December Bounty

On December 4th, I went out to dinner with my good friend Kendall at Great Sage, a vegan restaurant near my house (highly recommended). Afterward, we went dumpstering at Trader Joe's (my preferred dumpstering spot in Baltimore and Ellicott City). There was still a LOT of food leftover from Thanksgiving. We didn't even need to touch the dumpster, since there was so much food in carts next to it with a LOT of variety.

We opened bags to figure out what we wanted to take, and then just took whole bags (sometimes I'll open bags and put individual items in milk crates if I'm by myself). We spent about 6 minutes behind Trader Joe's, then went back to my house to divide the plunder after checking out a few more dumpsters in the shopping complex. Kendall went home with food for her household (plus food for a few Baltimore buddies). Here's what I ended up with:

- 7 Orange bell peppers

- 8 Granny smith apples

- 1 pkg blueberries

- ½ pkg cranberries

- 10 bags of lemons (5 per bag)

- 5 bags of limes (5 per bag)

- 2 pkgs ravioli

- 5 pkgs Chicken parmesean

- 2 loaves sesame bread

- 1 pkg naan

- 1 lemon tart

- 3 kiwis

- 1 pre-made greek salad

- 2 bags oranges (11 per bag)

- 8 everything bagels

- Sundried totato pesto torta

- 1 pkg swiss cheese

- 5 pkgs delice de Bourgogne triple crème cheese

- 3 pkgs spinach dip

- A billion potatoes (russet, gold, and small red)

- A billion bags of onions

- 1 pineapple

- 1 guava

- 1 package vanana (vanilla/banana) yogurt (yes, it's really weird)

- 1 bouquet of flowers

- 1 picture frame

This amount of food proved to be a little extravagant compared to what I usually dumpster. I ended up giving away a few bags of potatoes, onions, and 1 bag of lemons to people at work (since I knew I wouldn't be able to use them all in time).

I also immediately cut up and froze the guava, pineapple, blueberries, and kiwis to use for breakfast smoothies.

The bread, naan, ravioli, and chicken parmesans also went in the freezer.

Stay tuned to see how I used it all!