My husband really wanted us to go with pizzas for my son’s First Communion party, especially once we branched out from immediate family and invited some extra uncles and cousins, but I promised him I’d plan real food well and make it an unstressful day.

If you’re reading into that and assuming that I’m usually a basketcase for big events when I’m trying to do all real food, you might be right. It might be more of a stressed-in-the-head-and-short-tempered case than a real basket, but I’m not committing. I plead the fifth.

As it turned out, we fed 18 adults and a handful of children for a lunch, and we had enough food for at least 25. We arrived home from the First Communion right along with everyone else, so logistically, that’s always tricky because you can’t be in the kitchen preparing things for the hour or two before guests descend on your home.

I’m very proud to say that my husband’s assessment after the fact was, “You did it, babe. It was a really good party; you pulled it off.” The amazement in his voice was the part that said, “Whoa, I really didn’t think you could do it without seeming stressed…”

Woot!

He was also justifiably surprised that the entire week had included more, “I was really productive and felt good about my day,” sort of days than the, “Ahhhhhhhhhh I didn’t get anything done today and am SO behind on my LIIIIIIIIIIIST!” kind of days.

Not that I know anything about those.

It’s all about what my high school Math teacher used to preach, the 7Ps: “Prior Proper Planning Prevent [Pretty] Poor Performance.” (That’s been edited for a family-friendly blog.)

I started planning the menu over a week in advance, and I worked backward to prepare stuff all. week. long.

It paid off! Everyone had plenty to eat, truly enjoyed themselves, my attitude remained good (plus I knew the consequence would be pizza at all future parties if I failed), and we had leftovers that lasted us a good many days of lunches and parts of dinner.

Plus, we didn’t really spend that much on the party, so it’s perfect for the Eat Well, Spend Less theme of “Entertaining on a Budget” this week and my own Monday Mission of “Share the Real Food.”

The Party Menu Plan

This real food party menu plan should feed about 25 people, so adapt it up or down (or just enjoy the leftovers) if you need to.

Appetizers

• Nachos made with taco meat, cheese, tortilla chips from Costco
• Black bean dip from Real Food, Real Easy!
• Homemade guacamole
• Salsa – hot and mild
• Raw veggies and the creamy garlic dip from Healthy Snacks to Go — on sale this week, details HERE

Those nachos were long gone before I even thought to snap a picture…

main course

• Homemade individual pizzas, both whole wheat and gluten-free
  • I used this recipe in the breadmaker with only 1 tsp. yeast to make almost a dozen 8-10″ pizzas and pre-baked the crusts.
  • I used a gluten-free buckwheat crust from Nourishing Meals (that I did test a few weeks in advance) for another dozen crusts.
  • They baked as many as I could fit at a time on my baking stone and even larger cast iron griddle from Mighty Nest, and we managed to not mix any of them up that I know of. (I use that thing all the time, btw, in the oven and on the stovetop.)
  • Toppings included:

• pepperoni (conventional because the health food store was out of Applegate…you do what you can! But I only bought one small package and bulked up on other, better meats)
• homemade sausage (cooked way in advance and frozen)
• well-sourced bacon
• shredded cheese (I tossed my husband a bone and said I’d buy pre-shredded, but I could have found time to shred my own, I’m sure of it!)
• pizza sauce
• onion
• red peppers
• mushrooms

salad/sides

• Big bowl of lettuce with raw red onion, diced red pepper, feta cheese and the veggies from the appetizer plus homemade dressings
• The gluten-free pasta salad for a crowd that I posted yesterday
• Veggies cooked in pasta sauce with cheese – red pepper, green beans, broccoli and corn, all from frozen
• Cut fruit

dessert

I made a gluten-free buckwheat spice cake from Nourishing Meals that we tested a few weeks before – see how far in advance I started planning? I adapted the “spice” to just be “vanilla bean” with raspberries inside.

I used a very unique frosting on top and kept the decorating simple, which is the prime reason I was sitting on the couch with my husband when my parents arrived at 10 p.m. instead of still frosting the cake, which is what I’m normally doing when they get to our house before any child’s birthday party! I’m sharing the frosting recipe later today; don’t miss it! There’s no sweetener in it at all, which is amazing…

We served it with Breyer’s ice cream, and it was a hit.

Essential Keys to Planning

When I write out a plan (and, ahem, stick to it), things generally go pretty smoothly. This is my superhero process:

1. Write everything down in an organized way, beginning with the food.
2. Figure out any prep that needs to be done for a certain dish – for example, when I make homemade potato salad for gatherings, which is often, I start days in advance making sure I have enough homemade mayo, then boiling some eggs and baking potatoes (preferably when the oven is already on for something else), and then the day before I can piece it all together.
3. Make shopping lists – if you do need any items that you don’t already have on hand, go shopping early in the week to get that out of the way and so you can prep everything before the last minute.
4. Work backward through your week – write every food item and prep job in on a day of the week so that you know exactly what you need to do on any given day and don’t end up planning 6 hours of work on one day. Include planning your shopping trip!
5. Frontload the prep as much as possible – I looked for anything that could be done far in advance, like the pizza crusts that I froze, and put as much at the beginning of the week as I could. Two reasons for that:
   1. I knew that many things, like cutting raw veggies, HAD to be taken care of the day before the party, so I wanted to have time and space for that.
   2. A front-heavy week means that if I miss some items on my list, I’m not completely overwhelmed at the end with 50 “to do” items on Friday. Did I mention I have 3 kids, one of them who is 20 months and doesn’t always nap, and I still had to feed them all week long?
6. Delegate – I asked my mother-in-law to bring cut fruit and my mom to bring cut veggies. Not to brag, but in this case I actually could have done both as well, but it was nice to sit on the couch by 10 p.m. Friday instead of running around like a crazy woman at that time. Not that I know anything about something like that…
7. Plan your dishes – I hope that doesn’t sound crazy, but I did write down what serving bowls/platters everything was going to go into, so that I didn’t have to think as much Saturday morning (we had to be at church by 9:30 a.m.). I could get everything out and had a clear vision of what would go where when we walked in the door 5 minutes before our guests.
8. Minute-by-minute list might be needed – if you do have a situation where you need to serve people food as you’re all arriving at your house from the same event, be it a Baptism, Communion, Graduation, Sporting event, etc., you’ll want a detailed plan of attack for that moment you walk in the door.
   1. What can be already in bowls ready to serve?
   2. What needs to get cooking immediately?
   3. What items/pots/dishes/etc. can be laid out on the counter ready to be put together in a moment?
   4. What can others do to help? They’ll offer, and life is easier if you have  a ready answer.

My Planning Lists

I was lucky that there were some things I already had on hand: black beans in the freezer, plenty of homemade yogurt made up (our raw milk day is Friday, so I usually make a gallon of yogurt then), red peppers in the freezer from summer. If I hadn’t had black beans in the freezer, we would have had black bean soup for dinner or something and I’d pull 4 cups from that batch for the dip. For the rest of the food, I scheduled it carefully.

When I blocked out my week, it looked something like this:

Monday

• Strain yogurt for yogurt cheese (in the dip)
• Go grocery shopping
• Soak dough for whole wheat pizza crusts
• Wrap present for party

Tuesday

• Have tacos for dinner; make extra taco meat and freeze for Saturday
• Bake pizza crusts in the afternoon; freeze

Wednesday

• Morning omelets with a ton of extra mushrooms, red peppers, and onions. Pulled most of the veggies to be pizza toppings. Also cooked a pound of bacon and incorporated a little bit into the omelets, saving the rest for pizza toppings. This was hardly any more work than a normal breakfast, and I ticked some big things off my prep list!
• Clean house
• One more grocery shopping trip

Thursday

• Bake cake
• Soak and make frosting (needs to refrigerate overnight)
• Thaw black beans
• Make veggie dip
• Cook GF pasta; cut some veggies for the pasta salad

Friday

• Thaw things that need to come out of the freezer
• Cut any raw veggies that haven’t already been done
• Make guac, bean dip
• Mix up pasta salad
• Frost cake
• Lay out pretty clothes

My Saturday morning to-do list wasn’t very long:

• Have simple oatmeal breakfast
• Get things out that I didn’t already do the night before
• Get everyone dressed and polished
• (I think I might have had Paul make the guac that morning, come to think of it…)
• Put frozen veggies in the pot
• Add raspberries to the cake
• Delegate cutting fresh flowers from the garden for the table

And finally, my minute-by-minute plan of attack for the moment  I walked in the door was something like this:

• Turn oven on for nachos.
• Spread chips, meat, cheese on my stainless steel baking sheet, which was already out and ready to go.
• Get out the bean dip, guac, sour cream, and salsas and delegate someone to put in our fun Mexican serving dishes.
• Delegate someone else to get the cut veggies into the veggie serving tray with the dip in the middle.
• Turn the heat on under the side veggies (which were already in the pot since they started out frozen) and dump in the pasta sauce a few minutes later (which was already on the counter ready to go).
• Check list…
• Start preparing ingredients for pizzas.

I even do my best not to use disposables at parties, so we used real plates, utensils, and cloth napkins.

Even the clean-up wasn’t that bad (thank you, dishwasher) and we had already planned to go out to eat for dinner, which made everyone happy.

What’s your favorite strategy for serving real food to MANY?

Watch later in the week for a roundup of what the other Eat Well, Spend Less ladies are sharing to help you entertain on a budget…

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post to Amazon and a few ebooks from which I will earn some commission if you make a purchase. Mighty Nest is a May sponsor receiving their complementary mention. See my full disclosure statement here.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

What happens when a recipe is not a recipe?

