The Foods I Buy at CostCo

When I first got married I had a really serious cooking problem: there were only two people in the house and I kept cooking as if there were at least five! I immediately began to blame my CostCo shopping - How could I continue to buy in bulk and be expected to make sensible meals? I thought it was impossible, but I was wrong.

I can happily say that I have gotten my cooking portions under control and I am still able to shop at my local CostCo to get some deals and stock up on things we need without going back and forth to the grocery store every couple of days.

These are some of the staple items my husband and I buy at CostCo:

1. Pacific Natural Foods Organic Free Range Chicken Broth - This is my favorite chicken broth. It is organic and, for me, thankfully, it is GLUTEN-FREE. I use this daily and we go through it very quickly. At Costco we get a 6 pack of 32 ounces cartons for $10.99. Before they are opened they can be stored in the pantry, then the opened cartons must be refrigerated.



2. Nature's Earthly Choice Quinoa - We love quinoa in this house! I have written about quinoa a couple of times (a yummy salad recipe, learning about all about "the mother grain"), and probably should a couple more with the amount of plate-space it takes up in this house! When I look for it in regular grocery stores I keep finding very small boxes and/or bags that were perfect when I didn't know what I was getting into, but now that we moved to big time quinoa consumers, we gladly snag up the 4lb. bags for $9.39 each.

3. Premio Italian Sweet Sausages - I nearly fell over when I first realized that Premio Italian Sausages were GLUTEN-FREE. We are super fans of Italian sausage here - we have it with homemade marinara sauce and pasta, we have sausage and peppers and we've even had some sausage and quinoa meals that have been pretty yummy. When I had to go gluten-free, I thought I lost sausage forever and then I found Premio! Then I discovered that they are sold at Costco - so we get 4 six packs for $13.99. We keep them in the freezer until we are ready to use them!

4. FOOD SHOULD TASTE GOOD MULTIGRAIN CHIPS - I know I've written about these before! I love these chips!! I like to have them with salsa. My husband likes them with hummus. We eat them all the time and whoever dares to eat the last chip in the bag knows that he/she will receive the hairy eyeball until apologies are made. At Costco we get a nice giant 24 oz. bag for $6.29 that is more than enough for us to share for quite a while.

5. Nut Thins - We were super happy today to find out that Costco just started carrying another of our favorite snack foods: NUT THINS!! And they were in OUR FAVORITE FLAVOR (almond with a hint of salt)! They had a box with two 10 ounce bags for $7.89. I can not remember off-hand what the size or price of the regular box is in my regular grocery store, but we found it simply impossible to pass up such a large box of these yummy crunchies!

6. Wild Alaskan Sockeye Salmon Frozen Filets - This makes things very easy for me. The package has eight 5 ounce individually wrapped filets. Whenever we are going to have salmon, I take two filets out of the freezer in the morning, put them in the fridge and then prepare them at dinner time. It is not necessarily cheap, but it is the one fish we eat regularly and it is nice to have them handy for a quick meal. The package costs $28.00, so we space out our salmon eating to make sure it lasts for a long time. Since there are just two of us, the package is good for four meals, so I guess $7 per meal isn't too bad, but it is one of our pricier purchases so we consider it a luxury!

There are more foods that we buy at Costco, but, aside from the snacks, those four items we buy exclusively at Costco to make sure we are stocked up!