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!

Friday's Food Finds

All week I am all over the Internet blogging about food, commenting about food, reading about food and finding tons and tons of stuff! I simply can NOT dedicate a single post to each individual find, so here's what I am going to do: I am going to give you a CliffNotes version of some foodie finds that I think you might all be interested in, so you have stuff to read and tinker with over the weekend! Here it goes:

Food Web Sites and Tools

• DinnerTool While catching up with my fellow bloggers I read on Life With a Possum by Kimberly Battersy about this new site from the iVillage Food Network. DinnerTool is a website that has recipes, videos, meal planners, shopping lists creator, articles, a blog by Ariane Duarte (who is in a number of the videos I watched) and, a number of customizable features for your recipe searches such as cuisine type, diet restrictions and the difficulty of the recipe itself. I like the videos and the recipe search the most, although I feel like both libraries are still growing, so I am waiting to see where this goes. Check it out for yourself and let us know what you think!
• Mangoes and Chutney This is an excellent blog that I found through the 31DBBB program. Miranda, who writes the blog, tackles cooking for us all - from dealing with the crazy cooking terms we all need to learn when first cracking open our cookbooks, to the golden rules of cooking, meal plans, the deliciously fun series called "Fat Camp Friday" (be CAREFUL with this one!!) and MORE (yes, there's even more!!). Needless to say, I am now a faithful follower and look forward to learning as much as possible from Mangoes and Chutney in the future!

Food Reads

• Is 'Eat Real Food' Unthinkable? It is time for a new acronym ERF, maybe you have even seen #ERF on twitter this week, well here is where it all started. Mark Bittman's second column in the New York Times Opinionator. He also write a response blog post called "Beyond the Acronyms" which discusses the USDA dietary Guidelines.
• Food Inc.: Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser Discuss Food Safety, Walmart and How to Feed the World I don't know how I didn't know about this sooner, but I read about it Thursday, instead of being one of the truly awesome people that followed it LIVE on twitter (thanks to @cocoxochitl) on Wednesday night. However, being a complete and utter food-geek, I found the tweets and copy and pasted them into Google docs, so I can try to see if I can figure it all out.
• 10 Useful Cooking Tips This list from Bibi on the Daily Organized Chaos blog is absolutely INVALUABLE! If you are in the kitchen, you must check this out!! Bibi is another buddy from the 31DBBB group - I am finding so many cool people and cool things to share with you because of this project - YAY!!

Good Food (Recipes)

•  How to Cook Quinoa in a Rice Cooker I am not sure this needs too much explaining, but this post by the Gluten-free Goddess (lower your heads in respect of her greatness) added a number of quinoa recipes to the end of this post as well. I realized in my post about my quinoa, tomato and black bean salad this week that I pretty much just flew right over the rice cooker process - so, feeling guilty, I decided to go on a quest for this very thing for you!
• Gluten-Free Chocolate Recipes for Love Two things are going on here: 1. Once on the Gluten-Free Goddess website, it is very difficult for me to just jump away, and 2. Monday is Valentine's day!! Who doesn't love chocolate?? (OK, OK, I know there are some of you.... My brother is dating one of you, but I LOVE chocolate!!). What I love about this post is that there are even recipes for the sad sacks like me that are gluten-free and dairy-free! So many different options if you want to show one of your diet-restricted loves that you really care.

Food FIGHTS

• Stop FRACKING Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a drilling technique used to extract natural gas from shales and tight rocks by shooting millions of gallons of a mixture of water, chemicals, and sand into the ground. In the last year the toxic results of hydraulic fracturing have lead to cattle being quarantined in Pennsylvania, an explosion at a mine in West Virginia, as well as continued contamination of drinking water in Wyoming and Colorado. In order to protect our water, we need to pass the FRAC Act. It has become clear that hydraulic fracturing threatens our drinking water, our health, and our livelihoods. Please send a petition to your local representative about stopping this practice!
• GE Alfalfa If you have not already taken a stand against the genetically engineered Alfalfa approval, there is still time to let the President know how you feel. Please take a moment to use this tool from the Food & Water Watch to write to President Obama to let him know that regulation of genetically engineered foods is NOT one of the places where he should be worrying about government over regulation! 

