Costco Coupon Book August 16-September 9

Once again, thanks to my fabulous friends at Addicted To Costco, I have a link to Costco's current coupon book.

Once again, Costco has a sale on their Chicken Alfredo and you will find my review of it here.

They also have a variety of other products on sale, such as the Tomato Basil soup which I also recommend.

Tasty Bites Madras Lentil Dip And A New Link

My wife and I are big fans of the Tasty Bites Madras Lentils we get at Costco.  They are delicious, easy heat up and a great way to work some fun flavors into our menus.  Recently, we had a family reunion to go to and my wife suggested making a dip out of them. I thought that was a fabulous idea so I did some research online and then went grocery shopping.  After provisioning for all the raw materials, my lovely wife was eager to spend a few minutes making the dip. (We got the recipe from the appetizer section of the Tasty Bites website. The specific recipe is the Madras Lentils Dip).

The recipe was easy, quick and delicious.  It was also a bit of an exotic change of pace from your normal bean dip.  But while it was a bit on the exotic side, it certainly went well with tortilla chips.

This dip was a huge success and I think I will probably bring it into work for my friend Bill that has Celiac's Disease.

I am also adding a link to Tasty Bites recipe page.  We think they have a great product lineup and I am looking forward to have more fun with variety of their products.

Kirkland Signature Atlantic Salmon-Easy And Delicious Pouch Preparation

Note:

One of the items on sale this month at Costco is the Kirkland Signature Atlantic Salmon.  This is a great product that is delicious and healthy and a serving only costs about the same as a Whopper or Big Mac. Below is a repost of a wonderful meal we made for the anniversary of our first date. We have since served this meal to both my mother and my father in law for their birthdays and they have also given it rave reviews.  I hope you will consider making a meal like this because it is affordable, delicious, easy and elegant.  

Now that I am settled into my new 1st shift job, I have a lot more time to spend with my lovely wife.  Normally, to celebrate the anniversary of our first date, we go out of town or have dinner out. But my wonderful wife thought it would be romantic to have a nice dinner at home and watch a movie, and I concurred.

However, as much as we wanted a nice dinner at home, we had no desire to spend three hours in the kitchen, so we came up with this elegant, simple and quick meal to celebrate eight years together as a couple.

For the main course, my wife  took some Kirkland Signature Atlantic Salmon and cooked it in parchment paper with butter, dried dill, salt, pepper and a little lemon juice. She set the oven to 350 and baked it for 20 minutes.  While that was going, I snapped some fresh green beans and my wife cooked up some pancetta from the local Italian deli.  After steaming the beans, we added the pancetta to them and they were good to go.

For the potatoes, I made some Honest Earth potatoes we bought from Costco and dressed them up with bacon bits and dried chives.  The resulting dinner, along with being tasty, was also quite attractive.

The salmon comes in individually wrapped portions, which made the preparation of them simple, neat and quick.  The potatoes were also a snap to prepare, but as I said, adding the chives and bacon (real bacon!) made them more upscale.

The salmon was tasty and a great value for the dollar and we have already decide to make a meal like this again for entertaining my mother.

Once again, Costco gave us some great food at a great price that was easy to cook with.

Baked Omelet With Feta And Olives And Why You Should Always Have Extra Batteries For Your Camera

Recently, I was looking through the fridge and I found some leftover feta from Costco that looked like it needed a purpose.  Being that it was Sunday morning, I thought an upscale egg breakfast was a great idea.

I started with some of the Christopher Ranch Chopped Garlic we get from Costco and I browned it gently in some EVOO. Then I added three eggs and scrambled them with a little soy milk. However, I did not completely cook the eggs, for I had additional plans for them!

I took some foil and lined the little pan that is in our toaster oven.  I then sprayed the pan with some EVOO and poured the egg mixture in.

Finally, I topped the egg mixture with some of the feta and some chopped Tassos Mediterranean Gourmet Stuffed and Double Stuffed Olives.

I then put the omelet in the toaster oven and cooked it until the eggs were finished and the cheese was melted just a bit.

The results were fantastic and I am sure I will do something like this again.  And aside from the dish being tasty, using the foil lined pan made for easy serving and cleanup.

I was going to show a photo of the finished, baked omelet, but alas, my camera battery died on me in the middle of this and I had forgotten to have another one charged.

I learned two lessons on this day: baked omelets in the toaster oven are a wonderful thing and always have a second camera battery on hand.

Costco Coupon Book July 12 To August 5

Once again, thanks to my friends at Addicted To Costco, I have this month's coupon book.

I certainly hope I can convince my wife to let me buy some of the Chocolate Chunk Cookies that are on sale with no limit and no coupon required.

