Produce Co-ops? Anyone else prepare fresh foods?

[AZChins]

In the last few months I have participated in a really great produce co-op called Bountiful Baskets in Tucson. It's a state-wide thing here in Arizona that has actually started up in Utah and Washington, I believe.

Basically it means that I and other co-op members can buy a basket of fresh produce cheaply. Anyone, who has to listen to me blab for more than 10 seconds, knows that I love to cook and can different recipes. I LOVE food so much...it's a little strange actually, but we won't get into that.

I've been able to buy produce so cheaply that it's basically all we eat. I make pretty much everything. It's a little weird because I have been making even condiments like mustard and other things....I can do so much better than store bought.

At this point in my life I would love to completely eliminate ALL prepared foods. It means more work, but I can do better. It seems like people have gotten lazy and settle for inferior quality foods. Corn syrup isn't all that great for anyone to consume even in small quantities and the preservatives are bad for everyone. I can make things that taste better and are better for us! I make bread, cookies, pies, cakes and everything else around here.

Even the "bakery fresh" stuff from the grocery is just bad. It's awful that people buy pies and cakes that are actually disgusting and taste so artificial. I've been on a quest to perfect my apple pie recipe. And, I can't use canned pie filling of any type or my husband will not eat the pie. (I found the best pie crust recipe...let me know if you want it!)

Does anyone else participate in food co-ops or prepare your own fresh foods? I'd love to get some new recipes and ideas. Anyone else like to can? I know that canning is a bit old fashioned, but I get really excited when it's peach season or pepper season or apple season because it means I get to can all sorts of great stuff that I can store for the long winter when it's impossible (or very expensive) to find good produce.

 

[BoundNoFtWaL]

I've heard of co-ops before. Do you pay a membership fee or work at a farm or a co-op market? If I lived back in WA I'd probably be part of one, or at least be growing my own food. Farmer's markets back home were big too. I've found that using produce from farmer's markets and home grown food tastes better than from the grocery.

My friends make fun of me for making things from scratch. I call cakes made from store bought cake mix “box cake”. I hadn’t bought any box cake mix in probably 4 years until the other day when it was on sale and I felt a bit of the crazy cake hunger in the grocery aisle. Now I need to find a recipe to improve the taste. Ha. I’ve been making cakes and frosting from scratch, so much better tasting than box/can stuff. I think homemade stuff does taste so much better, and is probably better for you. Not as much processing and preservatives added that way.

Also, if you cook for yourself and eat homemade food the processed stuff taste nasty. I started working and cut back on the cooking and feel like I've lost some of my cooking skills. And a friend that lived with us for the past 5 years just moved out, so now there are only 2 of us in the house. Me thinks I need to brush up again on the cooking. Learning to cook for 2 is the tough part I guess. When I cook I make large amounts; I don't want the food go to waste, so I don't cook as much anymore.

I’d love to learn to can. What type of canner do you have? Where’d you get it? I was just thinkin’ about trying to can some apple pie filling. Ever done any of that? Might help if I get a canner first huh? What do you can? I was also thinking about trying to can some veggie broth, but not sure if I need a pressure canner. During the summer I’d like to can some salsa, but I believe I need the pressure canner for the addition of tomatoes.

I love apple pie. I’ve made a couple of good ones, but never recorded the recipe. I’d love your pie crust recipe if you’d like to share it. I stink at bread. Have any good bread recipes?

I bought some pears a week or so ago and they were so good. I was thinking about trying to make some fruit leather with my dehydrator, but need to find a recipe.

I dream of having an orchard and a garden to can and preserve our own food. For now I’m trying to grown some things in our flower beds. Going to try some herbs, lettuce, kale, peas, and oakra over winter out there. It’s still in the 80’s here for some crazy reason…. Oh, I’ve also been planting green onions from the root end leftovers from grocery store onions. I stop cutting them about an inch before the roots and stick the ends in a glass of water until they start to grow again and then plant outside. I’m experimenting with a celery heart and romaine lettuce heart to see if they sprout.

