I like the idea of supporting our local farmers, I really do. The concept of CSAs (community supported agriculture) is really neat. One of the nearby ones delivers a bag of freshly-picked produce to our company for $22/week. I got a chance to see it for myself when a co-worker received his bounty and posted pics. Looked delicious, but not nearly enough for a family of 3 to last a whole week. In the meantime, it's grocery stores to the rescue...

Today during my lunch break, I went to Ralphs for some much-needed grocery shopping. We were running out of staples, and the weekly ad in yesterday's mail showed a few nice produce sales, particularly strawberries (my favorite). I thought I'd get the berries and some broccoli and that would be it. But once I got there, I was amazed at all the things marked down in price as "Manager's Special"-- i.e. stuff that needed to be sold and consumed pretty quickly. Before I knew it, I had stuffed my cart with all sorts of goodies, including vegetables I'd never bought before. Amongst my finds:

a pack of seasoned brussels sprouts: $0.99
a pack of cubed butternut squash: $0.99
a bag of bean sprouts: $0.49
2 packs of sliced mushrooms: $1.49 each
roma tomatoes: $0.99/lb
broccoli: $0.99/lb
3 1-lb clamshells of strawberries: $0.99 each

Combined with some of the other stuff already in our fridge (spinach, carrots and onion), we have enough to last us a week, veggie-wise.

Not a bad deal! Now we just have to plan our meals accordingly and use up all the marked-down veggies before they go bad. Hmm... now we just have to figure out what to do with them... any ideas? :-)