Healthy Living Made Easy…It's In the Bag! (& a GBOMBS Recipe!)

I love grocery stores. 

When I was a kid, grocery shopping meant spending Saturday morning with my mom and getting free food samples along with an ooey gooey slice of Mama Ilardo’s cheese pizza at Metro Supermarket.

Sometimes, we would venture to Belvedere Market where we would take in the aroma of fresh ground coffee beans and the sweet smell of local fruits and vegetables.

When we bought our house in August, the fact that MOMs and (if we’re feeling ambitious) Trader Joe’s were within walking distance was a big selling point.

As much as we like grocery shopping, there are times when we want to change things up. And even though we love to cook and try new recipes, our meals can get stagnant sometimes and we may need a little nudge to try something different.

A few months ago, my hubby and I found out a super cool service that we just started using to keep our weekly menus exciting. We still go to the grocery store for add-on items, some pantry staples, and sometimes just to explore, but the bulk of what we make during the week is inspired by our weekly delivery from Hometown Harvest.

I love finding things that make being healthy easier, more convenient and affordable.

We like Hometown Harvest because their produce comes almost exclusively from the local area during the growing season, and they use out-of-area organic family farms in the winter. We know the food is local, sustainable, and safe.

Each week, they deliver a customized bag of fruits, veggies and other local agriculture items, like farm fresh, pasture-raised eggs, right to our doorstep. We select our bag contents earlier in the week, leave out a cooler on our porch, and when we wake up on Friday morning, it’s like Christmas and our cooler is magically filled!

What was in last week’s bag? Fuji apples, broccolini, dino kale (AKA Tuscan kale), Roma tomatoes, red skin potatoes, avocados, limes, green beans, carrots, cremini mushrooms, red onions and pasture-raised eggs.

The cost for all of this (including delivery)? About $45, certainly no more than we would have paid for the same items in the grocery store, especially considering the quality, freshness, and taste.

Hometown Harvest recently added lots of other items we plan to try in the future, including meats and fish, dips and salsas, nuts and seeds, grains and pastas, pantry items, and coffee, all from local vendors. You can see all of the options on this page.

Here is a map of their service area.  If where you live isn’t covered yet, you can contact them through the link on that page and ask them about delivering to your area OR check out the Local Harvest website to find a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) (great way to save on fresh produce!), farmer’s market, or other provider of local agriculture near you.

Once we have all of our ingredients and know what’s “in our basket,” we get to pretend like we’re on the show Chopped and be creative and have fun with our food!

Last weekend we tried out this recipe for a Ginger Greens & Mushroom Stir Fry, so we could use several of the items in our bag, which also happen to be GBOMBS (broccolini, onions, and cremini mushrooms). We made a few modifications:

• We cooked in coconut oil instead of olive oil (coconut oil is more heat stable, so it doesn’t turn rancid when heated like olive oil does).
• Didn’t have bok choy so we left it out, but if you have it, definitely use it!
• Served it on top of a bed of quinoa.
• Added a squeeze of fresh lemon juice to finish it off.

It was a delicious and flavorful meal and full of some of the most nutrient-rich foods on the planet.

Have you ever used a service like this or participated in a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA)?

I’d love to hear from you!