One thing I’ve found from scratch cooking is that I stock up on basic pantry ingredients when they go one sale. I haven’t gone to the extent of buying 50# bags of flour or sugar yet. When I find it on sale I buy 4 5# bags of sugar and flour and it usually ends up cheaper than if I were to buy the large quantity and I use it before it goes bad. This time of year you’ll find the sales ramping up for the holiday baking season. Have any favorite holiday baking recipes? Quite a few years ago I spent a week in the kitchen baking and candy making, but lost most of the recipes when my computer crashed a few months back.

I’ve spent a good chunk of money on storage containers. I love the square and rectangle snap top containers with the silicone seals for storing my dry goods. They make for fitting in to my cabinets much nicer. Oh and very good for keeping brown sugar moist. If I find a nice looking glass old fashioned latch top container I buy them for putting things like beans, rice, and tea in and keep them on my counter. Being able to see what’s in the container is nice and it’s decorative.

I found some large glass-lock containers I use for my perishables/leftover/refrigerator foods. The container itself is glass and the lid is plastic with the snap tabs and they have silicone seals. I find it cheaper to buy carrots by the 1# or 5# bag than the baby carrots. I wash veggies like carrots, celery and potatoes. Peel them, chop and save ends and put them in a zip top freezer bag and throw them in the freezer until the bag is full then make vegie stock. It’s so flavorful. If I had a compost pile the veg pulp, after stock, would go in it, and then back into the garden. I prep 1 # of carrots at a time, chop some into sticks for snacking, chop some into chunks for stews or curry, or slice into strips for stir-fry. Then all the carrots go into one snap top container. If I do celery I do a whole bunch at a time, cut into sticks and chunks. Sticks for snacking chunks for curry and stew. Potatoes I peel then chunk for stew and curry and keep in water in the fridge. I rinse the potatoes and change the water a couple of times before storing over night. They keep for a couple days if you change the water daily. Changing the water gets rid of some of the starch and makes for crunchier taters if baked or fried. If you take some time to do some of the prep work for more than one meal at a time it feels like you do less on the next meal.

What kind of recipes are you looking for?

 

[BooBoo*TheKiddo*]

wow, that's super long and its super early, but anyways

Not much help but my mom canned peaches (off my dads peach tree) and made peach jelly, tomatoes (from the garden), she makes blackberry jam, and a few other things I can't remember at the moment lol


How she does it...beats me lol so thats not much help.

 

[tunes]

wow, that's super long and its super early, but anyways

So? What's your point?

Susan - I wish we had one of those around here. You would think in a farming state like SD that fresh vegetables would be plentiful. I pay twice as much for produce here as I did back in Ohio and most of the time it's crappy. There are no farmers markets. There are no little road side stands. It was culture shock when we first moved out here. In Ohio they have road side stands for half the summer and you could always buy tons of corn out of the back of a pick up. I would be happy to have a co-op around here just so we could eat the fresh produce at a reasonable price.

I honestly don't have the time, the talent, or the urge to do everything from scratch. I cook what I need to cook. I do like to make homemade bread and all my deserts are homemade. I don't like box cakes at all. Cookies need to be from scratch or they just aren't as good. But I don't know that I would want to make from scratch spaghetti sauce and stuff. There is no Italian in these veins.

 

[Sesame]

I've always wanted to be part of a co-op! I only recently heard about them, but until then just the farmer's markets will work for me! Luckily, there's quite a few farmer's markets I can visit around me.

Tunes, That's really weird that there aren't many in SD?? Perhaps it's more industrial farming? Farms for larger corporations?

I really commend you on this effort on doing everything from scratch. I'm a big wannabe foodie and follow a lot of various food bloggers. There is a pretty large community of food bloggers, so perhaps you may want to start a blog about your experiences and join a online cooking group! I'm trying to do more things from scratch and it truly makes a difference (especially in baked goods).

If i was part of a co-op I would make great use of the tomato season. Roast them all down and then can or freeze them for those bland tomato months... make yummy creamy tomato soup for those winter days.

With apples, I usually just make a quick French Apple Tart which definitely takes less time to make than pie (a flaky, tender pie crust is really an art).

