Haul: Cost Plus World Market Snacks

Do you ever feel like you're in a rut, food-wise?  I do.  Even though I love food - a good variety of food and love to cook  I have found lately that I am ready to try and experience new foods.  Not just recipes for meals, but snacks too.  I indulge several flavors and styles of chips and crackers, I love popcorn, all kinds of nuts and seeds and even though I mostly prefer to snack on salty, crunchy foods, I also enjoy cookies (rarely store-bought any more), ice cream, chocolate and few other kinds of candies.  Even so, I've often found myself completely stumped recently in the chips aisle preparing for a Gaming session with my friends, unable to decide which chips to get and completely uninspired by the choices.

Solution?  A trip to Cost Plus World Market to pick up a sampling of snacks and goodies from their grocery section!  I have recently re-discovered my love of this store thanks to my co-workers who suggested we shop for Christmas Cards there this past holiday season.  Our office is just minutes away from one of these fabulous, fun stores and I found myself wanting to spend all day there checking out the interesting snacks from all over the world.



A couple of weeks ago, I took a little time off which included leaving the office at lunch hour on a Thursday and taking the following day off as well.  The idea was to go clothes shopping, then spend the weekend with my sister getting pedicures and enjoying the last opera of the season.  I'm not a big fan of shopping for clothes for myself and I had been wanting to stop in to Cost Plus World Market to check out their snack selection again so I made that my first stop - a pre-shopping reward, you might say.



I had a lot of fun there and found so many interesting snacks and treats to try... here's the video:

I did manage to pick up some new clothes and since then I have been slowly trying each of the snacks.  So far my favorites have been the Crab Curry Thai Rice Crackers and the Coconut Candy, but I still have quite a few things to try.  Now that's my idea of shopping!  Next visit, I hope to pick up a couple of great things I saw for the kitchen.



Where do you turn to for food inspiration?  What's grabbing your attention right now with regards to food and, specifically, snacks?  Have you had any of these snacks?  I'd love to hear your thoughts and ideas.  As always, please let me know if you like these types of posts/videos by commenting below, following this blog and/or subscribing to my Channel and sharing.

Ciao!

No Recipe? No Problem (really)

This past Saturday was a super-fun day.  My friend Janet, of the blog Chuck Wagoneer, and her daughter, Amelia came over and we experimented in the kitchen.  Next month, we are facilitating an outdoor cooking workshop on cooking with pie irons, sticks and dutch ovens at an annual Girl Scout event.  We realized that none of us had ever actually cooked with a pie iron before and Janet had two spankin' new pie irons that needed to be seasoned before the big event.

We both researched recipes ahead of time and had ideas about what we wanted to cook...then we winged it!  That's right, we didn't follow any recipes, we totally experimented and had a blast!

The thing about recipes is, they are really guidelines and methods more than anything else - come to terms with that and you can make just about anything.  There is something so satisfying about being able to open your fridge, pull out some ingredients and make a meal that is tasty and pleases your family.

I'm ashamed to admit I don't have any pictures, I was too busy acting like a kid in a candy store to stop and take photos.  Tee hee hee.  Janet and Amelia brought pizza dough and their favorite pizza topping for calzones as well as cinnamon rolls (the pre-made refrigerator kind) and berries and I contributed egg roll wrappers, Italian chicken sausage, sauteed mushrooms and smoked gouda for a grilled sandwich, as well as fresh apples from our trees and some gourmet chocolates for dessert experimentation.

We had a lot of success with both the pizza dough and the egg roll wrappers - the pizza dough taking about 6 minutes per side and the egg roll wrappers only taking about 2 minutes per side.  We also tested good ole bread and it also took only about 2 minutes per side.  My favorite of the day was the sausage, mushroom and gouda combo and it was equally tasty as wrapped in pizza dough or egg roll wrapper. It was crispy on the outside, creamy on the inside with a really nice balance of savory flavors from the Italian sausage and the thyme I seasoned the mushrooms with.  YUM!

 I did try filling the egg roll wrapper with the gourmet chocolates (dark chocolate and caramel with sea salt) and marshmallow, but wasn't entirely happy with the results.

The cinnamon rolls were flattened, topped with cream cheese and berries on one, apples, walnuts and brown sugar on the other, then another flattened cinnamon roll was placed on top of that.  They took about 8 minutes per side and I wasn't thrilled with the results.  The apples were nice and tender (I diced them pretty small), but the ratio of bread to filling was just too much.  I'd really like to try making salted caramel apple pie with pizza dough as the wrapper - I'm pretty certain we'd get excellent results.

Bottom line, no recipe, no problem.  Don't be afraid to experiment. Play with your food!  Have some fun and trust your instincts - you might be delightfully surprised.

"Snacky" Dinner

As much as I love to cook (and eat!), there are nights when I just don't want to work at making dinner.  Particularly on the warmer summer days when I don't want to heat up the kitchen, or at the end of an especially stressful work week, I just want easy, easy, easy.  Often times, the temperature of the meal is as much a deciding factor as the work involved - for instance if I'm in the mood to fix a meal, but jut want something cool and refreshing, I might throw together a salad for dinner - taco salad and greek salad are always favorites in our house, or we might have deli-style sandwiches on crusty rolls.  Then there is "Snacky Dinner".  Steven & I have always been fans of what I really think of as an indoor picnic - olives, rustic bread, an assortment of cheeses, fresh fruit, wine and some Pacific Northwest alder smoked salmon or a nice hunk of salami. 

Sometimes we enjoy an assortment of finger foods that can be eaten in front of the TV so we can enjoy a movie marathon or at the game table during family game-night (something we are LONG overdue for).  These might include appetizers that I make for parties like tortilla roll-ups, or taco bites (won-ton skins filled with a taco-like filling - I'll post the recipe another time) or other party-type foods like chicken wings, homemade artichoke-jalapeno dip with chips, nachos, sausage rolls or a deli-meats and cheese platter set out with  assorted cocktail breads and condiments like mayo or mustard. 

I remember Steven & I attempting to introduce these as "snack meals", more like something you'd enjoy at a party.  You assemble a little plate of goodies, nibble on them while playing cards ot mingling with guests, then later, you might assemble another plate with a few more items - just nibbling as you go, rather than filling a plate and eating non-stop until you're stuffed. This concept has never really caught on with our children, they enjoy the food (very mucy, in fact), but they just feel compelled eat until they are satisified, all in one go, so in our house if there's something you especially enjoy, you better move quick before the kids finish it off! 

Somewhere along the lines our "picnic" meal of bread, cheese, fruit, etc. was christened "Snacky Dinner".  If our youngest, Amanda, sees a loaf of bread and some cheese out near dinner time, she immediately announces we're having "Snacky Dinner".  It's a meal that is always greeted with much enthusiasm.  There's plenty of room for you to add your own twist and I find it's nice to know that my family is really just as happy with such a simple meal as a more complex one that requires real attention at the stove!