No, that’s not just a bad joke, although I’m pretty famous for those sort of knee-slappers.

It’s just that some “recipes” are so fluid and adaptable, they’re more like a set of general suggestions, or a chart you can fill in with your favorite options.

I call them “framework” recipes, and I think they’re fabulous.

I’ve never been one to run to the store for one item or buy something especially for a recipe, so it’s important to me that my arsenal of standby recipes includes many flexible options that can use “whatever is in the fridge.”

With most soups, skillet dishes, and even some casseroles, I switch things up a lot. Pasta salad is a great example of an open-ended recipe that can even be a great fit for a party or potluck without a special run to the store, perfect for our “real food for company” theme this week.

Although this “recipe” is titled “Sun-Dried Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Salad, you may be surprised to find out that both the tomatoes and peppers are optional. No matter what you have on hand, you can make a good pasta salad to share!

This recipe is sponsored by Door to Door Organics, where you can get a box of fresh produce delivered to your door – the perfect reason to have lots of framework recipes in your arsenal, so you can use whatever shows up! Click HERE to see more about the boxes and a $10 off code on your first order, expires 8/31/13.

Sun-Dried Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper Pasta Salad for a Crowd {Gluten-free Recipe}

Print

Recipe type: appetizer, salad

Author: Katie Kimball

Yield: 10-12

Feel free to omit any ingredient and add others (except maybe the pasta…although you could do this with any whole, cooked grain too).

Ingredients

• 12 oz. uncooked pasta (gluten-free brown rice pasta works great)
• 1/2 each: red, yellow and orange peppers
• 1/2 large red onion
• 1/4 lb. spinach (4-5 big handfuls)
• 1 broccoli crown
• 1 lb. mozzarella cheese, cubed
• salt and pepper to taste
• optional ingredients:
• feta cheese
• crumbled cooked bacon
• sliced green olives
• chopped pepperoni
• green onions (a common item in a CSA or Door to Door Organics box that can be hard to use up quickly enough!)
• For the dressing:
• ~3/4 c. extra virgin olive oil
• ~10 strips dehydrated roasted red pepper
• 5 dehydrated tomatoes or sun-dried tomatoes from a jar
• 1/2-1 tsp. crushed red pepper
• 1 Tbs. tomato paste
• 1 tsp. pizza or Italian seasoning
• 1 Tbs. red wine vinegar
• 1 Tbs. balsamic vinegar

Instructions

1. To prepare the dressing:
2. At least an hour, or better yet, a full day before making the pasta, mix up all the dressing ingredients and allow the flavors from the dehydrated veggies to infuse into the oil. I dehydrated summer vegetables at home, and they last for over a year when fully dried. If you don’t have anything like that available, the dressing will still be tasty (or try a jar of sun-dried tomatoes from the store).
3. Cook pasta in salted water about 1-2 minutes less than the package directions. Al dente is better for a cold salad, especially with gluten-free pasta (this is the brand pictured). Taste a piece to make sure it’s soft enough.
4. Rinse with hot water and pour the dressing on (minus the dehydrated peppers and tomato, although you could chop and add those if you wanted to). The warm pasta will soak up the oil and combat the crumbliness, staying pliable for days in the refrigerator. This is especially important for gluten-free pasta (I learned from a reader in the comments. She says you may even want double the dressing because it will soak up so much. Thanks!).
5. When ready to mix together, at least an hour before serving to give time for the flavors to meld, add each item to the pasta as you chop it:
6. Chop peppers into 1″ chunks and red onion into 1/2 cm. dices or thin strips if you prefer.
7. Coarsely chop spinach and broccoli.
8. Cut cheese into 1/2″ cubes.
9. Mix thoroughly, adding additional dressing (or just oil) if necessary and chill until serving time.
10. You still might need to add a bit more dressing (or just oil) when you serve it if the pasta salad sits for a while, just to keep it moist.

Notes

* Pizza seasoning differs from Italian seasoning just a little. The one I have includes onion powder, bell peppers, fennel, oregano, garlic, basil, chilies, parsley, thyme, marjoram, and celery flakes. A good substitute might be Italian seasoning with a bit of ground fennel and garlic powder. I think that would cover the main flavors.
* I even added a bit more seasoning blend right on the pasta.
* Don’t skip the salt! Commercially produced dressings typically have quite a bit of salt, and it makes a big difference.
* Remember that you can use just about any veggie you have on hand, switch out the cheese, and even try different seasonings in the dressing to make totally new variations for every party you attend.
* To make it a “pizza pasta salad,” add pepperoni, and consider bacon and green olives. Yum!
* Feta is a nice touch on top of each serving, and then you can call it Greek pasta salad, maybe with chickpeas too.

2.2.8

 

See? A great BIG batch to feed a crowd!

I served this pasta salad at my son’s First Communion party last month, intending it to be an updated, real food rendition of my old “pizza pasta salad,” but then I realized I didn’t include any pepperoni, so it wasn’t even all that “pizza-y.” Enter the framework recipe! I’ll share the rest of the real food party menu tomorrow as part of the Eat Well, Spend Less series.

If you’re thrown off by all the options in the recipe because you’re used to just ticking down a list and getting it done, you may enjoy the tutorials in Better Than a Box, which are designed to help you stretch your boundaries in the kitchen and get creative with your own recipes.

BTAB includes recipes using common processed foods (like “cream of” soups) that are remade using only real food, AND instructions to teach you how to remake your own family favorites. Check out one reader’s surprise when she realized it wasn’t just a cookbook HERE, and you can get a 50% off code for the book if you buy this week’s KS bundle HERE.

Thanks again to Door to Door Organics for sponsoring this recipe, which hopefully will be great for you to experiment with all summer long with fresh produce in season! From the company:

“Since 1997, Door to Door Organics has been all about empowering people to eat Good Food. It’s food that has a positive impact on our health, our communities, and the environment. Our founder started this journey with a fresh, simple, seasonal box of organic produce delivered right to our customer’s doorstep. Since then, we’ve expanded our service to include a wide selection of the most amazing organic, local, humanely raised, and fair-trade food that we can find. Then we set out to help you fit Good Food into your everyday life with planning, shopping, and cooking tools that keep food the way it should be — affordable, simple, and inspiring.”

Click here for $10 off your first order. Find more great recipes with fresh fruits and veggies on their Pinterest page.

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post to Bundle of the Week, Amazon and Tropical Traditions from which I will earn some commission if you make a purchase. The recipe is a paid post. See my full disclosure statement here.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to plan a specific opportunity to introduce someone to real food and show them how delicious it can be.

Impact Ratings: ?

Level of Commitment: Baby Steps (maybe Making Strides if you’re a bit introverted…?)

I think this mission is not only FUN, but perfect for summertime.

I want to challenge you to “share the real food.” You might choose to:

• invite someone (or a group of someones) over for dinner with the secret purpose of showing them how yummy real food can be
• host a neighborhood or family party and serve real food appetizers
• invite a friend over for lunch and have awesome dinner leftovers that just happen to be available to heat up
• take a meal to someone who could use one
• make an effort to take real food dishes to potlucks and BBQs you’re invited to this summer (the added bonus there is that your family has at least one real food option)
• if you camp with friends or family, offer to cook for a meal, and make it a great one that looks easy (I have a couple prepare-at-home meals in The Family Camping Handbook that are a cinch once you’re out in the woods – you can get a glimpse of the food in there by signing up for the monthly newsletter, as I just started offering 10 printable recipe cards and 3 meal plans, which happen to be Paleo (1) and gluten-free (2) as the freebie with newsletter signup.)

Real Food “Company” Meals with Kids

While my friends are mostly moms like me, my husband’s friends are largely at a different stage of life since we had children before most of them met their future spouse.

We recently decided to have a monthly “dinner at the Kimballs” with some secret purposes (and here Katie is hoping they’re not reading today!):

1. share real food in a delicious way
2. demonstrate the joy of family life

Our kids love company, and they know we’re going to have an awesome meal, so we don’t actually have to bribe them with candy or anything. We do pray that no one throws a monumental fit, because even though we try our best to be spectacular parents, kids still throw fits. (We just pray it doesn’t happen on these evenings.)

We make an effort to include them in some way in meal preparation, too, so that we can laud them at the dinner table and boost their ego a bit when everyone says to Paul, for example, “Wow, this ranch dressing is amazing!” (You can see him making it with me in our bonus video that comes with the Better Than a Box premium package, screen shot below).

Sample “Company Meal” Plans

Here are two meals we’ve served to friends recently, and tomorrow I’ll share out big First Communion Party menu, when we hosted 18 people (but could have easily fed 25).

Meal One: FAST Chicken Sandwiches & Lots of Sides

My motus operandi (is that right?) for serving guests is to have LOTS of side dishes, so that (a) we always have enough food and (b) the main course, usually the most expensive if it’s meat, doesn’t have to break the bank because people eat other things.

For this meal, we were walking in the door about 30 minutes or less before our guests were to arrive, so it took some serious planning:

1. big salad with avocado aioli dressing and lots of cut veggies, ranch from my son for dipping
2. BBQ chicken (thighs) in the slow cooker, recipe from Crock On!
3. soaked whole wheat rolls, done in the breadmaker the day before
4. baked potatoes (already scrubbed, started the moment I walked in)
5. fried rice (made while chatting, rice is already cooked – recipe coming eventually!)
6. frozen green beans and broccoli sauteed in bacon grease (the ones I mentioned in the shopping at Costco post)
7. rice pudding (triple batch, cooked while we ate, from Healthy Snacks to Go, my ebook)

We fed four adults plus our family and had enough food leftover for another family meal plus some. Awesome sauce!