These cookies have been on sale during previously during the summer, so I will keep my eyes open for them.

My list of recommendations also includes the Oberto Jerky.

Finally, for your canine friends, I recommend the Jerky Treats they have on sale.

Elegant Mediterranean Cheese And Vegetable Platter

Recently, my wife had a party to go to and while she didn't want to spend a lot of time cooking, she wanted to make something that would be appreciated and show our love of food. Her decision was to make a fantastic cheese and vegetable platter using a variety of ingredients from Costco including:

• Kirkland Signature Artichoke Hearts
• Feta Cheese 
• Bell Peppers
• Grape Tomatoes
• Tasso Mediterranean Green Olives

As you can see, the presentation was as good as the food was tasty:

When my wife got home from the party, I asked her if there were any leftovers and she said no!  That certainly indicates it was a success in both ease of prep and flavor.

Review Of Costco Calzones

A while back we tried the Costco brand of calzones in the deli and I have to say, I was pretty impressed with them. They are easy to heat up in the oven and they come with their own marinara sauce.

Upon cutting them open, you will find they done have a good quantity of filling in them.

I found these satisfying in everyway: texture, taste and serving size.  You can easily get two meals out of each one if you extend it with a nice romaine salad.

The price was pretty reasonable and I would definitely give these a thumbs up.  While these are not a gourmet meal, they are tasty, filling and extremely affordable.  An excellent value in every way.

Costco Coupon Book June 14 to July 8 Plus A Review Of The Apple Strudel

Thanks once again to my friends at Addicted to Costco, I have this months coupon book.

The Craisins are on sale again and I highly recommend them.  Here are links to some previous posts about them.

Trail mix with craisins, M&M's and peanuts.

Pork Loin with cranberry relish.

Apple, cranberry and quinoa salad.


The take and bake pizza is on sale again and I have done a variety of posts on them.  Here is one.  They are a great deal to start with but on sale they are simply a crazy deal. In fact, we are having one for dinner tonight. (And the leftovers will be lunch tomorrow).

And while I haven't written about the Sun Chips, I have posted about the multi packs of chips in regards to the Baked Lays products.

As for the apple strudel, I highly recommend it. It has a good, flaky crust and a well executed apple filling. I also like the fact that they are miniature strudels which make for easy serving.  My mother in law put some sharp cheddar on hers and thought it was excellent.  And I am positive that heating these up and serving them with some good vanilla ice cream would be totally awesome!

And for extreme decadence, some of my wife's family topped them with fresh strawberries and Cool Whip, although I did not go far myself. I did use some Cool Whip though and that worked well.


I highly recommend them and with the coupon, they are about 80 cents each, which makes them an excellent bargain.

Pasta Prima Chicken and Mozzarella Ravioli With A Sauce Of Grape Tomatoes and Cheese

We are big fans of Pasta Prima ravioli and my lovely wife took a package of the Chicken and Mozzarella Ravioli and made of a sauce from:

• Fresh Grape Tomatoes from Costco
• Some frozen rotisserie chicken from Costco
• A left over sauce packet from some frozen Pasta Prima ravioli
• Some lemon EVOO

The results of this were absolutely fabulous and kudos to my wife for thinking of this.  If you don't have an extra sauce pack laying around, just substitute some of your favorite herbs and grated cheese. And if you don't have lemon EVOO, just use some fresh lemon and your favorite EVOO.

The dish had a great chicken flavor and the ravioli and the sauce also added a couple of cheese components. 

The tomatoes were fresh and made the dish lively and the remaining herbs and seasonings rounded out the dish and just put it over the top.

I am sure we will do something like this again and I have to say, having all these Costco ingredients on hand really made this quick and rewarding work.

Last Day for Costco Coupon Book

Sorry I have not been posting much lately, but things have been keeping me busy outside of the blog.

Courtesy of my friends at Addicted To Costco, here is this months coupon book.

I have done postings about a couple of items that are on sale this month.

Here is a review of Sabatasso's Mini Pizzas.

And a entry on making trail mix with M&M's.

Antico Artichoke & Asiago Tapenade With Grilled Naan Bread

We recently discovered the joys of toasted naan bread and I thought it would be great as a replacement for crackers.  And as it turned out, I was right and the outcome of this experiment was absolutely delicious.

We bought some Antico Artichoke and Asiago Tapenade at Costco recently and I was eager to try it.  When we got to our friend's house for a get together, I took the naan bread and cut it up with kitchen shears.  Using the kitchen shears works very well and it makes quick and easy work of the project.  Then my lovely wife toasted the bread in the oven and it was ready to go.