Canning would definitely help use up any extra veggies/fruits you have and let you enjoy their flavors in the winter months. I'm afraid I don't know much about canning though. I've only seen it done on "Good Eats with Alton Brown."

 

[Chinmama]

Greenville has several organic gardens that are maintained by GOFO (Greenville Organic Foods Organization) members, who then share in the produce. http://www.gofohealthandeducation.org/ I think it is a great idea to have a garden as a community.

This is a good site for recipies: http://www.sustainabletable.org/home.php

 

[mishellyshel]

my dad was part of an organic co-op in NJ.........at some points he wouldnt use everything so it would come to me.
what types of recipes are you looking for? vegetable, meat? desserts?

i hate having to eat processed foods but sometimes its a necessity!! i am not much of a baker but i love to cook from scratch, especially with vegetables.

 

[AZChins]

The co-op that I use just requires that I make contributions and then go pick up my produce on the pick up day. It's only once every two weeks...so I get lots and lots of food. For $50 we have enough food for two weeks...and it's fresh and I can make good things.

BoundNoFtWaL, you are right, once you make everything yourself store bought tastes nasty. It's worth the work to make things from scratch. I'm not so good at cakes...I don't even know why. I'm great at pies and other things!

Let's see I have an All American Pressure Canner - it can hold 16 quarts for processing. Pressure canners allow you to can soups and other things that require high heat to preserve the food. You can get a cheap water bath canner for about $20 for fruits that's the way to go. I use my pressure canner for both, but I really ought to buy another water bath since the 30 lbs of aluminum in the pressure canner take forever to heat up so I can boil water!

I've started to not want to can pie filling. The reason why is that I like to bake the filling IN the pie. It would probably be better to can the apples so that you can use them for pie filling later - it may taste fresher that way. Have you ever popped open a can of pie filling for a pie and then the pie is really bad? That's what I worry about happening...I made a REALLY REALLY bad blueberry pie last week because of this!

I just keep about 10 lbs of flour on hand all the time. There's only two people here so even if I go crazy and make bread and pies and cookies, 10 lbs will still cover it pretty well. I do stock up on the unbleached white flour when it is on sale because it doesn't go bad too quickly - but only two or three bags at the most. Now sugar I will buy when it is cheap...it doesn't seem to go bad and as long as I have a place to put it, I can keep it indefinitely.

They're going to have tomatoes the next time around! No one around here has large gardens where they NEED to get rid of tomatoes this time of year. It's a shame, I LOVED that part of being in Illinois because people would just dump tomatoes on everyone else in an effort to rid themselves of them. Some years they had way too much okra and peppers, too. Here, in the desert, I don't have all that extra produce to turn into fun things...so I must buy it when it is cheap.

OMG...I found the best pie crust recipe. It's a little strange and a little hard to work with, but it makes very flaky crust. And, get this, you can prepare it in a food processor!!!! (Anyone, who makes pies gets that, and everyone else thinks I am insane.)

Sesame - I should start looking at the food blogs...I just don't have time...everything normally involves the chins, so I try to combine everything with them! I'm a food snob, so I should join my fellow food peoples.

As for recipes...mostly I just look for inspiration. Some weeks I end up with loads of one thing and need to figure out what to make of it.

I'm so glad that people are starting to want more fresh produce and that co ops and farmers markets are popular. I heard about something on the radio where people take walks in California to collect fruit from trees in neighborhoods that would otherwise go bad. That sounds fun. In Phoenix people have tons of citrus growing all over the place...they're always trying to get people to take it. Some delivery trips I end up coming back with 200 lbs of oranges and lemons and grapefruits and whatever else they will let me take.

Food is way too much fun...

 

[momenteller]

I agree, food is too much fun.