  

Do you have a food website, tool, food read, recipe or food fight you think I should check out and share with the readers of Searching for Sustenance? If so e-mail me at BlogWithNV@gmail.com!

Quinoa, Black Bean and Tomato Salad: An Adventure in Hunger

I needed to go grocery shopping, but I was also starving. This is when I started to scavenge to see what was left that I could squish together into something yummy.

• Quinoa - since I have been buying this at CostCo now, I seem to always have some waiting in the wings. Possibility: I could just make plain quinoa... however, I could add some flavor to that if I just had some
• Chicken Broth - AWESOME! Just enough left in the fridge to make two cups of quinoa (in case my husband had some crazy idea he was going to steal some of my gluten-free goodness on this day!).

But, woe is me... while I do love my mother grain, wouldn't this be most mundane? My tastebuds cried out to me for more! I begged them to understand that I didn't think there was too much more to work with. Then I walked around the kitchen and there was a

• Tomato - well now... it seems like a nice red juicy tomato like that is just begging to join the party, but how? What to do with this red voluptuous fruit?

I went online and typed in quinoa and tomatoes in the search bar. The response that most intrigued me had one additional ingredient,

• Black Beans - these are the moments I am thankful for canned goods. However, traditionally I prepare black beans with a whole bunch of ingredients (ie. bell peppers, garlic, apple cider vinegar, etc.) that I simply did not have available. This recipe did not speak of such things, it did, however, mention a
• Lime - my husband LOVES these! I ran to the fridge - could it be? Would there be? YESSSS!! There they were - two lonely limes!!

I felt like I was on to something. My taste buds were all a-flutter. Then I read the rest of the ingredients - I had none of them. I felt betrayed, I was disenchanted by the internet recipe - How could it DO THIS to me?!What a TEASE!

I decided to compose myself and reevaluate my situation. I had a nice palette of ingredients to work with... Could these, along with some seasonings, perhaps, do the trick all on their own? And then it occurred to me: waiting in the refrigerator, holding out for its moment to shine was that little jar of

• SOFRITO! and this wasn't any old sofrito, this was homemade sofrito! Made by my Puerto Rican mother-in-law! (In case you do not have a Puerto Rician Mother-in-law, or do not know how to make sofrito yourself, I found this recipe, but there are TONS out there. You can probably tell by the pictures of my quinoa that I did not use the tomato/red sofrito for this.)

The crowd goes WILD!! The taste buds are tingling!! The stomach is grumbling!! We are ready to roll!! Here is what I did, so simple.

Quinoa, black beans, tomato, lime & sofrito.

1. I prepared the quinoa in my rice maker (I am lazy, I know). One cup of quinoa with two cups of chicken broth over it, stir, close up the top, put it on rice setting and got to the rest of my work.
2. I cut the tomatoes (I found another, so I used two) into cubes, or as close to cubes as possible.
3. I rinsed and drained the can of black beans.
4. Put the tomatoes and the black beans in a bowl together.
5. In a smaller bowl I put the juice of both limes (next time I do this I might do one or 1.5 limes instead) and two heaping tablespoons of the sofrito (I might kick this up next time!). Mixed well. 
6. When the quinoa was finished I added it to the bowl with the tomatoes and beans and mixed.
7. Finally, I added the "sauce" and mixed it in as well.

It can be served warm, room temperature, whatever you like! I don't particularly like things straight out of the fridge (and I had so much I have been keeping it in the fridge), so I throw a bunch in a mug (is this weird?) and microwave it for about 30 seconds - that has been my favorite temperature.

Want some?

As I am enjoying my last mug of this delicious quinoa salad that I have eaten as lunch, snacks and one night it was a side with dinner (yes, yes, overkill, I know! But I LIKE it, it is gluten-free, dairy-free and clean eating!!) I am wondering: Why the heck didn't I buy any more tomatoes so I could MAKE MORE?!