This was a major success and it disappeared like magic.  I have the jar of the tapenade open by me right and I was so overwhelmed by the smell of the cheese, herbs and garlic that I had to run into the kitchen and grab a spoon and have a taste of it!

Artichokes and asiago by themselves are delicious but they have the right mix of herbs and garlic to really put this over the top.  And the naan bread as a base to serve it on made it elegant and added a toasted flavor and some crunchy texture.

I highly recommend this combination. I am also sure toasted naan bread would be a great base for a wide variety of spreads. And I am positive this tapenade is very worthy of spreading on crackers and other breads.  My wife also suggested putting in on a pizza or using it as a pasta sauce and I am sure we will try at least one of those ideas.

The Costco Craze Premeres Tonight On CNBC

The Costco Craze: Inside The Warehouse Giant  premieres tonight and will be rebroadcast a number of times over the next few days.

I will be updating this post with my comments.

I will be curious to see what they say about the food at Costco.

Update:


I was generally pretty pleased with the broadcast. It elaborated on a number of things I was already aware of such as their private label products and their small selection, But it also talked about their major sales in areas such as toilet paper and wine.

I was also pleased that they said their prices for food were 30% lower than the typical major grocery store.

And in the area of wine, I was impressed by the analyst who said they have played a part in upgrading America's taste in wine. (I am paraphrasing).  No wonder the independent Costco Wine Blog is so successful and useful.

I was also pleased with the interview with my friend Kim at the Addicted To Costco blog.  That was fun and it was exciting to see another Costco blogger on tv.

While the show definitely portrayed them as aggressive negotiators and extremely shrewd marketers, I thought the overall tone was pretty positive. They have happy customers, they sell quality products and they treat their employees very well. They are also concerned about being true to their strategy.

It was a fun show and I recommend watching it.

Frozen Make Ahead Mini Meatloaf-Make One Big Batch And You Are Set For Weeks!

We have had tremendous success with freezing rotisserie chickens and ground beef.  Freezing Costco sized packages in smaller, ready to use containers is a versatile idea and I thought it would work well with meatloaf.  My wife concurred and she went searching for recipes.  She settled on Paula Deen's recipe and set to work.  She did make some minor substitutions such as using some breadcrumbs in addition to the oatmeal.  And while I thought of making larger meatloaves, my wife suggested using the 24 ounce containers for freezing them and her insight was absolutely brilliant!
Here is a photo of the frozen meatloaf.

One of the nice advantages of the mini-meatloaf is that it can be cooked in the toaster oven.  To facilitate cooking these, we typically let them thaw in the fridge for a couple of days beforehand to shorten the baking time.
Here is a photo of the finished meatloaf.

This was a good meatloaf recipe and the tomatoes in this recipe make it very moist.  And for us, the mini meatloaf is good for four servings so we have dinner and leftovers for lunch the next day.  As for serving ideas, this works really well with just mashed potatoes and a nice salad.

We are totally sold on this idea and I am sure we will do it again.  It is affordable, tasty and it is so easy to do.  I love the idea of homemade comfort food in the freezer and doing a big batch of it like this makes it extremely time efficient.

And of course, you can use your own favorite meatloaf recipe, so I encourage to explore and enjoy.

Pasta Prima Chicken & Mozzarella Ravioli With Rachel Ray's Peas And Prosciutto Sauce

We are big fans of Pasta Prima's Chicken and Mozzarella Ravioli and we have definitely enjoyed it before.  With it on sale again, we bought some to freeze and some to cook more immediately.  I thought something with a red sauce would be good and I remembered Rachel's Pasta, Peas and Prosciutto.  My wife seconded the idea and while she finished grading some papers for work, I got dinner going.

I did make a few of minor adjustments to Rachel's recipe.  The first one was that we don't any herbs from our garden yet, so I substituted some freeze dried basil.  Second, we left out the small can of tomato sauce.
Finally, I would say we added more like two cups of peas instead of one.

As for the result, it was very good. The peas add some color and texture you don't see in your typical red sauce plus it also adds another vegetable.  The prosciutto adds a bit of meat, but it is delicate and elegant in its flavor.  All these flavors went well with the ravioli.  And leaving out the small can of tomato sauce was exactly the thing to do. Otherwise, the dish would have had too much sauce.

This was definitely a success and it was a wonderful, flavorful Sunday evening meal that took very little work and time.

And it also left us enough for some nice lunches on Monday.

This positively gets two thumbs up from us and I am very confident in recommending this as an excellent use of this fine ravioli.

Costco Canine Cuisine Review: Jerky Treat Tender Strips-Treats So Good Your Dog Will Learn To Close Its Cage Door By Itself To Get Them!