Meal Two: Gluten-Free Welcome to Summer

It was finally warm enough to eat outside, so we embraced summer with this one:

1. appetizer: black bean dip from Real Food, Real Easy! with chips and homemade guacamole (Paul’s contribution to the meal)
2. cabbage salad with feta
3. marinated grilled chicken strips, about 4-6 pounds worth (organic, from Costco – I cut into strips because if you do whole breasts, people will always take a whole one. Strips with the rest of the offerings meant that we had leftovers!)
4. sauteed mushrooms and sweet onions
5. baked mac and cheese as a side dish (recipe in Better Than a Box – I expected extras of this for another meal, but it was a HUGE hit and all gone!)
6. gluten-free flatbread from Nourishing Meals (below)

Neighborhood Popcorn by Pinterest

My neighbor and I are hosting a party for the ladies in our neighborhood, “Popcorn by Pinterest.” We’ll pin popcorn recipes to this group pin board and bring fun toppings and enjoy each other’s company.

I’ll probably brag about how popcorn is amazing popped in coconut oil, which is how I just did a big batch for my son’s baseball team tonight, along with those string cheeses from Costco…and I’m taking a meal to a friend who just had a baby. It never ends!

How are you going to share the real food this summer?

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: There may be affiliate links in this post from which I will earn some commission if you make a purchase. See my full disclosure statement here.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

If you’ve had your eye on one of the KS eBooks or perhaps wondered if they were any good, you won’t want to wait any longer.

The "Bundle of the Week" this week is all books from this site, an exclusive package, and it’s only $7.40 (through Monday, 5/27 at 8 a.m. only).

That’s a crazy good deal.

I’ve also just added sneak peek excerpts to each book, so you can really get a taste of what you’ll be getting with a purchase. Find them on each individual product page:

• Healthy Snacks to Go 
• The Everything Beans Book
• Smart Sweets
• The Family Camping Handbook (this preview is the free download for the monthly newsletter, including 10 printable recipe cards and 3 grain-free or Paleo meal plans, perfect for camping or any summer weekend)
• If you’re already on the newsletter list, the system is smart enough that you can get the freebies by entering your email address again but you won’t get duplicate copies to the same inbox.

The excerpts all include a bit of the introductory section plus at least 2 recipes, including one of the more popular ones from Healthy Snacks.

For less than the price of one book, you can get a bundle of FIVE of them, and if you really want Better Than a Box, you can get all my eBooks for about what only that one would cost. See details HERE.

All purchasers will receive a 50% off code for Better Than a Box, which means that even if you just want that book, you can get 6 books for the price of one.

If you have some of my eBooks and want to complete your collection, you can gift the duplicates to friends and family, which could be a great way to ease someone into real food. My recipes tend to be super thorough for the rookie (and yet still unique enough that the seasoned real food chef can find something new to create).

What About Better Than a Box?

I don’t have an excerpt available for my newest book, Better Than a Box, but it’s coming. For today, I’m honored and humbled to share an email I received this month from someone who grabbed the book during launch week and didn’t know what to expect. Her email, which of course I opened immediately out of curiosity, was titled:

Better than a box changed my life

"Okay, I know my subject line may sound a bit extreme, but it’s true!  I downloaded Better Than A Box onto my Kindle months ago (no doubt when it was on a special sale, cause let’s be honest, I’m a cheapskate) but – to be completely honest – did not get around to reading it.  Anyways, a couple weeks ago I was looking for something to read on my Kindle/phone while sitting in my son’s room waiting for him to fall asleep and thought "hey, I actually paid money for this book – I should look at it!" Of course at the time I thought it was just a cookbook, so I’d just skim a few recipes and move on.  Then I actually opened the book.

Wow.

I couldn’t put it down.  I loved your lessons in reverse engineering and your friendly and encouraging tone as you described your processes and pushed me to experiment.  I’ve always been a "glued-to-the-recipe" cook, but since I’ve read your advice I’ve felt so much freer to take chances in the kitchen.

The other night I decided to make cheesy vegetables loosely based on your cheese sauce instructions, so I melted some butter and mixed in flour – then realized I was out of milk!  While in times past this would have perhaps led to panic and tossing out flour paste, this time I thought "Katie says I can do this – I’ll just improvise."

My first thought was to use broth instead, but I was out of that too (I know, I know, I should check my ingredients BEFORE starting to cook).  My thinking then went something like this "Well, I could use a bouillon cube . . . but I really don’t want to go there after what I just read . . . well broth is basically flavored water, so . . . I’ll use water and flavor it with spices!"  So I mixed in some water, then looked up your suggestions for vegetable seasonings and didn’t have them, so went with a bit of this and a bit of that, thickened it up, mixed in the frozen veggies, and added a couple handfuls of mozzarella cheese cause "cheese makes everything better." 

My pan was a mess cause I didn’t turn off the heat when I added the cheese, but my pickiest (and least veggie-consuming) kid at multiple serving of the "creamy vegetables" and asked if I was going to put the recipe (which of course I had to brag that I’d made up) on Pinterest.

I’ve started shredded extra cheese & carrots and have already had that come in handy on another night – the more I realize how much easier these little steps simplify my life (or at least cooking), the more motivated I become to do them. I’ve started throwing random bits of veggies into a "soup" bag in the freezer, which I’ve never done before, and am hoping to try using it to make a version of your potato veggie soup at some point. My one chicken’s worth of bones made 6 or 7 bags of good broth and about that much again very light broth that I’m planning to use as veggie broth. Now I just need to learn how to organize my freezer so I can keep track of and fit all these useful prep items!

Anyways, that was all a very long way to say thank you for empowering me to experiment in the kitchen and enjoy the adventure.  I’ve been telling everyone around me about this great cookbook I’ve been reading (maybe I should start saying textbook).

Thank you again for inspiring me and bringing joy back to my kitchen,

Blessings,

Amy

P.S. I also made your tuna noodle casserole and a friend who remembered her mom’s tuna noodle casserole loved it (even though mine was kinda brown cause of my dark homemade broth).

The KS bundle is only available for one week, and after 8 a.m. next Monday (Memorial Day), this price will never happen again (and no late sales).

Take a few days to consider it if you need to, but don’t miss out!

Click HERE to download now…

Watch for today’s Monday Mission at lunchtime, one that I think is super fun and perfect for summer…and I hope it’s a good challenge for the rookie and the veteran!

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

This is the last of the “What Does a Real Foodie Buy at…?” series, which has already covered:

• Costco
• Aldi/Save-a-Lot
• Amazon
• Country Life (note about Vitacost and Azure Standard)

Tropical Traditions is an interesting online shop to discuss through the lens of frugality, because for the most part, the products there are rather expensive. On the other hand, there are a few gems that are probably the best price on the web, especially if you wait until the free shipping weekends that happen about once a month or so.

(In fact, I was sort of hoping this would be a free shipping weekend, which is why I saved TT until last…but it’s not. Maybe next week! I almost always make a note of it on Facebook, so “like” the page over there to be kept in the loop on little deals like those that I might not mention on the blog.)

I do a fair amount of food shopping at Tropical Traditions in spite of the prices, because they have a referral program that pays out in gift certificates – and you don’t have to be a blogger to benefit!

Here’s how it works:

1. Sign up for the referral program HERE.
2. If you see a good deal, or perhaps on the free shipping weekends, you can share it on your own Facebook timeline, via email, or on your blog if you have one. Anywhere you can type a link, you can share your special link.
3. Create your referral links to specific products HERE. When you look at an individual product, there’s a “promote and earn” text link below it. Click there and generate your link.
4. Anytime a new customer makes any order after clicking on your link, whether they buy what you recommend or something else, they get a free book about coconut oil and you get a $25 gift certificate to Tropical Traditions. Win-win!

Just so you know, I don’t get anything for referring you to the referral program, but I love helping you all figure out creative ways to get food for less…and free is always a great deal.

If you’ve never shopped at Tropical Traditions and you think you might want the coconut oil book, use one of my links on this page, like this one. If you make a purchase, you get a free book (and yep, I get a gift certificate). But wait – hold out for the free shipping unless you see an incredible deal that you can’t pass up!

What Real Katie Would Buy at TT

Sometimes blogger Katie gets perks that normal Katie would never have been able to afford. Before I had a bunch of “free money” at TT, I made an occasional order on free shipping weekends. Here’s what I’d buy:

• Organic tomato paste and tomato sauce in glass jars, because tomatoes leach BPA from their cans more than any other food. I know I just said I wasn’t elitist about that kind of thing, and I’m not. If you can’t afford glass jarred tomatoes, you’re not the most horrible person in the world. If you can, TT is often a much better price than a local health food store. Those Jovial diced tomatoes are truly rich and amazing.

Shopping tip: If you buy 4 of each (paste and sauce only), it’s enough for the minimum free shipping requirement and fits nicely in one box, too. I used to have about half and half canned and glass jarred tomatoes when I started the transition. If I was cooking for company, I would use the  canned stuff. That may sound selfish, but hopefully it was just prudent and doing the best I could within my means.