Quinoa: The Mother Grain

See more info at EcoLibrary

Quinoa, pronounced KEEN-WA, has been on my radar for quite some time. It is an ancient grain-like food from the Incas, prized for its ability to increase the stamina of their people. Although quinoa is often thought of as a grain, it is actually a green leafy plant like spinach or chard. What has become popular, commercially, is the seed of the quinoa plant, even though the full grown plant can also be consumed.


Quinoa Is Awesome

The quinoa seed is an excellent source of iron, calcium, magnesium and fiber. It has served as a gluten-free grain. It is simple enough to prepare and getting easier, by the day, to find in mainstream stores. However, possibly most importantly, the quinoa seed is one of the very few complete proteins available to us. This means that the seed contains the correct balance of the 9 essential amino acids the human body thrives on.

Learning all of this in my quest for a diverse menu of healthy meals to choose from, I began exploring quinoa as a possible addition about a year ago. At first, I had great difficulty finding it outside of health food stores or shopping online. Then my own grocery store began to shelve it and now they even have red and black quinoa as well. Since it has become easy enough to acquire that I can now. realistically, include it in our weekly meals, I have started exploring some ways to prepare it.

I had practiced the basic preparation of quinoa, adding various ingredients, preparing it much like a rice dish as a side to my dinners, or creating warm quinoa dishes for a quickie lunch. During November, I discovered a great recipe for a breakfast quinoa dish - a hot apple cinnamon quinoa cereal that was absolutely delicious. However, regardless of the preparation, my husband still was uncomfortable with the texture of the dish. I had all but given up on sharing quinoa with him when I found out about a technique I had not yet tried: Toasting the quinoa.

Toasted Quinoa

Toasting quinoa is not a recipe unto itself, it is a preparation of the seed that gives it a rich flavor and does, in fact, change the texture as well. The technique is simple, all you require is:

• rinsed quinoa seed
• a pan

Put the rinsed quinoa into your pan on medium heat. Either shake the pan or stir the quinoa continuouslyfor 15 minutes. The quinoa should turn a golden brown color.

The smell of the toasting quinoa was similar to that of popcorn.

When the toasting is complete, take the pan off the heat and allow the quinoa to cool. This quinoa can now be stored in an air-tight container for up to one month and used in any recipe you would use regular quinoa for.

Quinoa Pilaf (Now Toasted)

I am happy to say that my first experiment with this "new" quinoa was a wonderful success. I prepared a simple quinoa pilaf from the back of the box of quinoa I purchased (Ancient Harvest Quinoa) and my husband actually liked it! He noted the difference in the texture and thinks toasted quinoa may be the secret he has been waiting for. My cousin, who has been staying with us for the holidays, also tried the pilaf and enjoyed it as well. It was her first ever experience with quinoa and she called home to Miami to tell her fiancee about it. Needless to say, toasted quinoa will be a mainstay in our house and for that reason I really wanted to share it with you as well!

Here is the recipe for the pilaf, if you are interested in giving it a go as well:
(*Note: This made A LOT of quinoa pilaf! You may want to adjust the recipe before diving in with all 6 cups of your quinoa!!)

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup Diced Carrots
• 1/2 cup Onions, Green
• 1/4 cup Celery, raw, diced
• 1/4 cup Diced Green Peppers
• 1/4 cup Red Peppers
• 6 cups Ancient Harvest Quinoa
• 1/4 cup Olive Oil
• 2 clove Garlic
• 1 cup Almonds, Sliced
• 1/4 tsp Oregano

Directions

Sauté chopped vegetables in olive oil until clear, yet crisp: stir in oregano. Add sautéed vegetables to cooked, hot quinoa, mixing well. Add salt to taste. Dry-roast almonds in heavy skillet until lightly golden. Add almonds and mix. Serves 6-8. Quinoa pilaf served as a side dish with fish or chicken is delicious. Vary the pilaf using your favorite vegetables, or by cooking the quinoa in chicken, fish or vegetable stock instead of water.

Question for Commenters: 

What are your great recipes/uses for quinoa? Now that I finally have my husband back on board, I am ready to experiment!!