Saturday, September 10, 2011

Romaine Lettuce and Vlasic Pickles



Yesterday was shopping day and we made our usual trip to Costco and Cub. Sadly, Costco was no longer selling their Garlic Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The season is over. But I did manage to buy 30 bottles of the stuff over the summer, so I'm hoping that will tide me over until next June.

Every Friday I usually buy romaine lettuce at Costco. It is such fabulous lettuce and they always have it at Costco...and I just take it for granted. So I wanted to pause for a minute to remind my readers what a great deal it is. If you go to Cub, Byerly's or Lunds, you'll get three tiny heads of romaine with a lot of the thick green leaves on the outside for $3.99. At Costco, you get  six heads of romaine that contain only the best part, the heart, for just $4.29. For those of you without calculators, that's a per head cost of $1.33 versus 71¢.

The lettuce is organic, grown by Earthbound Farms in San Juan Bautista, CA. When they pick the lettuce, they strip the thick green leaves off right in the field and throw them on the ground to enrich the soil. This is great lettuce at a great price! Plus, there is an added bonus. Because the Costco romaine is just the hearts, which have firm young leaves, there is a much longer shelf life compared to the romaine with the thick green leaves. In some instances I've been able to get almost two weeks of shelf life from the Earthbound Farm lettuce.



I'm a huge pickle fan and I typically favor the homemade pickles one finds at farmers markets. Yesterday I found these pickles in the fresh produce section of Cub. They caught my eye because they are in jars that make them look homemade. The ones I bought were zesty garlic and they were labeled "Farmer's Garden" by Vlasic. I'm here to tell you that these are some of the finest pickles I have ever tasted. If you can find them at your grocery store, buy them! And eat as many as you want for each pickle contains zero calories. Yes, that's right...zero.

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