Green Bee Produce is helping our family “bee healthy”

I first became interested in Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) when I read stephmodo’s post “Eating healthy {and responsibly} on a budget.” I looked into a few local CSAs but never made the move to become a member. Perhaps it was paying for four months or so of produce whether or not I’d be around to pick it up. Or it might have been a random pick-up day and time. Whatever the reason, I didn’t take the leap. Then along came a friend’s email (thank you, Heidi) with info about Green Bee Produce. The rest is garden-fresh history!

Let me tell you a little bit about Green Bee Produce before I show you pics of the fabulous boxes we’ve picked up so far:

We are a group of parents who hated battling the grocery store rush, to dig around in an overpriced produce bin trying to find at least one acceptable piece of fruit or vegetable. Or when time didn’t allow for this needless searching, we bought a bag or plastic container of produce only to get home and find that half of it was rotten or bruised. We couldn’t understand why it was such a hassle to find good produce that didn’t break the bank.

Thank heavens those parents started doing a little research, bought their produce directly from growers and received compliments on their fruit and veggie platters. If it weren’t for those compliments, Green Bee Produce may never have come to fruition—or rather “fruit-ition.”

Green Bee Produce has locations in Arizona (9) and Utah (21). Our pick-up is only a few minutes away and at a decent hour Saturday morning (i.e., I get to sleep in). Here is what I picked up a few Saturdays ago:

Did you notice the eggplant? I made my second ever eggplant Parmesan, but this one was actually edible. In fact, my husband said it was quite possibly the best eggplant Parmesan he’s ever had. Oh, and my four-year-old cleaned his plate and asked for the same thing the next night!

I took inspiration from Raw Melissa’s Eggplant Parmesan recipe, only I used Italian bread crumbs rather than plain crumbs with seasonings. I also used a couple beaten eggs rather than the milk and almost two jars of spaghetti sauce. (My fave was Bertolli’s Tomato & Basil sauce for an ingredients list I could actually pronounce!)

We totally put our Green Bee Produce box from Saturday to work for last night’s dinner, a family fave:

That would be crispy chicken salad with a side of fresh fruit (and a not-so-healthy topping of marshmallow sauce). Though the chicken didn’t come from Green Bee Produce, pretty much everything else did:

I love assemble-your-own meals like a good crispy chicken salad. The lettuce, broccoli, tomatoes, celery, strawberries and bananas are from Green Bee Produce. (We already finished off the cauliflower or that would be in there too.) The spinach, bacon, avocado and cheese came from my fridge, and the yummy, all-natural breaded chicken—seriously, the healthiest breaded chicken out there—came from Costco. Everyone cleaned their plate last night, and even a few asked for seconds.

The best part about Green Bee Produce is an easy and affordable way for our family to eat more fruits and vegetables. I pay only $18.50 per week for all the fruits and veggies you saw in the photos above. I now have a bowl on the counter always full of apples and oranges or clementines and our snacking has become much healthier. All I can say is YUM!

The super nice thing about Green Bee Produce is you can order week to week. If you know you’ll be out of town, you can skip a week. Or if you’re not quite through the last box, order a small box next time. You can even opt to donate a box—how cool is that? They also have a Fiesta Fresh Salsa box and have even started offering bread from Whole Grain Natural Bread Company.

Visit Green Bee Produce online and then give them a try

…and those recipes mentioned above, too!