Deliciousness in a Paper Bag

I love going grocery shopping.  Seriously, it's like my favorite thing in the world.  However, grocery shopping at our local grocery stores is no longer so fun for me.  I have become kind of picky about the food I buy and bring into my home.

After a couple bad seafood and beef experiences from the nearest grocery store, Hubz and I decided to start investing in higher quality meat either from my dad or from a local butcher.

With summer here, we do a lot of our produce shopping at local farmers markets.

We buy a lot of our grains, spices, etc. from a local health food store due to cost, variety and freshness of ingredients.

So aside from the occasional tortilla chips and salsa, we don't buy a lot of unhealthy, processed foods anymore, making trips to mega grocery stores somewhat a waste of time.

The one grocery store I don't mind buying nearly anything I want at is Trader Joe's.  I've never bought a product from there that I wasn't pleased with and I always am happy about the quality of food that they supply.

Even though we shop there at least once a month, it always feels like a treat.  To be quite honest I'd rather go there by myself than with someone else (sorry Hubz).  I like taking my sweet time to browse every single aisle and scope out the new foods that I've never tried.  Shopping at Trader Joe's is so much more fun for me than shopping for new shoes or a fun dress.  Is that weird?  Yeah, probably.  Whatever.  I think we've already established that average, run of the road girl... mainly because of my level of awesomeness, obviously.  Psh.

So because it makes me so excited, I though I'd share with you my TJ's purchases from today:

Chicken sausage that I'm SO pumped to use in a recipe that I'll share with you tomorrow.

Hubz loves these when we're short on time for supper.

These are all new products to me!  We love frozen edamame to have as snacks and appetizers, but I had never seen the chile and garlic kind.  So excited to try it.  Lime fruit popsicle type things... tastes like summer!  And chicken potstickers!  I love getting these when we go out to eat, turns out that they're healthier than I thought too!  Only 6 WW P+ for a serving.  Awesome!

Frozen fruit for smoothies!  We LOVE their frozen mango!

Some produce... So excited to find pre-cut kale in a bag!  Makes kale chips an even easier snack!

These are my favorite soup bases.  Like I've shown you, I like to add a whole bunch of crap delicious and nutritious ingredients to create an amazing meal.  And wonderfully delicious, chewy whole wheat English British muffins.  Love these for egg sandwiches in the morning!

A few canned goods.  Love the high quality (and cheap!) black beans from Trader Joe's, Light coconut milk for delicious Asian creations and red pepper spread.  Today was the first time I've ever seen this spread, and I was soooo pumped to try it!

I put this on one of those whole wheat English muffins with a fried egg, pepperjack cheese and sliced tomato.

OH.MY.GOSH.  Heaven.  On my plate.  For lunch.  Praise the Lord.  I foresee this making all of my sandwiches 100x more awesome.  Let's be honest, Trader Joe's makes everything more awesome.

So those are my food finds this week!  What are your favorite Trader Joe's finds?  I'd love to know what else I should look for next time!  Happy grocery shopping!

K.