• Coconut flour – This is one of the “best price on the web” examples. I haven’t found coconut flour for less anywhere, and the quality is great. Coconut flour is my top recommendation for anyone starting a grain-free (or even gluten-free) diet, because you use very little in each recipe, and you only need this one flour to make all sorts of stuff. (Some examples in the free downloads that come with the KS monthly newsletter right now!)
• Palm shortening – A healthy fat that goes great in biscuits, homemade tortillas, and especially pie crusts, I’m fairly certain TT has a good price on palm shortening, especially when it goes on sale.
• Coconut cream concentrate – Also called coconut butter, this stuff is neat for making coconut milk stir fry sauces, frostings, and any recipe that calls for coconut cream or coconut butter. It’s shelf stable and lasts a long time. Right NOW there’s a BOGO sale on them, but even the normal price is better than I could find elsewhere.
• Einkorn pasta and flours – The prices at TT right now beat Amazon’s current price by a longshot, so if you want the ancient wheat of einkorn in your diet, Tropical Traditions is the place. They even have their own einkorn wheat berries grown here in the U.S., which is kind of cool (and more frugal than other brands).

• Freeze-dried fruit – When John started solids, the question I received more than any other was, “What are you going to feed him as an on-the-go snack instead of Cheerios?” This is the answer. I’d buy a few bags of expensive, organic, freeze-dried-melt-in-your-mouth fruit, break each piece into tiny pieces when I fed him at church or wherever, and make this bag last a month or two. We didn’t share with the other kids, and we didn’t use them in the house – only for on the go! Now that I’ve been shopping with certificates lately, I stocked up a little and let the big kids have some in their yogurt. It’s yummy!

Shopping tip: I’ve never seen the fruit go on sale.

• Tropical Traditions brand dishwasher detergent – We just ran out of this huge tub, and I realized how much I liked it, maybe even more than when I reviewed natural dishwasher detergents last fall. It works very well, and it’s priced at only $4/lb. right now, which I’m guessing is probably a good deal. (Need to put that in my price book!)
• Benefect hand sanitizer – Since I have a severe dislike for triclosan, I’ve been using this thyme oil based spray for a few years now, although we still did finish off all our alcohol-based sanis (because alcohol doesn’t carry the environmental risk of triclosan and other antibac chemicals).Shopping tip: That $4.49 price is pretty much the “always” price, not a sale that’s going to go away soon.

What You can Get with Those Coupons…

Real Katie may be a sparse TT shopper, but coupon-laden Katie has quite a bit of fun there. Here are things you might enjoy if you do the referral program:

Note: You can’t use the free shipping coupon codes with the $25 gift certificate codes. BUT you can take advantage of sales, which I try to do as much as possible to maximize the goodness.

• Shredded and flaked coconut – I thought these were decent deals, but it turns out that compared to Country Life, they are not. However, when shopping with coupons, I watch for a sale on coconut and get a few of the larger bags. It’s so good in so many things!!
• Spelt, millet, and other whole grains and flours
• Kalona grassfed butter – as I said when I covered buying the best butter, Kalona is pricey, and I have some qualms about shipping cold things around and the environmental impact. TT is really good about using sustainable materials, however, even using corn-based insulators instead of a Styrofoam cooler to ship frozen goods.That said, if you have gift certificates to use or can’t find a source of butter and really want it, Kalona is delicious.
  
  Shopping tip: Watch for sales and play with the shipping – it only went up a few bucks for me when I tripled my order, so I stocked the freezer. Free shipping is usually only for ground, not refrigerated/frozen, so it won’t apply.
• Buffalo brats – There are meat sales, too, which is a great time to grab some brats for the grill. I have also ordered ground beef and round steaks, so if a local farm simply isn’t an option for you, it might be worth checking out prices (and watch for sales!). The meat is really top notch, in my opinion.
• Soy-free eggs – I just got 8 dozen of these eggs because they had a free shipping on eggs sale that DIDN’T need a coupon code, so I didn’t have to pay a dime. The eggs come in cardboard, not Styrofoam, and without ice packs. They’re good. Not great…the yolks aren’t really deep in color or rich…but they were raised well and that’s what matters to me.
• Organic cocoa powder
• The EVOO and sesame oil are delicious
• The spaghetti sauce and pizza sauce are great too, but pricey!
• Green label coconut oil – I get such a good deal on coconut oil (and Costco now carries a good brand, too) that I never wanted to purchase from TT. When it goes on a really good sale, though, the gift certs can help you stock up.
• Goat milk protein powder – my husband is happy to have this option, since I didn’t want to buy him the same old stuff from a fitness store that he’s been having.
• Organic applesauce – after last year’s abysmal apple crop, I thought I’d better stock up on applesauce just in case. The irony of Michigan apples being shipped to Eden Foods in Battle Creek, then the jars shipped to the Nevada TT center, then shipped back to me in Grand Rapids is not lost on me. It makes me sad!
• Balsamic vinegar and ACV – The bottle of balsamic is too tall to fit in my cabinet. Consider yourself warned!
• Organic BPA-free canned beans – This is definitely a compromise and preparedness purchase. Beans can be eaten cold from the can if a disaster strikes, so I thought I should stock up a little bit.

Shopping tip: You have to use the entire gift certificate, and although you can combine the 25s to make bigger gift certificates (click “gift certificates” in green on the right), they have to be in certain increments. Ground shipping and refrigerated items DO count on the same total, just not the same shipping. Sometimes you need a small-ish item to reach the proper total value.

My favorite little items include:

• Dark chocolate – Heavenly bars!
• Fruit preserves – these little jars have no added sweetener and are a great homemade yogurt backup if you get low on frozen fruit.
• Organic spices – I’d usually buy spices in bulk, but if I’m out of something and need to get up to a certain increment, picking a spice is like shoe shopping is to many women.
• The freeze-dried fruit from above

Eco tip: The boxes Tropical Traditions uses to mail most of their food items have thick dividers and would be fabulous for someone moving. Save up until you have a handful, then offer them for free on Craigslist or Freecycle. Same with the packing paper. It’s a way that I feel slightly less guilty for using so many resources to get food to my door…

Your turn! Do you order food online? What do you love at Tropical Traditions?

———————————————

I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure:  All the links to Tropical Traditions will help me generate coupons, as I explained above. See my full disclosure statement here.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

What’s the difference between the regular cod liver oil you can buy at any pharmacy and fermented cod liver oil, produced solely by Green Pasture Products?

The stuff at the store is often deodorized, sterilized, and generally processed, sometimes including adding synthetic vitamins. Synthetic Vitamin A can be harmful if one gets too much of it.

Fermented cod liver oil is made using a 6-month process (more at my Interview with Dave Wetzel, owner of Green Pasture), traditionally fermenting the oil similar to what the ancient Romans did when they relied on FCLO for the strength of their soldiers.

My little soldiers actually enjoy fermented cod liver oil sometimes – they go in streaks, which may make sense because each batch is a little different (that right there shows you you’re not dealing with modern food factory production). Mint is the preferred flavor for my son, the 4yo girl likes chocolate cream (be warned; that one is nasty without a little honey on top!), I love cinnamon tingle, and 20mo John is so excited to get what everyone else is having, he likes everything. I think he’s been pretty trained to like fermented foods, as he laps up very tangy water kefir like it’s sugar water.

We used to make these faces, so if you aren’t a fan upon the first few tastes, don’t despair. There’s hope!

We don’t remember to take it every day, but one nice thing about the fact that fermented cod liver oil is a food is that, unlike sleep, you can take a bit more on one day to “catch up” for days missed. You won’t overdose on Vitamin A because it’s the natural balance with the D and not synthetic.

Here’s where I’ve talked about fermented cod liver oil before:

• The Kimballs give it a try
• Readers’ best swallow tips for fermented cod liver oil
• and those videos of what our faces look like

Want Some?

As we head into (or are already entrenched in) cold and flu season, Vitamin D can help boost your immune system. It’s been said that all Americans need more of it, and FCLO is one of the top sources outside sunshine itself.

FIVE winners will get a $44 coupon (enough for a bottle at regular price) to Green Pasture!

New Freebies!

I’m excited to announce that when you sign up for the KS Monthly newsletter, which is an “extra entry” option below, you’ll get some brand new printables for summertime: 3 camping menu plans using gluten-free and Paleo diets, plus 10 printable recipe cards that anyone on any diet could enjoy! These are new add-ons for the Family Camping Handbook, so they’re free for anyone for a few months but then will be packaged exclusively with the book.

If you already get the monthly newsletter (very different from the daily emails of posts, totally new information), I’m 99% sure that you can sign up again, get the freebies, and you won’t get duplicate emails. The system is smart enough not to double up on the same email address.

ENTER HERE

Giveaways at Kitchen Stewardship are run via Rafflecopter widget, which means comments on this post do not count (and will be deleted). In the long run, this is quicker for you if you go for extra entries.

There are 6 possible entries! Here’s what you can do to win:

1. *Mandatory entry: Visit the Green Pasture website and choose a product you would order if you win.
2. Subscribe in a reader or via email to Kitchen Stewardship (or tell me if you already do).
3. Tell me if you “Like” Kitchen Stewardship on Facebook.
4. Follow @kitchenstew on Twitter.
5. Tweet this: Giveaway @kitchenstew’s this week: $44 to Green Pasture for cod liver oil – 5 winners! #realfood #wapf [enter URL here]
6. NEW: Subscribe to the KS Monthly newsletter. (This is different from a regular blog email subscription – once a month only, new information NOT found on the blog, plus special offers and coupons from time to time.)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Remember, comments here DO NOT COUNT. You must use the survey form.

