All this for under 20 shekels!

Whenever I find myself near the mini market/makolet, I check the "sug bet" rack to see if there are any worthwhile deals there. It's greatly reduced in price, and if it hasn't been sitting out in the sun for long, it's very often still perfectly usable.

I wish I had taken my camera with me to take a picture and show you what was there today. There was A LOT of stuff, and a man was there loading up his bags when I got there. We chatted a bit about whether it was worthwhile to buy the wilted lettuce, and each of us picked out what we wanted from the racks.

I ended up spending 19.10 NIS, and here's what I got:

A bunch of browning bananas that were still white and firm inside (=happy kids!)

a huge pile of summer squash (kishuim)

a huge pile of kohlrabi

2 scrawny stalks of celery

3 tomatoes

3 chunks of pumpkin

1 bunch of scallions

1 package of alfalfa srouts

1 package of chives

1 package of spinach

There were loads of overripe tomatoes there, that I didn't feel like buying, and also plenty of herbs. I let the other customer buying from the rack grab up all the lettuce, because it was too far gone for me. There were also overripe peppers, and carrots (those must have been sitting out in the sun too long), and some beets.

Anyhow, after I made my purchase, I started lugging my haul home, but I hadn't come prepared for a big haul. Then, about 2 minutes into my 10 minute walk home, my next door neighbor passed me on her "kolno'it" (a kolno'it is an electric golf-cart type of thing, that is very popular around here for people who don't have cars and have limited mobility, or even those with no limitations). Then she did a turn-around and offered to help. She had enough room in her kolno'it for my bags, so she piled them in, and we laughed and said "meet you at the house in a few minutes". It was really so sweet of her to help! Having friendly neighbors is so very nice!

But I was thrilled with my takeaway. I try to get only decent looking stuff from the sug bet rack - if I buy things that I have to trim too much off of, the savings plummet. It's not worth my while to buy second rate lettuce if I will need to throw out half of it, when I can get a huge head of lettuce somewhere else for 4 shekels or less, and not need to toss most of it!

I'm signing off now to go wash some veggies and start my cooking! I'll make some minor variations to the Shabbat menu to accommodate all the things I bought today. I'm also going to prep some of this for the freezer for later use.

Have you found any bargains today?