So the Whole Foods adventure, along with the Cosper's Meat Market adventure, with the addition of "people moving to Germany gave us all their food"-- I really didn't have to go grocery shopping for two weeks. The local meat market did not carry grass fed beef, or even fresh chicken or pork. This was a disappointment to me, though Tom liked having his steaks cut to order.
Through my many searches for the food I want, I found a couple of semi-local farmer's markets (which I have yet to go to) and a grocery store in Georgetown (about 35 minutes away) called Sprouts. While it seemed like it might be helpful, the only good thing I can say about Sprouts is that they DID carry pita bread! Several kinds! They didn't have anything else I really wanted to buy, but they did have the elusive pita. I had pretty good luck just going to the commissary, and hopefully will try the farmer's market next week.
Since I didn't make a menu on my last trip to the store but still came up with great meals for nearly two weeks, I decided to wing it again. Unfortunately, I felt rather uninspired this week and wandered around the store, not really buying much of anything. I did buy two big jars of sauerkraut... sooo... yeah. I guess we can all eat sauerkraut. Perhaps I will be back to the menu next week .
Anyway, the real reason I'm still blogging on about grocery shopping is because I wanted to make a note of the things I ended up liking (or not) from the Whole Foods. Although I still wouldn't make a special trip to go there, if I happen to be in Austin I might swing by.
The cheese: I got some fresh feta, still packed in brine, and it was so, so good. It didn't smell like feet and wasn't as sharp as the stuff you get at the grocery store. Some larger stores do offer cheese sliced to order, so maybe that's something to look out for.
The veggies: Although they weren't organic, they were fresh and lasted a long time in my fridge. I think the only thing that went bad was one head of romaine, but that was after almost two weeks. I don't know why I bought so much freaking lettuce... I think we ate salad with every meal, including one where we had three guests, and still didn't use it all. I must have been channeling my inner bunny. The mushrooms I got, however, were weird. We tried to put them on kabobs, and they just shriveled into little pebbles.
The infamous salmon: It wasn't just plain salmon, for the record. It was salmon filled with a feta and spinach mixture. I really liked it, Tom did not like it at all... and of the three pieces I got, one ended up sitting in the fridge until it was so questionable we tossed it. That means that every bite of salmon I took probably cost like $2. Tom said it tasted fishy. Note to self... smell salmon for fishiness before purchasing?
The bread: It was Whole Foods brand wheat bread, and Jacob declared that it was "kind of nasty". I think it was a little dry. I made it into croutons yesterday, and they are quite good.
Yogurt: I got Stonyfield farms yogurt cups for Jake's lunch, and while he liked the strawberry, he said that the banana/vanilla flavor was... "kind of nasty". The other kids ate them and loved them, so I got those again from the commissary. The big tubs I got, of which I don't remember the name, were soupy and not so good. This week I got "Brown Cow" and it's pretty good. I think the Stonyfield farms is really the best bet though.
That's all I can think of, I may add more later. I still haven't used much of the frozen stuff I got, but what I have used has been very good.
I tried doing the whole soaking/cooking the dried chickpeas... and all I can say is, I will be purchasing them in a can in the future. What a pain in the butt that was. I also made my own paneer (yay!) It turned out ok, maybe a little too lemony. Decent for my first try, though. I attempted to make babaganoush with a leftover eggplant... that did not work out at all. I tried to make my own pita again, four times. Yes, four times. That's how many tries it took to get something resembling a bread product out of the oven. And it still wasn't good. Oy.
I promise, my next blog will be about something other than me grocery shopping. I'm thinking about taking the GRE, so that I can pretend like I'm going to get my Master's. If anyone wants to write me a letter of recommendation, I'd appreciate it.
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