I will use Rafflecopter, powered by random.org, to choose the winner, who will be announced on the blog and will receive an email.  The giveaway is open to continental U.S. residents only.  Entries will be accepted until 11:59 p.m. EST on Thursday May 23^rd and I’ll post the winners the following week.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure:   Giveaways are paid advertising and a great thing for my readers, so I’m happy to include it separately from the reviews. See my full advertising disclosure here.

Official rules and small print stuff: 1) No purchase necessary to win 2) must be 13 or older to enter and have a mailing address within the sponsor’s boundaries (see above) 3) only one survey entry per person 4) odds of winning depend on number of entries 5) employees of Kitchen Stewardship, LLC or sponsoring company not eligible for participation 6) contest sponsored by Green Pasture Products in Nebraska  7) prizes must be accepted as is and are not redeemable for cash 8 ) Kitchen Stewardship, LLC and sponsoring company are not liable for any injury or damage to persons and/or things as a result of the acceptance of the prize offered. 9) This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

I really wonder what my neighbors think when a humongous trailer truck backs into my driveway and slides out the ramp from the back.

Are they moving?

Did they buy a new couch?

What are those boxes?

(takes a minute to read the side of the truck: Country Life Natural Foods)

Is that really all FOOD?

You betcha, neighbors – it’s called buying in bulk and getting together with friends so the truck will come right to you!

Country Life Natural Foods delivers wonderful bulk selections to certain parts of the Midwest. They’re not nearly as widespread as Azure Standard, for example, but for me, they’re a great deal and the best bulk option.

As long as I can rustle up $400 total in an order, the truck comes to my house, no shipping charge.

It’s scary how fast I can get a large portion of that $400 total tallied up with just my own order.

Every time I send out an email asking if people are interested in ordering, they ask, “So what do you buy there, anyway?”

This post is for them…and for me, so I can remember when I run out of things.

If you don’t live in the Country Life area, you might still get some ideas about bulk ordering procedures, and here are some other online bulk ordering options for you to peruse:

• Azure Standard: great prices, often recommended by readers, I believe they’re expanding their delivery area, including maybe even near me! Laura at Heavenly Homemakers is an Azure guru and can explain how it works.
• Vitacost – Stacy Makes Cents will explain the beauty of Vitacost to you – I shopped for food there after seeing her picture on Facebook:

Then when I made an order, it came smelling like pickle juice and looking like this:

You’re seeing wet, open boxes of crackers, dented cans, and fragile apple chips crammed in the middle of the box, under the crackers. I thought, “Whaaaa???”

My mad detective skills led me to believe the the UPS man dropped something very, very heavy on my box – then repackaged it so he wouldn’t get caught. !!! Seriously. Vitacost handled the situation well and refunded me for the pickle jar that was missing, and I could have had replacements for the crackers, but I decided that since the inner packaging wasn’t damaged, I wasn’t willing to take the time to send them back.

• If you are a first time shopper at Vitacost, you’ll want to use this link to get $10 for your first order (and I’ll get some bucks off as well). Otherwise, use this link, my affiliate share – and thank you!!
• Mountain Rose Herbs is another potential online store for certain bulk purchases, and there are many others (I’ll cover Tropical Traditions in the final post of this series).

The “What Does a Real Foodie Buy at…?” series is generously sponsored by Plan to Eat, where you can use the Grocery Store Menu to organize your shopping by grocery store and even set defaults for certain items to go on the list where it’s least expensive. See the other shopping ideas:

• Costco
• Aldi/Save-a-Lot
• Amazon

Now, on to Country Life!

What I Buy at Country Life

I’ll include current prices (as of spring 2013 when I made my last order) just to give you an idea of how inexpensively you might be able to get some items from a bulk source.

DRY BEANS

• Organic black beans, 5# for $1.45/lb. or 25# for $1.15/lb.
• Organic black-eyed peas, 5# for $1.65/lb.
• White kidney beans (cannellini), 5# for $2.30/lb. (although I usually just use Great Northern or navy beans now, more frugal)
• Organic Garbanzo beans, 5# for $2.25/lb. or 25# for $1.90/lb.
• Organic Great Northern beans, 5# for $1.70 or 25# for $1.40/lb.
• Organic kidney beans, 5# for $1.70 or 25# for $1.40/lb.
• Green lentils, 5# for $1.40/lb. or 25# for $1.10/lb. (organic is $1.90 and $1.60 respectively)
• Organic navy beans, 5# for $1.50/lb. or 25# for $1.20/lb.
• Organic pinto beans, 5# for $1.95/lb. or 25# for $1.65/lb.

Now that I’m writing those out, I can’t wait to get them all in my price book – some are considerably higher than I expected, although any price in my head is probably not for organic, so I have to take that into account. For conventionally farmed dry legumes, I hate to spend over $1/lb., but maybe that goal is outdated. I used to get lentils for 20c/lb. at Save-a-Lot about 6-7 years ago! Sigh…

I took this photo as an example of containers that I save for dividing up 25# bags of beans or grains. My oatmeal goes into about a dozen or more actual oatmeal containers that I saved from when I was buying it at Save-a-Lot. It’s just too convenient!

dry goods

• Tahini, $5.25 for 15 oz. can (I use it in simple blender hummus)
• Organic peanut butter, $5.50 for 16 oz.
• Stretch Island fruit leather strips are 50-60c each…I feel like a sale at the health foods store might be less expensive. Time to price Costco’s snacks!
• Stevia extract, white powder – but I don’t know the brand – $6.25/oz.
• Gluten-free Lundberg organic brown rice pasta (and I’d love to try their spelt pasta)

nuts and seeds

• Blanched almond flour, $5.75/lb.
• Almonds, steam pasteurized, $4.35/lb. for a 5# bag, organic for $8/lb.
• Brazil nuts, $5 for 10 oz.
• Whole roasted cashews, $8/lb. (the quality of these guys is head and shoulders beyond Aldi, for example…); raw for baking are $6.75/lb.
  • Organic “pieces” are only $6.25/lb. – oops – I’ll be getting these in the future for recipes that just blend them up anyway, like these grain-free waffles.
• Pecans are a better deal at Costco
• Macadamia nuts, $11.25/lb. (man, is that an indulgence! Yikes!)
• Walnuts, $6.75/lb. (Costco better deal)
• Organic flax seeds, $1.75-2/lb.
• Sesame seeds, $2/lb. or $3.25/lb. organic
• Sunflower seeds, raw, $1.75/lb. or $2.70/lb. organic, 5# bags

dried fruit

• Unsweetened banana chips, 2# for $2.50/lb.
• Coconut chips, $2.85/lb.
• Coconut, medium (like shreds), $2.75/lb.
• Coconut, macaroon (very finely grated), $2.75/lb.
  • Both are a much better deal, by more than a dollar a pound, than Tropical Traditions!
• Dates, pitted, 5# at $3/lb, 15# at $2.50/lb. (Costco would be better at both sizes! This is new information for me!)
• Raisins, organic, $2.10/lb. for 30# box, which we go through in far less than a year (that’s scary), and I also just realized that the organic raisins at Costco are only $2/lb. THAT is why it pays to make a price book! I’m so glad I made that Monday Mission for MYSELF!
• Organic figs, $4.25/lb. – might have been a better deal at Costco too!
• Organic prunes, $4.75/lb., unsorbated prunes, $3.50/lb.

grains and starches

• This is what got me started at Country Life, when the oatmeal price beat out Save-a-Lot, which was already kicking Meijer’s behind! Rolled oats, 60 cents/lb. for 25# bag, 95 cents/lb. for organic 25#
• I’d get just about any flour at Country Life if I didn’t have a Nutrimill (link goes to Amazon) already; many are not certified organic but “certified chemical free” which is a great less expensive step
• Organic coconut flour is $6/lb., better deal at Tropical Traditions
• Sorghum flour, $2.72/lb., current price at Amazon better, for 4 bags
• Whole grain teff, $3.96/lb. (better deal than Amazon)
• Arrowroot powder, $2.30/lb. (MUCH better deal than Amazon or Mountain Rose, current prices)
• Organic barley, $1.10/lb.
• Organic hulled white buckwheat, $2/lb. for 5#, $1.65/lb for 25# (this is to grind into flour and make buckwheaties, soaked and dehydrated whole groats)
• Country Life’s whole grains for grinding are great and generally have very competitive prices: spelt, Kamut, all kinds of wheat berries, millet, and more.
• Yellow organic popcorn for less than $1/lb. for a 50# bag, $1.40/lb. for 5#
• Organic long grain brown rice, $1/lb. for 50#, $1.35/lb. for 5# (Costco turns out to be 5c more for the 12-pound bag vs. Country Life’s 50#…but since brown rice really shouldn’t be around as long as my 50# bag is taking us to get through (16 mos. already, darnit!), this is not a good deal. Costco, here I come!)

baking

• Organic evaporated cane juice – <$2/lb. (better deal currently than Costco)
• Sucanat – $2.25/lb.
• Blackstrap molasses – $3.50/32 oz.

spices

Lots of spices are good deals, but you just need to know your other sources and price check. My favs include:

• Cinnamon
• Cardamom (crazy good deal)
• Chili powder
• Cumin

Irradiating Spices

This isn’t the time or place to go into irradiation and why, since it’s very easy to do, I choose to avoid it whenever possible, but I did ask at Country Life and found out that about half their spices are irradiated while the others are not.

