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!

Meatless Monday #1 MISSION: ACCOMPLISHED!!

Breakfast

I feel almost as though I cheated for breakfast because it took little to no effort at all. My breakfast was not only meatless, but it was also vegan. This meal has no recipe, only assembly and some pretty cool product that I like. Here is what my breakfast table looked like:

A well-balance breakfast? I hope so!

In the bowl of fruit I have strawberries, cranberries and a pear. I have to admit I left a couple of cranberries in the end - they were even to tart for me (and that is saying something), but I enjoyed the mix overall. My cereal is from an company called Barbara's Bakery and it is one of the few gluten-free cereals I have found that I like. My milk is from Pacific Natural Foods and it is DELICIOUS! My husband has even started to steal it from time to time in place of his cow's milk. (My absolute favorite thing in the world right now, though, is their Chocolate Hazelnut Milk! What a dream come true for a girl who can't have Nutella anymore!) I figured this breakfast should last me easily until lunch (if not later) because, it was filling and I got a good source of protein from my milk.

Lunch

My lunch was pretty easy considering the dietary limitations already placed upon me. I had a "cheese" sandwich with chips and salsa and chocolate pudding for dessert. Believe it or not, this too qualifies not only as meatless, but vegan as well. It seems as though my true meatless Everest will be dinner. This is no surprise to me since I have my in-house meat-addict to somehow please (eep!!). Here is what lunch looked like (it is ALL gone now!):

By the enormity of this meal, can you tell lunch is my favorite meal??

My "cheese" sandwich was really just a rice sandwich when I think about it.  It was made on white rice bread from Ener-G with Galaxy Nutritional Foods mozzarella flavored rice cheese. My husband and I have both been fans of the Food Should Taste Good Multigrain chips for a while now, and I love to have them with my Tostitos salsa (I should probably start the hunt for a nice organic salsa or - crazy idea - make my own!) at lunch time. Finally, my "dessert" is a dark chocolate whipped pudding that is both dairy free and gluten free from So Yummi that really is so yummy. However, it is not the same consistency of regular chocolate pudding so if that is what you are looking for, to be honest, I don't know where to send you just yet. I haven't found that magic product!

Dinner

How droll! How mundane! How last Thursday! If you read my post Last Thursday Comfort Food - My Ritual and Recipe   then you know all about tonight's dinner. When my husband agreed to Meatless Mondays he said, "I'll do it if we have pasta." I had no idea at the time that this meant only pasta with marinara sauce. Luckily this was clarified before I started to undertake some other new-fangled project. I shared with my husband my disappointment in this limitation during a project that should expand  our horizons, but acquiesced when he threatened to go to his mother's to go get a meaty dinner if there was no sauce (I truly wish I was kidding about this!).

So, after a quick trip to the local Top Tomato to pick up some more San Marzano tomatoes, I set up to prepare the sauce and pasta. While he waited, I gave my husband something to nosh on so he wouldn't start day-dreaming of steak or chicken or some other animal to eat...

While he enjoyed his apple and grapes, my husband did point out to me that he shouldn't be eating them because they were fattening due to their sugar-content!!

I spent the time opening cans, slicing and dicing garlic and onions, and stirring my double-dose of sauce (I figured I better make extra to freeze to have on the side for next Monday, just in case my hubby doesn't go for whatever creation I have come up with for our next Meatless Monday Meal!).

All the ingredients (see Thursday's blog for the recipe!).

Of course dinner was delicious, that goes without saying - this sauce is hands-down one of my favorite things in the world to eat - but I was really thinking tonight we were going to try something new. I even took a quick stroll up to the Barnes & Noble in my neighborhood to pick up some fabulous new resources for me and my kitchen:

One book and two magazines

The two magazines were quick buys on the way out

• Gluten Free Living I had no idea this magazine even existed, which makes sense, because it is only up to issue #3. I think there are a couple of articles in there I would really like to sit down with (I just hope my eyes are up to regular-print reading for an extended amount of time).
• Vegetarian Living I picked this up to see if there are any recipes to use this month, but who knows? I may find even more between the covers!

The actual purpose of my trip was to pick up another cookbook by my hero Jack Bishop. I figured I can't go wrong with an Italian Vegetarian cookbook written by a guy I trust. So far, after spending about an hour or so flipping through the pages, I am very excited by the possibilities. I think I will start attacking my husband with various experiments throughout the week to see how it goes. I think I might have him converted to be brave by next Monday!!

Concluding Thoughts About My First Meatless Monday

I am proud to say that I did it! And, upon reflection, I made it through World Vegan Day 2010 as a complete Vegan - no animal product whatsoever. I felt great all day - not sluggish or tired, or hungry. However, I know that I thought very carefully about every single meal making sure protein was somewhere in all of them (there is soy in the gluten-free pasta I made for dinner). I wonder if I took on this lifestyle if I would become less vigilant in my meal creation. The only thing I think the omnivore diet has on its side is the appeal of easy balance to each meal. Perhaps this is just my ignorance speaking, or my newness to the vegetarian way, perhaps once you are steeped in the vegetarian and/or vegan culture the balance comes just as simply...

I will be studying up for next Monday and I am sure Jack Bishop will be helping me out!! Don't forget, if you want to continue the Meatless Monday discussion between Monday posts, come visit the Facebook page for Searching for Sustenance!

Check out my New Jack Bishop book:

UPDATE: Check out how the other meatless Mondays turned out:

• meatless Monday #4: Burger Wars black bean burgers
• meatless Monday #3: Late to Rise, But Successful by Sunset apple cinnamon quinoa breakfast and vegetarian chili dinner
• meatless Monday #2: Success, But I Need BRAIN Food potato salad with lunch, Gardein and black beans for dinner