I live in Northern California and farmers markets and CSA (community supported agriculture) are huge here. We have an amazing food gleaning organization in town (http://www.petalumabounty.org) that gathers surplus produce and other food from families, farms, and community gardens and then donates it to low-income families. Their goal is that everyone should have access to fresh food, regardless of income! Its so awesome that this food that would otherwise go bad makes it into the hands of needy families. My other favorite part of living in this area is that my daughter has an edible schoolyard in her school. She attends garden class every week and learns how to grow her own food, cook with it, and compost what's left. Its quite a surprise to have an 8-year-old come home from school and tell me all about the chard they cooked in class that day! We volunteer in the garden and between harvesting at her school and harvesting in our backyard, we usually have produce coming out our ears! I try to cook with fresh local ingredients as much as possible. I'll try look through my recipes and pm a good one to you.

I'm going to ask for canning equipment for Christmas since that's something I've always wanted to try. Then I will be asking for your recipes! And yes, I'd love to try that pie crust...

Between that and being surrounded by all of the great wineries in Sonoma and Napa County, its a foodies paradise. Come on over for a visit! :thumbsup:

 

[arf2184]

I don't cook from scratch enough (I like to, just always seem to have something else going on).

We do grow some of our own veggies (with plans for a bigger garden next year) and pick some of our own fruit every year. This year we only made it out for strawberries, plums and apples. Strawberries were not great up here this year because of the weather, but the apple and plums were awesome! U-pick fruit is getting to cost nearly the same as buying in the store, but it tastes better and is so much more fun. Small farmers got to make a living too.

I'm not aware of any co-ops in our area (one has been in the works for over a year, but not there yet). We do have farmers markets here and there, not many roadside stands anymore though.

I'm looking forward to making some pumpkin pies and attempting gluten free pumpkin bread soon!

ETA: I always wanted to try canning too. My dad's boss's wife gave us some apricot jam she made....mmmmm!

 

[mishellyshel]

Next time you pick up your stuff...........post what you have an abundance of and i bet we can all provide some yummy recipes! it will inspire all of us. i do have a farmers market in walking distance (not that i would walk!) but their produce is always fresh and fairly priced. so i would be up for a challenge!

 

[AZChins]

8:15 WA: Snohomish - Ingraham / Brown - Lawrence Residence

That's the only place that they have at that particular co op in Washington. They have several pick up locations in Utah now, too.

As for canning, it is a lot of fun. I love seeing all my jars full. It's great to have a bunch of food put away and ready to go at any time. Canning soups is so much fun. My husband takes a quart of homemade soup and a half pint or pint of applesauce to work for lunch every day. It really is a lot cheaper for him to eat that way than to go out to lunch everyday...and he eats something that is very good for him with no mystery ingredients or preservatives.

I always ask for jars. They would be a great present for Christmas! Canning supplies aren't that expensive. They sell the jars at Walmart at a very good price...that's about the only thing that I would buy there just because they seem to have the jars when everyone else is out or charging a fortune for them.

We had a farmers market that was about 1/4 mile away when I lived in IL. It was great. Lots of super fresh things to make into pies.

 

[beanjelly]

I really want to join one of our local CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) but since my job is SO CRAZY in the summer, I almost never have the chance to cook from May-August. I love cooking SO MUCH thought!

You all should check out: http://www.localharvest.org/csa/ and see if there is a CSA near you!!!

 

[AZChins]

Oooo...cool! I'll have to check that out and see what is nearby. Thanks!

 

[AZChins]

My husband made it a forum for my food snob ways. I'm working on it, I hope that it doesn't sound stupid or anything. It's a forum devoted to high quality, healthy food. I'm a vegan, but I don't want the forum to be completely vegan.

www.foodsnob.org

LOL Let me know if I should add anything. I figured if no one joins or it sounds too dumb for other people, I could just talk to myself and post all the recipes that I have tried. It'll be a good way to keep records of everything. I'm going to put a canning log up there.

 

[addictedtochins]

I like it Susan

 

[momenteller]

one of my very good friends is vegan, and she is an amazing cook! i'm going to send your link to her. she bakes some of the best muffins and cupcakes anywhere-- vegan or not!

 

[AZChins]

Awesome! She can post all the ideas she wants. I love baking. I need to make a baking section, I guess. I mean, I already have a pie category.

Nothing has to be vegetarian or vegan. I get ideas for recipes all the time from non-vegan recipes that people tell me about.