February 23rd, 2008
We first tried this sauce after finding it at the Burlingame street fair (or something – those things with all the tables of art and stuff). We used it as a dipping sauce for Trader Joe Lemongrass Chicken Stix, Chicken Egg Rolls, and fresh vegetables. It is fabulous for that purpose – slightly spicy, a slight hint of… vinegar like sourness. We both absolutely love this sauce! Nothing has come close for dipping. Even better, the nutritionals are good – 0% on the fat, sodium, and carb, and only 1 g of sugar per serving.
We ended up getting several bottles from their store online – arrived quick and wrapped in a lot of bubblewrap (bonus!)
Online: http://www.primosgourmetfood.com/GARLIC+GINGER+MARINADE+12oz.html
Or wait until they come to your area: http://www.primosgourmetfood.com/eventschedule.asp
Oh yeah, and the Thai Peanut sauce of theirs is my husbands favorite: http://www.primosgourmetfood.com/THAI+PEANUT+SAUCE+12oz.html
Posted in Online store, condiments | No Comments »
November 26th, 2007
I just found the best flavored non-fat, fat-free yogurt EVER (edging out Brown Cow’s fat free Vanilla for top place in me books). It’s at Trader Joe’s, and it’s greek style. It’s like their 0% Face yogurt (plain fat free greek style), but flavored. It’s thick and simply amazing – you have to try it. Comes in Honey, Blueberry, and Pomegranate in the individual size cups – 120 calories each (not bad!).
The Blueberry is my favorite, but only by a bit — all three flavors are delicious. The Honey is particularly great with stuff mixed in (like granola and/or berries). God bless Trader Joes (again!) — now just don’t go discontinuing this fabulous yogurt!
Posted in Trader Joe's, dairy, grocery store find, new products | No Comments »
November 4th, 2007
One of my favorite foods – in the world – are Nature Valley Granola Bites on top of my cereal. For serious. I am addicted and have a pack a day on my cereal (typically a small bit of oat bran, a small bit of grape nuts, some berries, and these granola bites. ).
My review is here: 100 Calorie Nature Valley Granola Bites — on your cereal
So, until now, the only place I could buy them was at Sams Club, which is about 50 miles away. I’d stock up on each visit. So I was within 20 packs of running out, so we headed out to Sams Club to get them. They were out. I nearly cried. So we headed out to the next Sams Club – another 20 miles further away from our house – (after calling, they weren’t sure if they had them… they only had the lame Quaker Oat ones). Yeah, so both Sams Clubs didn’t have them any more. I cried. Then I came home and googled online grocery retailers and everyone was “out”. I thought they were discontinued or something.
So I’ve been sulking for the last couple weeks. But I **just** found them at Target, which is a mere 20 minutes away. And they just got them in too, because they didn’t have them yesterday. So I guess Nature Valley was really in the process of rolling them out in a major way – because these things are SO FREAKING AWESOME!
Please give these things a try – without cereal they’re good, with cereal and some milk soaked in they’re AWESOME. Target is starting to carry them, and they’re cheap. YAY for Nature Valley 100 Calorie Granola Bites!!!
UPDATE: You can now buy them from Amazon, even on subscription to save money!
Posted in Amazon, Online store, Target, eating healthy, grocery store find, snacks | 3 Comments »
October 8th, 2007
A few weeks ago at the Burlingame street fair I was enlightened to the best darn yogurt I’ve ever tasted – vanilla non-fat yogurt from Brown Cow. It’s different in that it has the most amazing texture of a non-fat yogurt — it’s stringy it’s so creamy. Simply amazing texture. Plus, it has enough flavor to carry itself on it’s own, without the aid of some fruit (although, it tastes even better with fruit!)
Anyway, I really recommend trying this out. Note though that only two of the non-fat yogurts I’ve tried have this particular texture – vanilla and lemon (both are good, vanilla is better). I’ve also tried the non-fat chocolate, blueberry, strawberry, and apricot mango and all of those don’t have the same stringy/creamy texture. They’re good, but not great. I’d rather have my regular non-fat Yoplait “thick and creamy” style (which has fewer calories to boot).
But rock on Brown Cow – your non-fat vanilla is seriously my favorite yogurt going!
I’ve found this stuff at Rainbow Grocery, Whole Foods (new one in Potrero Hill has large and small containers), and Draegers (Safeway carries Brown Cow too, but not this flavor… or any non-fat variety for that matter).
Posted in Draegers, Rainbow Grocery, Whole Foods, dairy, grocery store find | No Comments »
September 7th, 2007
We found these really delicious sweet potato pancakes (more like a patty) in the frozen section of Rainbow Grocery (Folsom St, San Francisco). And they are absolutely fabulous, especially with a bit of fat-free sour cream on the side.
A tip – cook them for a bit longer than the instructions until they’re slightly browned (for us, about 10 or 11 minutes per side).
We also tried the Dr.Praeger spinach pancakes as well – they’re not good, neither of us liked them. I didn’t even finish mine, but the husband finished mine and is in fact cooking another one right now. But they weren’t too popular – not nearly as good as the sweet potato ones.
Update: We tried the Brocolli pancakes – they’re quite good (not as good as the sweet potato ones – but close). We’d definitely get them again.
Dr. Praeger’s Sweet Potato Pancakes
Rainbow Grocery, San Francisco
Posted in Rainbow Grocery, Whole Foods, frozen, grocery store find | No Comments »
August 25th, 2007
I’ve never been a fan of the “watery” yogurt – the kind that comes in drink form. I’ve always been a fan of the thick yogurts that are… not runny. However, I decided to give these Promise SuperShots a try when I saw them arrive at Safeway – we use the Promise fat-free spread as a margarine substitute for some time now (sometimes – we do prefer Benecol but it’s so expensive so we usually get both…), and I like to get as many plant sterols into my diet to try and reduce cholesterol.