While our dog is not able to blog, she also enjoys food from Costco.  We bought some Jerky Treats Tender Strips and she is very fond of them.  These treats are made in the USA by Delmonte.  They are on sale this month, so we stocked up.

Layla really seems to love them, as you can see she has quite a look of anticipation on her face waiting to get one.

Layla is a clever girl and she knows when we leave in the morning she has to go in her cage.  The other day, she trotted in well before I got the treats and it seems like she was able to figure out how to close her cage door after herself, which seems like quite a trick!

She is a good girl that deserves some pampering and we are happy to give her treats that she enjoys that are made in the USA.

The Costco Craze-Inside The Warehouse Giant: Premieres Thursday April 26 at 9PM EDT on CNBC

CNBC's special on Costco is going to premiere on April 26.   They have a couple of short teaser clips on their website and links to other Costco blogs and various Costco related articles.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

This is definitely on my "must watch" list.

Chicken Sausage and Quinoa Soup

This post was primarily written by my lovely wife as I was out walking the dog on this pretty but crisp day.

It is spring and that brings thoughts of grilling sausages in our household.  So this last weekend while at Costco, we perused the sausage section and came home with a package of Sabatino's Smoked Mozzarella with Artichokes & Garlic Chicken Sausage   It comes in two sealed packages that contain eight sausages each.

Our first menu item with this is a soup that starts with the standard mirepoix of celery, onion and carrot sauteed in olive oil with a spoonful of chopped garlic and a little salt.  Four of the sausages were sliced and sauteed in the pan.  Next was added a couple of quarts of homemade chicken stock which we made from the last two rotisserie chickens we bought.  Finally, a cup or so of cooked quinoa was added to bulk up the soup and it was done.

This was very filling and yummy.  There is a lot of flavor in the sausages so it doesn't require much other seasoning but in the future a little garam marsala may be added to warm up the flavor.

To serve with the soup, a piece of naan bread from Costco was cut into slices and toasted.

Aside from having another successful main dish, we were thrilled with how well the naan bread toasted and what a great compliment it made to the soup. I am sure we will be toasting some of it again soon!



  

Costco Coupon Book For 4/12 to 5/6 Plus A Link To Recipes For Items on Sale

Once again, I would like to thank my friends at the Addicted to Costco Blog for this month's coupon book.

Among the items on sale this month is the Pasta Prima Chicken and Mozzarella Ravioli.  Below are some recipes using this wonderful product:

With a sauce of Pancetta and Vidalia Onions

With a sauce of Italian Brats and Tomato

Also, the Tostitos Artisan Roasted Garlic and Black Bean Chips are on sale and here is a recipe and a review of them.

Chicken Taco Salad With Tostitos Chips

A review of the Roasted Garlic and Black Bean Tostitos

I am intrigued, it looks like they were on sale at this same time last year.

Also, the Hebrew National Hot Dogs are on sale. I highly recommend stocking up on these for your  ssummer grilling. These are definitely some of the best hot dogs you can buy.

Hebrew National Hot Dogs With A Side of Summer Squash

Leftover Easter Lamb With Tasty Bite Madras Lentils, Celery and Onions, Served Over Rice

We really enjoy the Tasty Bite Madras Lentils we get at Costco. They are flavorful, nutritionally sound and ready to go.  I was thinking that they would combine well with some left over lamb and my wife eagerly seconded that opinion.  Therefore, I chopped one small onion and one stalk of celery, which my wife sauteed while I trimmed and cubed the lamb.  We tossed the lamb into the pan, added the lentils and warmed everything up.  The meat mixture was then served over some rice.

My wife and I were totally pleased with how well this worked out.  Just serving the lamb and lentils together would have been fine, but I am thrilled with how we made the dish more substantial.  Adding the onions and celery and then serving the whole mixture over rice was effortless but it really made this a very complete dish. The lentils added an elegant but reserved spicy flavor, the onions and celery added crunch and the rice made a wonderful base to serve all this on.

We don't cook leg of lamb that often in our family, but the next time we do, I can guarantee that I will be thinking about this.  Also, for lunch tomorrow, we will be serving the lentil and lamb mixture over quinoa and I am looking forward to that for lunch already!

A Slight Variation To Giada's Sweet and Sticky Caramel Hazelnut Rolls

We bought a large multipack of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls a while back and my wife commented that she was intrigued by Giada's use of them  to make some very tasty looking rolls for breakfast.  My wife followed the recipe, except for substituting some nuts we had on hand for hazelnuts.

These rolls were tasty, stick, sweet, delicious and easy!  That is an incredible combination.  I am betting the next time we buy a bunch of them we will make some rolls like this again.