Produce Begger

So, I had a pretty exciting day yesterday but it isn't what would thrill most people.  In fact, only crazy women who know how hard it is to be a SAHM if you don't learn to find a bargain would understand.

I realized some time ago that my local grocery has many "Manager's Specials" on Tuesday mornings.  I was trying to grab a few items before dropping my oldest at preschool sometime last year and we ended up being late that day because spent too long excitedly picking through extra-ripe produce, almost to date dairy, meat and bakery items as well as piles of random packaged products.  I don't find much in the packaged products but occasionally I'll find some seasonings or pharmacy items.

So, Tuesday after I dropped my kidlets at school I decided to run into the grocery for milk and hit my "Manager's Special" locations.  I headed first to PRODUCE where the have a rack of bags of produce (sorted in a rather random fashion or so I thought) that looks like it won't last much longer.  I still had a surplus of jalapenos from my produce co-op and didn't want to make them all into jelly, so super soft tomatoes were on my mind.  Well, sadly there was only squash and some apples.  My family hates squash and we had apples from co-op.  I could have gotten more apples to make apple sauce but happily my children prefer eating raw apples to apples sauce.

I looked around the cleaned and prepared veg to see if there was anything marked down there but again I came up with nothing.  I wasn't sure if 9:45 was too late and someone else had gotten there before me or if there was a lack of soft veg.  I did notice a young man with a cart sorting through veg and throwing some on the top level of the cart and some on the bottom.  I thought maybe he was collecting them to take to the back and be bagged and that maybe I should try back again later.

I ran to the dairy where I had found greatly discounted low-fat cottage cheese, along with a quart of plain yogurt, last week.  It lasted forever in-spite of it's date.  I only bought cottage cheese because my son insisted he wanted it and I wanted to prove him wrong.  Nope.  I was wrong.  I don't know who fed it to him before but he was certain and he devoured it.  I had some and it was better than I remembered.  Anyway, again nothing.

In the meat department, I found a point-cut-brisket roast that was $3.49/lb to $1.99/lb.  That's good for at least a couple meals.  Also, turkey dogs were marked (just a sale item not managers special) down to $1 a package so I stocked up on those.  

I head back to the dairy to grab my milk.  It's wasn't discounted so I bought only one gallon of 2%.  I then saw a discounted gallon of whole milk that I can use to make yogurt.  It wasn't a deep discount but, considering the expiration date is over a week away, I am cool with that.

I decided to make a last pass through produce to see if that young man had bagged the soft veg and brought it back out to the rack but he hadn't.  It was even better!  He was bagging the veg right there beside the rack.  There was already a lurker hovering beside him ready to strike at MY cheap tomatoes.  So, I did what any polite civilized woman would do.  I just went past her and stood closer to the rack.  

I noticed, upon approach, that the PRODUCE young man was giving "the lurker" the hidden stink-eye for standing so close to him so I tried not to do the same.  Instead, I decided to talk to him.  

I asked if there was a method to his bagging and he explained that fruits and veg are separated and they try to keep them like or similar.  Like keeping citrus away from bananas because they can cause them to go bad even faster.  I responded that I had noticed the same with my produce at home and that sometimes I'll even put citrus fruits next to other fruit to make them ripen faster.  

Then, I made my move.  

I told him I had a surplus of jalapenos and onion at home and needed some super soft tomatoes to make salsa.  He smiled and said "Oh, I have tomatoes."  He bagged three bags for me.  Usually, these bags contain 1lb or at most 2lbs of produce.  In these 3 bags he put 10.5lbs of tomatoes.  Each bag was $1.  THAT'S $0.29/LB.  To be clear, these were not rotten.  Some were not even soft/ripe enough for salsa yet.  I felt like I was gonna have to run out of there like the lady in the IKEA commercial.

So, I grabbed some lemons (got a bag from the kid for $1) for my tea and limes (got a 1lb bag from the kid for $1) for the salsa and I was on my way home to celebrate my domestic bliss by sanding a wooden coffee table.

Produce Co-op

So my friend was blogging about her produce co-op.  I am not totally convinced her arrangement should be labeled a co-op because it is more like group home delivery and some people get paid. I decided that if I ever tell anyone about my blog they might want to know about my produce co-op.

My co-op has 12 "units" that means we buy food based on splitting it 12 ways.  Sometimes people split a full unit (as I did before my children started eating solid foods) but they split it between themselves after we as a group have divided by 12.  12 seemed like an unusual number to me when I joined (why not 10 or 15) but when you see how many produce items come in counts or weights that are divisible by 12 it makes sense.  Each unit pays in $30 so when it comes time to shop $360 is available to purchase for everyone.

We have a shopping schedule so that each member takes a turn each rotation shopping for produce from distributors at the Dallas Farmers Market.  They haul it back to a location closer to home where we divide it up.  We do this every two weeks. 

When it comes an individual's turn to shop, they and their partner can pick what they want but most members are considerate enough to buy mostly common dietary staples.  We encourage trying new items but we don't want to have to many new and unusual options in any given load.  If it wasn't for a fearless co-op member I would never have known about jicama or the joy of baked kale leaves.  We also encourage buying seasonally so we get more for the money.

The co-op has some leaders who take care of creating the schedule, managing the wait list and counting the $$$$$ but they are not paid positions.  You can volunteer to do it at anytime and you can step down anytime.

I just got my coop load today. They seem to be getting smaller these days but still a better deal than grocery shopping. Though I must admit when coop had lettuce and not tomatoes I snagged some pretty ripe roma tomatoes at Market Street for $0.79/lb. If they go soft they become SALSA!!!!!
For my $30 unit I got:
- 2 large sweet potatoes
- 2 red leaf lettuce
- 11 red skinned potatoes
- 5lbs of carrots
- 3 kiwi
- 2.5 lbs grapes
- 9 large fuji apples (actually I got 7 and traded yellow squash for a couple more)
- 2lbs strawberries (actually 1lb but traded more squash)
- 1 pint blueberries
- 4 large onions
- 1 small cantaloupe
- 1lb mushrooms
- 2 zucchini
- 4 bell peppers
I also would have had a head of cauliflower and about that same amount of broccoli but I decided at the last minute I wasn't in the mood to find creative ways to get my family to eat those AGAIN and gave them to someone else.  I could have traded but I was preoccupied this morning.
I don't make a meal plan because I like to decide based upon my mood what I want to cook but usually each day I decide based on how much life any particular vegetable(s) seem to have in them.