Here is the list of spices that ARE irradiated at Country Life:

• whole anise
• whole bay leaves
• whole carraway seed
• whole celery seed
• chives
• cilantro
• ground and whole cloves
• whole dill seed
• whole dill weed
• whole fennel
• gran. Garlic and garlic powder
• whole marjoram
• parsley flakes
• green and red bell peppers
• whole rosemary
• whole savory
• whole thyme
• turmeric

I asked at Costco just this week, and they answered:

“None of the Kirkland Signature spices are irradiated. It is steam sterilized.”

I need to do some more questioning, because first of all, the spices I have from there are largely McCormick brand. Secondly, can you steam sterilize a spice? Wouldn’t the moisture compromise it? I’m not convinced this is the right answer. She also said that irradiation has to be disclosed on the package, and I’m looking into that. Is that true??

Items I Would Potentially Buy but Haven’t Yet

There are some bars and more “processed” but still healthy options at Country Life that I just haven’t bothered with before, but they look ‘clean’ in the ingredients and a possible fun purchase:

• unsweetened carob chips, $2.50/lb.
• Oskri coconut bars (yummy!), $18/20 pcs.
• Rice thins, brown – GF, simple ingredients, and a better deal than Blue Diamond Nut Thins usually are, but I’d want to taste one before buying a case.
• Have to price check coconut milk – Thai brand, not organic, $2.10/14 oz.
• Michigan honey – $38.50/gal. – Not sure if it’s raw, but for baking, oh well!
• Considering some diatomaceous earth in the next order – 5# for $11.25, and I could sprinkle around the outside of my house to naturally get rid of ants
• Yeast is $3.25/lb. – compare to Costco?
• Madhava coconut sugar – $4.25/lb.
• Date sugar – $3.75/lb.
• Psyllium husks are $6.50/lb., a good deal if I ever run out!

There are some other interesting items I should price check, like unbleached parchment paper, charcoal capsules, Bragg’s aminos, apple cider vinegar, cherry juice concentrate, and aluminum-free baking powder.

If you’re wondering how long this all took…too long. And my price book still has a LOT of holes, but it should only take 10-15 more minutes to get all the Costco and Country Life prices in there. I just need to print it out and take it to Aldi and/or simply use receipts as I get them to fill in the rest. However – as I noticed as I was going today – I’ve thought I was getting the best deal on a couple items, only to be wrong! So in the long run, I hope the price book is worth it.

What/where do you buy in bulk? How do you make sure you’re getting the best prices?

———————————————

I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post to Amazon, Mountain Rose Herbs, Tropical Traditions and Vitacost from which I will earn some commission if you make a purchase. I have no business relationship with Country Life Natural Foods. See my full disclosure statement here.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

Whatever they darn well want.

How does that place stock everything known to man???

Kidding…sort of.

While I’d like to see more dollars stay locally in your own community, I love Amazon quite a bit. Who can argue with its convenience and price?

One thing I love about Amazon is the wish list feature – I’m always forgetting little things I want to buy/look at/consider someday, and having a wish list online that I can add to as I’m inspired by a post or whatever…well, it’s just inspired. (And genius marketing strategy on Amazon’s part, I admit, as well as those affiliate links like the one I just used…more on that below.)

Kitchen Goodies

I’ve never loved shopping, and especially now that I’ve birthed a third child who hates riding in a vehicle, I really try not to run all over town as much as possible. So yeah…for gifts, books, little appliance or kitchen tool purchases, and a handful of other things, I hit Amazon quite frequently.

I think it’s a great place to find (or at least compare reviews on) foodie gadgets and kitchen tools, such as items I’ve grabbed or “wish listed” in the past year:

• kitchen scale (finally bought one, haven’t used it much…need to bake more!)
• garlic crusher (on my wish list)
• apple peeler/corer/slicer (bought it for apple season and hardly had any apples…)
• metal spatula (new favorite tool – use it all the time on my Extrema pan, my cast iron skillet, and my cast iron griddle)
• immersion blender (use mine all the time!)
• little bottles for making homemade vanilla extract
• small bamboo cutting boards (great price, currently – may change)

See also a pretty extensive list at the KS aStore, where I’ve added gadgets over the years every time I talk about something cool that you can get on Amazon. There’s a category list on the right and lots of fun goodies, from pressure canners to lunch packing items, food, natural cleaning supplies, baby gear, and a special list that goes with The Family Camping Handbook but that everyone can view.

Cookbooks

Of course, every foodie needs some good cookbooks. You’ll want to start with these if you have a Kindle:

And here are some others I’ve enjoyed recently or have on my wish list:

• Ladled – love! See my review on Amazon.
• Nourishing Meals – also use weekly! See my Amazon review here too.
• Not Your Mother’s Make-Ahead and Freeze Cookbook
• Crock On! for Kindle – the easiest, yummiest meals! I reviewed this one too.
• Gut and Psychology Syndrome – on my wish list, but why is it so expensive? I’m being patient…
• Childhood Ear Infections: A Parent’s Guide to Alternative Treatments – also on my wish list, but I think I requested it from the library simultaneously.
• Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us – read just a bit and am fascinated. This will take a while to slog through, but I’m quite excited to get it sometime! I put this on hold at the library right as I placed it on the wish list at Amazon, too, so I figured someone would come through.
• and the classic: Nourishing Traditions

Food in the Mail?

And I’m not above buying food online, even though it still seems weird. Sometimes I can’t find something at our local health food store, and lo and behold, Amazon always seems to sell it. Other times I just need a little something to get to the $25 for free shipping.

Here are some foods I’ve actually purchased in the last year or so or that are on my wish list:

• psyllium husks (for gluten-free baking) and psyllium powder
• stevia powder for my husband
• kelp (because everyone around here was out and so was I! I use it in bone broth)

Many people say that checking the price on staples and using subscribe and save is genius on Amazon…so get going on that price book so you know if you’re getting a deal or not!

The Random Items

Of course I’m going to list randomness….things I’ve purchased that aren’t kitchen-related but usually sort of natural living lifestyle:

And for the foodie blogger? I just got – finally – a real deal camera. I ordered this one with the extra lens:

Strolling Through the Aisles?

Shopping at Amazon is so different from shopping at a brick-and-mortar grocery store (or any store).

When you go grocery shopping, you usually check the sales, make a list, and follow it as you walk through the store. But you can also grab things on a whim or even wander the aisles and see what you can find.

At Amazon, you don’t exactly browse the aisles.

You need to know exactly what you want, search for it, and find out if it’s a good price. It’s imperative to know your price point when shopping online.

I grocery shop when I need food. I Amazon shop when I need something specific that I just can’t find (or don’t know where to look) somewhere else. Hence my totally random purchases that I just shared!

So whenever you see something you’re interested in, see if it’s at Amazon, save it to your wish list, and when you have $25 of free shipping items, then you’re ready to order without thinking or losing track of what you wanted.

What can I say? Amazon makes it easy…

This series is generously sponsored by Plan to Eat, where you can use the Grocery Store Menu to organize your shopping by grocery store and even set defaults for certain items to go on the list where it’s least expensive. See the rest of the series HERE, including Costco and Aldi, and more.

3 Tips for Savvy Amazon Shopping

1. Amazon Mom – if you’re buying anything baby-related, like maybe you feel like I do about cloth diapers even after reading my cloth diaper review, and you use disposables, Amazon Mom will give you discounts AND free Amazon Prime for a whole year. You have to order something every 2 months, I think, but if you’re doing diapers, it’s perfect. Worth looking into for sure – it’s free!
2. Subscribe and Save – for anything you can use regularly, be it those diapers above (double savings!), whole wheat flour, snacks for school, vitamins, or whatever, if subscribe and save is an option, it’s a good idea. We use cloth diapers most of the time but take a Sunday Sabbath from them, so I started with my subscribe and save set to every 6 months, and then when I needed diapers, I’d pop in and “add an extra shipment.” Once I figured out how much we really used (a box every 2 months) I set it for that.
3. Bless your favorite blogger – Did you know most bloggers use what’s called “affiliate links” when they link to Amazon? With the exception of a few states that ban it (seriously, why?) and perhaps some bloggers who don’t want an extra buck or two, most Amazon links online are going to be affiliate links. They should be well disclosed in the post, but not everyone follows the rules. An affiliate link looks like this:

   http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0019LPM0C/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B0019LPM0C&linkCode=as2&tag=kitchestewar-20See that code on the end “kitchestewar-20?” There will be something like that on an affiliate link, unless the blogger uses a “Pretty Links” plugin which would then look more like this:

   www.kitchenstewardship.com/recommends/foodatamazon

   or similar. Bloggers can also shorten links, like for Facebook or Twitter, looking more like this:

   http://amzn.to/183GDJm

   I’m sure no one is trying to trick you into using their link, but I thought you might like to know what they look like in case folks aren’t disclosing as well as they should. Mostly so that you can bless your favorite bloggers whenever you want to make an Amazon order – when you click through a link like that, a little percentage of your entire order goes back to that blogger, no matter what you buy, and it doesn’t cost you any more. It’s such a nice way to say “thanks!” to the people sharing information every day online.

   I tend to share the love to as many as I can, so I switch around whenever I make an order (there’s only a 24-hour “memory” on the links, so  you really need to click through right before you order). For example, when Tiffany from Don’t Waste the Crumbs was rocking out “back to basics” guest posts for me in Jan/Feb, I made sure I clicked through her link a couple times. I asked Donielle for camera recommendations and thanked her by ordering the camera plus our next Amazon order through her links.

