Imagine my excitement when I learned PeaPod has reached our area! Yay! With plans to home-school in the fall, I can't imagine lugging 4 kids into the market every time I need milk (and we'll be going through quite a bit of it) so I was eager to try Giant's new PeaPod delivery and pick-up service. As I mentioned in my previous post Eating Outside the Box, we already order some of our food online, so I'm thrilled to click a button and have more food arrive at my doorstep. However, since we live in the boonies and our driveway terrifies most delivery people (UPS often calls us to meet him at the end of our lane), I'm going to start by picking up my order.
My first attempt was a flop. Friday around 11AM I started putting items in my online cart to pick-up the next day (Saturday), but when I checked "available pick-up times" they were all "sold-out". Not sure if I need to order further in advance or if Saturday is just the peak day. Two different stores were "sold out"... hmm, fishy.
A few weeks later I tried again. This time around 11AM on Friday it showed every 1-hour time slot the next day, Saturday, was available. So I spent about 10 minutes selecting $150 worth of groceries, used the code "RMN17" to save $17 on my order (only works for your first order), created an account and clicked order.
The next day I arrived at the grocery store a few minutes into my selected time slot and all four of the designated "PeaPod" parking spots were full. So I parked in a close one and approached an employee who was clearly bringing out an order. He took my name, had me sign his clipboard, and brought mine out next. (Interestingly, my groceries didn't come from the store I was parked in front of, but a "PeaPod main store" that delivers the orders to the individual stores in time to be picked up. Odd).
Normally I would just pull into a spot, call the number and the nice employee would come out and load my groceries into my car-- no need to even step outside! A nice feature since it was about 19 degrees and windy.(and the sign says "no tipping please"). However, my food was still packed in ice, meaning even items that didn't need to be frozen, like bananas, were frozen. (In case you've never tried freezing bananas, it doesn't do good things to them unless they're coated in chocolate).
I had been a bit hesitant ordering produce, but other than the frozen bananas (which I made into muffins today- see my recipe below if this ever happens to you), I was happy with the strawberries, eggplant and broccoli someone selected on my behalf. I was also impressed that my order was completely correct-- that's more than I can say for my own shopping trips when I always forget something. Plus no spontaneous cookie purchases or kids begging for donuts.
The only downside is the groceries come in plastic bags (instead of re-usable-- so wasteful!) and the selection isn't exactly what my local store offers (since it's coming from a different store) so they didn't have, for example, SunButter (my son's peanut butter substitute to use for school). Otherwise, I was thrilled with PeaPod and plan to continue using it! Although I might be making quite a few of these...
Banana Muffins
2 cups banana, mashed (about 4 bananas)
2 cups banana, mashed (about 4 bananas)
3 cups flour
1 and a half cup sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
Half teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
half cup oil (coconut oil is yummy)
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup milk
Mash bananas then add eggs and other wet ingredients, sugar and mix. Then add dry ingredients, baking powder last, then mix all together. Pour into greased muffin trays. Bake at 400 for 20 minutes. Makes about 2 dozen. You can also add chocolate chips! :-)