I was shocked to find out how great these things taste – they are very flavorful. We’ve tried Raspberry, Peach, and Strawberry. Raspberry and Peach were great, Strawberry wasn’t nearly as good. The flavor is the main thing – it’s a nice strong flavor, and the drink is very nice and smooth (a milky consistency), so it’s not offputting. If it was thicker I think I might not enjoy it – but because the consistency is nice and thin it’s more of a drink than a “drinkable yogurt”.
They are a bit pricey (almost $5 for 4 of them), but that could be Safeway.
Info/nutritionals: Promise web site
Posted in Safeway, Target, dairy, eating healthy, grocery store find, new products | 2 Comments »
August 13th, 2007
So I’ve always loved me some Kraft Mac and Cheese. But after going on a low-fat diet, it was off limits.
So recently I found this Mac & Chreese stuff (Road’s End Organics) – vegan mac and "cheese" – at Rainbow Grocery (1745 Folsom St, San Francisco). We tried the "Shells and Chreese" first and this stuff is really tasty, and low fat. I dare say it might almost taste better than the product they’re imitatin’! We made it with 1/4 + a splash of skim milk, and a bit of Promise (fat-free-margarine). And it ROCKED. It was creamy, flavorful – almost tasted like a real white cheddar on there. It didn’t have any odd, soy-ish, non-authentic after taste at all (like some of the fat-free cheese products do…)
We tried another flavor, the Mac and Chreese with the whole wheat elbow macaroni – it wasn’t quite as good as the Shells and Chreese.
But I absolutely recommend finding this stuff, especially Shells and Chreese, and trying it out. Again, we found it at Rainbow Grocery in the pasta aisle.
Amazon.com
Road’s End Organics – Mac and Chreese
Rainbow Grocery, San Francisco
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August 13th, 2007
These little granola bites were first introduced to me in the Nature Valley cereals, which are readily available just about anywhere (Safeway, Target, you name it). I always loved the granola pieces the most, and was absolutely excstaic to find them in 100 calorie packs. This means that I can enjoy them in pretty much any cereal I want (including lower carb-higher-fiber cereals).
So every single morning (yeah, every single morning – I’m that much in a rut and that much in love with these buggers) I pour 1 pack of these things onto my oat bran (I also add a scattering of either grape nuts or Trader Joe’s high-fiber cereal). Let the granola bites soak in a little milk and they are FABULOUS.
These are one of my very favorite foods of all time. They are absolutely amazingly delicious in cereal. I have only found them at Sam’s Club (both the Concord and Vacaville locations), so I stock up on several warehouse boxes each time we drive all the way out there (and yeah, it’s about 25 miles or so to the closest one…) But they’re cheap, delicious, and worth the drive.
Check them out!! If you’re not sure, try the Nature Valley Cereal (Oats ‘n Honey or Cinnamon) – they’re identical to the small granola pieces you find in that.
Nature Valley 100 Calorie Granola Bites
Sams Club
Nature Valley
UPDATE!!! The last time I went to Sams Club, I couldn’t find these large boxes of Granola Bites. However – tonight I just found them for the first time ever at TARGET. Which is actually close to my house in Daly City and/or South San Francisco. SCORE!!! Check them out in the granola bar aisle.
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Tags: granola, 100calorie, NatureValley
Posted in Amazon, Safeway, Sam's Club, Target, grocery store find, new products, snacks | 1 Comment »
July 27th, 2007
We found these Al Fez spices and cous-cous mixes at Cost Plus and tried a few varieties. Their seasonings are generally low sodium and very low fat. A couple misses (such as their tabloue, which was disgusting), but a big hit was found with the lemon tagine stir-fry paste. You mix the stuff in with chicken (we did plain chicken breast on a non-stick frypan) – and the result was amazingly moist and flavorful chicken that we ate with some cous-cous and vegetables. I could believe how great this chicken was – it actually tasted like something you’d get at a restaurant. And this is from next to no work, and for a very low cost (paste is cheap, and you only use a small amount).
Anyway, I was extremely impressed. Unfortunately I didn’t find the paste at our closest Cost Plus on my last visit, but I’m hoping they get it in – they still carry this brand.
Posted in Cost Plus, condiments, grocery store find | No Comments »
July 12th, 2007
I love you, powdered peanut butter. FINALLY a peanut butter I can eat that tastes like real peanut butter. One of the few food items I missed horribly after going on a low-fat diet and only allowing fats from olive oil and fish was peanut butter. Even if I tried to limit myself, I’m sure I’d fail. So I just cut it right out of the diet. And trying substitutes just failed – they didn’t taste right. I’ve tried things like “Better N’ Peanut Butter” (just plain gross all around) and soynut butter, which has great texture but weird suffers from aftertaste and is still fairly high in fat (only a tiny bit lower than reduced-fat peanut butter). I have found one soynut butter that’s not too bad though, the chocolate flavor of Simple Food’s soynut butter.
Anyway, this powdered stu I was entirely excited when I found this site with really low-fat peanut butter that apparently tastes “real”, and even happier after the jars of powder arrived and I tried it out to find they were right. The consistency is surprisingly good (and you can control it to a certain extent by what you mix the powder with, and how much), the taste is amazing, and I can once again make a PB&J sandwich that tastes awesome.
Bell Plantation’s PB2 Powdered Peanut Butter
So check it out, see if you like this stuff too. Remember you can mix it with stuff like fat free cream cheese and baking/cooking to make sauces and whatever else.
Posted in Online store | 2 Comments »