   If you want to bless KS, any link in this post is a winner OR you can always find a link to Amazon down low in my sidebar on the right there.

   On behalf of all the ladies (and men) getting “blogger butt” sitting here typing posts and responding to comments, we appreciate the gesture!

Finally, here’s a way to get free money at Amazon:

Earn Amazon Bucks for Doing Your Foodie Research

I do plenty of “Google searching” online, and if you’re into the real food thing, you’re probably always coming across some new information you need to look into.

The What Does a Real Foodie Buy at…? posts just the last two days have already generated the following on my “to research” list:

• BPA vs. BPsomething else in cans – what is worse?
• radiation in Alaskan seafood
• is cinnamon hurting my liver?
• does Costco irradiate their produce?

Instead of a Google search, though, I always use a Swagbucks search. I have my default search in the top right of my browser set to swag-search, and every couple times I do a search, I earn some “Swagbucks.” It doesn’t really take any extra time, and I can redeem them for gift cards to a whole ton of places.

One of the best Swag deals is the $5 Amazon gift card, which is 450 Swagbucks. You can only order 5 of one item per month, so I just set a calendar reminder to order as many as I can every month, and by Christmastime, I have lots of “free money” on Amazon.

If you’re already using Swagbucks, good for you! Consider the $5 Amazon card thing a good tip (that you probably already knew).

If Swagbucks is all new to you, you’re in luck: I’ve got a code for a bonus 70 bucks to start your account. Click HERE and use the code:

KITCHNSTEWARD

It is case sensitive, so I recommend a copy-and-paste. You’ll get 70 Swag Bucks in addition to the 30 you get as you complete your profile, etc. The code is now live and lasts through May 31st at 11:59pm PT.

To enter registration codes, click the text that reads “I have a sign up code” as you’re initially signing up.

Once you’re swagging along, you get even more bucks if you refer other people (yep, like I’m doing right now). Email your friends who would appreciate this, tack a permanent note on the end of your email signature, or do a Facebook shoutout. You can even include this code until the end of May – you’ll get the referral, and they’ll get some Swag bucks. It’s a win-win.

There are other ways to earn Swag bucks beyond searching, including playing games there or shopping online. It looks like there’s a deal at Hotels.com with a Deal of the Day thing with deep discounts, and you get 6 SB for every dollar spent there. You might also be able to use the code REBATES13 at check out for up to $100 back, but I’m really not sure if that’s still active or not (sorry).

When you do search, you typically get an average of 10 bucks every 5-8 searches, I’m guessing. To increase your chances, whenever you’re going to a website – say Kitchen Stewardship, just off the top of my head – instead of typing it in the URL line, Swag search for “Kitchen Stewardship” and then click over. It takes an extra 5 seconds but maximizes your freebies.

Your turn! Do you use Swagbucks? More importantly, what are your most fun foodie finds on Amazon lately? (okay, fine, you can tell us about practical purchases too…)

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: There are affiliate links in this post to Amazon, of course, from which I will earn some commission if you make a purchase. Your swagbucks signup will benefit me as well. See my full disclosure statement here.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

If anyone ever decides mustard is unhealthy, our family is in trouble.

We go through about a bottle a month, which is pretty remarkable for a condiment that sits in most people’s refrigerators until children marry off and take it with them as a paperweight.

Mustard is one of those foods that’s hard to mess up – unlike ketchup, it doesn’t have a sweetener. It needs no fat, so that can’t go wrong. And rarely if ever do you see MSG in it. We consume it with abandon!

It’s nice to be able to get some basics for cheap (you’ve seen my food budget this year, so you know I have been increasing spending in many areas, by choice).

A lot of people think that you can’t find real food at discount stores like Aldi and Save-a-Lot, but I disagree.

If “real food” means to you “only organic, grassfed, pastured, etc.” then no – you’re  not going to find that at Aldi.

But if real food can simply mean FOOD – with one ingredient, things that grow in the ground – then  you can find plenty of basic staples at Save-a-Lot if you like.

The What Does a Real Foodie Buy At…? series is generously sponsored by Plan to Eat, where you can use the Grocery Store Menu to organize your shopping by grocery store and even set defaults for certain items to go on the list where it’s least expensive.

Here’s what I still buy at Aldi and Save-a-Lot

• mustard
• black pepper
• cashews
• brown rice (some stores have it)
• frozen peas
• dried beans and lentils
• salsa (sometimes, although bummed about the white sugar)
• sour cream (Aldi brand, surprisingly, has no random fillers like most brands)
• produce: bananas, avocados (always a great deal), pineapples, sometimes other fruits (but watch the quality closely), cauliflower, broccoli, baby carrots, peppers, onions, sometimes cucumbers, zucchini, potatoes, and more.
  • Is their produce organic? No. But I don’t always buy organic; I just can’t stomach the cost or always even find it. I can’t be scared of every vegetable…
• vinegar (for cleaning)
• baking soda
• plastic zippered bags (which I use infrequently but still need to have on hand)
• canned salmon (Aldi has Alaskan salmon – as long as it’s wild caught, for something like salmon patties, I’m not going to be too picky! I think Save-a-Lot’s brand is caught somewhere sketchy…)

On Elitism

I used to always buy canned tomatoes at Aldi or Save-a-Lot, and I would never tell you not to. Yes, there’s BPA in the cans. Yes, that’s no good. But is it a reason to stress out and spend more than your budget will allow on tomatoes?

No.

And anyone who makes you feel horribly about buying tomatoes, for goodness sake, should be ashamed of themselves.

They’re least expensive at Aldi, and I still have some “backups” in my cupboard from there. I’m not going to throw them out just because of the can linings.

Now can you do better than that on a budget? Possibly, yes.

Best case scenario for canned tomatoes on the cheap is, certainly, to can your own. But if that’s simply not something you can do, then you shouldn’t feel like you have to avoid tomatoes just because you can’t afford them in fancy glass jars. Second best is to try Costco, where they sell BPA free cans of organic tomato products. (Here’s what else I buy at Costco.)

But if Aldi or Save-a-Lot or a sale at your local big box store is your best option, then you say your meal prayers, enjoy your from-scratch cooking, and focus on the fact that you’re getting great lycopene and other nutrients from those tomatoes.

With that in mind, and remembering that many budgets aren’t able to stretch like mine has recently, here’s what I used to buy when budget took more priority than organics:

• oatmeal
• canned beans
• tomatoes
• pasta and sauce
• lemon juice
• canned fruit
• butter
• cheese – know your price point! A good sale is often better than Aldi’s shredded cheese price…
• (sometimes) nuts and dried fruit – you really need to know price point on these, because often Aldi’s nuts are in 8 oz. packages and more expensive than many other options.

On Animal Products

Do I buy meat, eggs, milk or cheese at Aldi?

No.

I do try hard to source my animal products from sources that raise their animals on the foods God intended them to eat.

However.

If conventional was all I could afford or find, I’d cut down on the amount I ate and potentially buy them in their whole sources at Aldi. You gotta eat something…

Here’s a post I wrote when I first started blogging about Healthy Meals at Aldi and Save-a-Lot – a good reminder of from whence I came and some grace for you wherever you are on your journey!

Your turn! What do you buy at the deep discount grocery stores?

Check out the rest of the What Does a Real Foodie Buy At…? series.

———————————————

I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by Plan to Eat, a KS sponsor. See my full disclosure statement here.

This post is brought to you by MyShopping, where you can find organic ground herbs and amazing apple tea at competitive prices.

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.

It’s inevitable.

Any time I mention shopping for food at a store, someone asks, “So…what do you buy there?”

I’ve had conversations on Facebook recently about the quality of produce at Costco in various parts of the country, for example. It’s the same thing I do myself: Ask people how they do things in order to pick up tips that I might be able to use.

This week’s series, “What Does a Real Foodie Buy at…?” is going to do just that for various stores and online options, starting with Costco, where I’ve had a membership for just barely a year.

I thought about organizing this list by section in the store, like “frozen foods” “meats” “grains” etc., but what would be the fun in that? Instead, I’m doing it like this:

• The Essentials (the stuff that makes me say, “Whatever did I do before I had a Costco membership???” The best deal or only place to find something.)
• The Basics (stuff that’s a decent deal at Costco but that I could also probably find somewhere else for similar if I worked at it)
• The Fun Stuff (things we don’t really need, but it’s nice to get them in bulk for a decent price)
• The Bonus Items (the stuff I probably shouldn’t be buying, but do, because it tastes so good. Also sometimes makes me say, “Whatever did I do before I had a Costco membership???” and others times makes me say, “Maybe it’s not such a good thing to shop at Costco…”

This series is generously sponsored by Plan to Eat, where you can use the Grocery Store Menu to organize your shopping by grocery store and even set defaults for certain items to go on the list where it’s least expensive.

The Essentials

This is why I love Costco – lots of well-sourced foods at good prices that I can’t find anywhere else.

But be careful – not everything that’s packaged as a health food ends up being so. Case in point: I fell for some Acai berry juice that I read about in the Costco magazine and how wonderful the company is, sustainable, super food, all that jazz. I thought it would be fun for smoothies.

Foolish of me, I know, but I didn’t read the ingredients until I got home and had used it a few times. I thought it was “just juice.” It was acai berry juice with agave syrup and maybe even some other questionable ingredients. I was bummed! It’s not the first time I’ve been burned by an impulse grocery buy, especially at Costco.

