.As I try the items I will take pictures of the items and write up a review of each item. The reviews really need to be honest. I don’t have to love each item, I just need to try it and write what I thought. I have tried items through this program that I really loved and other items that I know I would never purchase because I really didn’t like the item at all. They love to know why you loved it or why you didn’t like it. All honest opinions help them to develope new items or additional flavor varieties.
Once I have my pictures and reviews then I go the the My Magazine Sharing Network website and start clicking through each item on my mission like post a picture & post to Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, blog post, and join in the discussion on the website. I will earn points for each item I participate in and in turn the more points I earn the more my chances increase for more mission opportunities.
As for this Simple Truth mission. I have tried my Simple Truth Organic Moisturizing Lip Balm already and it smells amazing. The balm feels like it is softening my lips without feeling waxy. This is a product I would definitely purchase outside of this mission. I use alot of lip balm and this one seems to be a great product.My Simple Truth reusable shopping bag will go with me every Saturday morning for my produce co op pick up. I have to bag my own produce at the co op and I can always use a nice bag for that. I am also hoping that people will see the Simple Truth logo on the bag and in turn start purchasing the organic foods from Smiths. The more people that purchase the more in demand the items will be and hopefully Kroger will continue to develope more organic items. I am a huge fan of the Simple Truth line and have been for years. Kroger’s quality is great and they are trying to make organic foods affordable for the normal every day shopper.
*This post does not contain any affiliate links.
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Too Many Apples
What do you do when you get to many Granny Smith apples in your Bountiful Baskets weekly produce share? Why you make applesauce of course…
My family isn’t overly fond of eating Granny Smith apples raw. We love them baked and even sauteed with brown sugar and cinnamon but not really raw. This week I got quite a few of them in my produce co op share and I decided that I would make applesauce with them. My husband and daughter both enjoy applesauce so I knew they wouldn’t go to waste.
I don’t really have a recipe that I follow, and I am not really a cook who loves to measure. So this applesauce is extremely simple and I basically just toss it all together.
First I gather all the apples that I want to use, this week it was every Granny Smith that I received this week (approximately 14 I think). I grab my favorite small crock pot ( a cuisinart 3.5 quart crock pot, it has a digital timer), a cutting board and my paring knife.
Next I start peeling. I don’t use any fancy tools for peeling apples. I use the same method that my Grandmother taught me to do when I was a young girl in small town Michigan. She would say “Kimmie Ann, you don’t need anything fancy just a good sharp knive and be careful not to cut yourself”. So that is the method I have always used.
Once they are all peeled I quarter each apple and lay each wedge on their side and slide off the core.
Once they are cored I chop them all in to pieces. It doesn’t really matter how small you cut them, they are going to cook just fine in the crock pot.
Once they are all chopped and in the crock pot I toss them with about a tablespoon of lemon juice. Sorry this week I didn’t get fresh lemons in my produce basket so I had to use bottled. Not as good, but will work just fine.
Then I pour in maybe a 1/2 to 3/4 cup of water and stir.
I cover the crock pot and turn it on low for 6 hours. I do stir it maybe half way through to make sure nothing is sticking to the side of the crock pot.
Once the 6 hours has finished I take my potato masher and start mashing the apples. My family likes the sauce to be a bit chunky and not totally smooth so a potato masher works perfectly for me. At this point you can taste it and see if it is sweet enough for you. My family tends to like it a bit on the tart side, so I don’t add any sweetener to it. You could add pure maple syrup, honey, organic sugar or plain white sugar to it. It will still be quite warm so if you do use sugar it will dissolve into the sauce without any problem.
Then I ladle it into a quart mason jar and store it in the refrigerator. It will keep a couple of weeks. I never worry about it spoiling since they always eat it long before we would have to worry about it.
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Bountiful Baskets April 21, 2018
As usual my kids and I purchased our share of produce from Bountiful Baskets. Just like any other Saturday morning we were up early and at the park at 7:45 a.m. to volunteer at our local drop point. Even though the number of baskets that were purchased was a bit on the low side we stil received a great variety of produce for the week.
This weeks baskets contained: 4 zucchini, 2 cucumbers, 1 bundle of asparagus, 2 bundles of cilantro, 2 bunches of broccoli, 10 russet potatoes, 1 mango, 2 kiwi, 7 granny smith apples, 7 oranges, 6 bananas & 1 lb strawberries. Each share costs about $18.00 for all the items I have listed. It really is such an amazing deal. Normally for my family I purchase 2 shares so I receive double of the items listed and it lasts my family of 4 adults for just over a week.
I know that 2 shares seems like alot of produce for a family of 4. Trust me, we go through alot of produce. My husband has had some health issues and as a result we eat alot of fresh fruit and vegetables and Bountiful Baskets is an extremely cost effective way for me to make sure he is eating a healthy diet and as an added bonus the rest of us are eating healthy too.
This week I am really pleased to have the oranges, I love oranges and I eat them every morning with my breakfast, I quarter them and include them in my husband’s lunch daily as well. I am generally the only one who eats bananas and I will take one with my lunch daily. What I can’t eat before they get to brown goes into the freezer, my daughter will use them in smoothies. Kiwi are a favorite of my daughter and husband. My husband likes to put them in his multi grain cheerio’s and milk. Now for the mango… This time of year we tend to get alot of them in or baskets and we really don’t love them. I can chop them up and put them into a fresh salsa when I am having pork carnitas taco’s but normally my daughter just chops them up into her smoothie so that we don’t waste them. The granny smith apple’s will be peeled and chopped and put into my crock pot for applesauce. My daughter and husband both like chunky applesauce and making it myself I know exactly what is in it. We do love apples and many nights with dinner or for snacks I will slice apples, but granny smith aren’t our favorite apple to just eat plain. The strawberries will be used a few different ways. Tomorrow I will be making strawberry shortcakes, we will also eat them alone, on oatmeal, and in fruit salad or frozen and used in smoothies.
The vegetables are pretty straight forward. The broccoli we will steam to eat as a side dish, or it will be included in dishes like a stir fry or maybe fettucini alfredo. Broccoli is my favorite vegetable so it never goes to waste around here. The asparagus (which is one of my son’s least favorites) will be roasted with garlic, a little olive oil and Trader Joe’s 21 seasoning salute seasoning blend (this is a salt free seasoning). The cucumbers will be eaten alone or in a salad with some left over green leaf lettuce from last week’s basket. The potatoes will be either baked (like we had tonight), roasted with other veggies, mashed, or fried with onions and garlic. The cilantro is a favorite of ours, I will most likely use it in cilantro lime rice this week as a side dish. The one vegetable I am not thrilled about is the zuccini. Our family really doesn’t like squash at all and most of the time we just give it away to the other volunteers but this week I brought home 4 of them. My daughter wants to try to make zoodles with them. We’ll see how that turns out…
If you are looking for a pretty inexpensive way to include more fresh fruit and vegetables in your diet, check out Bountiful Baskets. They are a wonderful option for families wanting to eat healthy and want to stretch their grocery budget. Check them out at www.bountifulbaskets.org and for more information on them check out this post https://oursimpledays.com/bountiful-baskets/
*This post does not contain any affiliate links.