Here are the things I really do buy:

• Organic Frozen Veggies – the broccoli is heavenly, the peas were there once and I want them back, if I didn’t have so much dehydrated greens on hand and such a small freezer, I’d buy the kale or spinach, and the green beans have changed my life because I make these crispy green beans for snacks, five pounds at a time:

• Daisy sour cream – we make homemade ranch dressing with it and can get through the 3-pound tub; the price point is far less per pound than a sale price at our local box store
• Organic corn chips – almost worth the membership price for this item alone! Two pounds for $5 and slightly less guilt about my biggest compromise convenience food, since at least I’m hoping to avoid GMOs this way. Plus, they’re really, really good chips.
• Canned tuna and salmon in BPA-free cans – still kind of expensive, but the BPA-free cans and well-sourced Alaskan salmon are worth it to me. I stocked up as a preparedness measure. The “boneless, skinless” in the black cans makes a really great cold salmon salad.

• Organic chicken breasts, thighs, and whole birds – I’d rather source from local farmers, because I know these birds are probably still raised in confinement and kind of nasty conditions like we chatted about yesterday on Facebook (see the conversation here) – but I just don’t have a consistent source right now that is worth the drive. Chicken breasts are my splurge convenience food – when other people would order a pizza, I cook with organic chicken breasts.
• Bottled lemon juice – I was so excited to find this organic lemon juice with zero extra ingredients after I realized all the junk in other bottled lemon juice that I had been using in dressings and such for years. It’s so much easier than squeezing whole lemons and freezing the juice! I use lemon juice regularly to make water kefir, so this is a HUGE timesaver, and not even very expensive.

The Basics

• Cheese – I know I’d rather have grassfed cheese, but when I can’t get it, it’s nice to have a few of Costco’s options: the 2-pound mozzarella is really cheap and tasty, although I don’t think it’s particularly well-sourced. Eh. I do what I can. The organic pre-sliced colby jack is a total convenience splurge, but nice for a super busy week. Kerrygold cheese is a little pricey but well-sourced and tasty.
• Butter – Kerrygold butter is grassfed and a gorgeous yellow; I got the Costco membership to get the sticks of Kerrygold butter in the gold packages. Costco organic butter is a better price than Meijer but bright white. Neither are optimal, but they’re the best I can get locally without resorting to online ordering.
• Quinoa – organic, best price I’ve found
• Rice – most kinds are a better price than even bulk ordering at Country Life, but I do need to finish my price book to really get a handle on all the different kinds. We bought some black rice once that was supposed to have as many antioxidants as blueberries, and it was marvelous and such a FUN little experiment. They don’t carry it anymore though.
• Dates are a good price, as are some other dried fruits, but I don’t get raisins there, and you really need to watch the ingredients. I grabbed some dried blueberries once only to find out that they were practically candy because of the added sugar. We don’t get those anymore, but the Easter Bunny did get some sugary mixed dried fruit to fill the eggs. Better than jelly beans, but not health food.
• Freeze-dried fruit in individual packages – this was a great option, although sadly not organic, for emergency quick snacks for John (and the other kids love them too). I can’t always find them anymore (both Mrs. May’s and Costco’s house Kirkland brand have been available in the past).

• Frozen fruit – when our U-pick blueberries for homemade yogurt ran out recently, a 3-pound bag of organic raspberries called my name. Yum. So Yum.
• Organic salsa – we love Mexican food, and Kirkland brand organic salsa is delicious and quite hot, the way we like it. Unfortunately, it’s in a plastic jar and contains sugar, so Meijer Naturals, no GMO, in a glass jar, with no sugar, is awfully good competition. I might not buy the Kirkland stuff anymore now that I really registered the sugar during Lent and couldn’t eat the salsa in our house!
• Spaghetti sauce – It’s not organic, but it’s in glass and has no sugar or odd ingredients, and we like it. It’s not a great deal…but it’ll do. See comments for some very helpful notes on canned tomatoes at Costco!
• Walnuts and pecans – I get a better deal elsewhere on almonds, which are chemically pasteurized at Costco, and cashews, but walnuts and pecans are my best price point currently. Chia seeds too, although I need to doublecheck price.
• Produce – we get quite a bit there, just because when I hit Costco I’m going to try not to hit another grocery store for a week or more. Organic lettuce, spinach, carrots, and sometimes fresh broccoli, and non-organic pea pods (my newest addiction!! So good for the munchies!), cucumbers (they’re expensive though), colored peppers, oranges, pineapple, bananas, garlic (from California), and avocados, which are always under $1 each and a good deal. If they have organic apples, sometimes I spring for those, but I cringe at the plastic packaging.
  • Note: Produce is probably the area most of all that you need to know price points and sale prices from other grocery stores, particularly fruits like berries. Also, consider seriously whether you’ll get through four pounds of broccoli or raspberries before it goes bad. Throwing away your food is never a good deal. I do not buy fresh berries at Costco because they’re still darn expensive!
• Gluten-free pasta – they have carried an organic corn/quinoa pasta in the past that was tasty, but still kind of expensive. I get a whole case of rice pasta from Country Life and we’re pretty happy with that.
• Organic sugar from Wholesome Sweeteners – the five-pound bag I bought last May is still around, so it’s safe to say that we don’t go through too much of it. I use sucanat whenever I can, but for water kefir I like to alternate, and some baked goods, especially for company, just need some “regular” sugar.
• Spices – again, you really need to know your price point. Country Life and our local health foods store have really good spice prices, so it’s a balance. I noticed the garlic powder was from California, not China, so I got some…and then got home and remembered I should check about spices being irradiated before I buy. Too much to remember!
• Broth/Stock – you know I don’t buy this stuff as a general rule (it’s too easy, frugal, and nutritious to make homemade chicken stock), but I decided to read ingredients at Costco one day thinking preparedness, since I don’t can my stock. The organic chicken stock was actually made with bones – halleluiah! – so I bought a six-pack. I’ve used one carton when I was out of stock and really wanted soup, and truly – it’s only okay. The flavor is pretty weak, but I’m spoiled. The beef “stock” however, even the organic (I think the brand was Pacific something-or-other) had no bones and something totally wrong in there -  maybe MSG, I can’t remember. It was a definite “no buy” even as a compromise food.
• Extra virgin olive oil – I hear really good things about Costco’s Toscano EVOO, and I bought a bottle – pricey, but very good. They also have organic EVOO under the Kirkland brand. I still buy my EVOO and coconut oil from here, but many Costco stores also have organic virgin coconut oil for a very competitive price. Know your price point, folks! I’m working hard in the background on my own price book…

The Fun Stuff

• Apple & Eve fruit and veggie juice boxes - I’d like to push the system and say, “I’ll bring a snack, but not a drink,” for sporting events, but until we run out of these boxes, I think I’ll just use them. They’re far better than Capri Sun or Gatorade!
• String cheese – good to have on hand for emergency snacks, preschool classroom-wide snacks, and sporting events (see above). I do still need to do my price book for string cheese and make sure I’m not being hoodwinked into paying more than a regular sale at Meijer.
• Nitrate-free sausages – another “convenience” food for us, to go on top of homemade mac and cheese (from Better Than a Box). I’m sad that the one we liked which did not have any sweetener (pictured above) has been replaced by one that’s not so tasty, does include sugar, and has more “kind of weird but not exactly toxic” ingredients.
• Dried apple snacks – I only saw these once, but the only ingredient was “apples.” Great for backup snacks and the kids love the rings.
• Almond and peanut butter – neither are organic, but the Maranatha almond butter is pretty good, and they have this natural peanut butter in the refrigerated case right now that’s just yummy. One ingredient. I can’t be too picky all the time!

The Bonus Items

• If you have a sweet tooth, don’t even go down the fancy candy aisle at Costco. They have these sea salt caramels…and these macadamia nut caramel thingys…and…oh, dear. Now I’ve outed myself. There’s nothing good for you about the candy at Costco, but it does have slightly better ingredients than your average mass-produced candy. It’s a horrible temptation! We gave mixed bags of all our favorites to family at Christmas.
• Kirkland brand chocolate chips – the ingredients surely aren’t perfect (soy lecithin for one), but they’re sustainably sourced fair trade chocolate and good for a quick fix! Only 51% cacao, which is a bummer compared to the 60% Ghirardelli chips that Sam’s Club carries.
• Snapea Crisps – unhealthy fats in these crispy little buggers, but I get hoodwinked that they’re gluten-free and at least include a vegetable. They’re probably extruded and awful for us, though! We get tempted by other fun chips every so often too, like sweet potato chips, that I KNOW aren’t good for us, but are a fun indulgence.
• Local and seasonal beer – We’re finally old enough to drink for fun and not buy cheap lite beer. It’s an 80/20 lifestyle!

An awesome post about feeding a LARGE family a Weston A. Price diet utilizing Costco…

Your turn! What do you love to find at Costco?

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I’d love to see more of you!  Sign up for a free email subscription or grab my reader feed. You can also follow me on Twitter, get KS for Kindle, or see my Facebook Fan Page.

If you missed the last Monday Mission, click here.

Kitchen Stewardship is dedicated to balancing God’s gifts of time, health, earth and money.  If you feel called to such a mission, read more at Mission, Method, and Mary and Martha Moments.

Disclosure: This post is sponsored by Plan to Eat. See my full disclosure statement here.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005NI7V1U/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B005NI7V1U&linkCode=as2&tag=kitchestewar-20

Thanks for subscribing to Kitchen Stewardship! You may also be interested in Green and Natural Body Products or Mothers Balancing Work and Home.