Little Bites

 

Kirkland Caesar Salad: Becky and I love our caesar salads...we usually have 2 to 3  each week. While my favorite caesar dressing is the original one: (https://terrygruggen.blogspot.com/2024/07/happy-100th-birthday-caesar-salad.html), it takes quite awhile to make that. During the week, I like my prep time to be minimized, so I often reach for a store-bought caesar dressing. Until last week, Briannas Home Style Creamy Caesar was our favorite.

Last Thursday, we bought the Kirkland Caesar Salad at Costco. For $8 and change, you get all the fixings and enough salad for 4 entree portions (or 2 nights of salads for empty nesters). We were discussing how their salad had the best dressing.....and so I decided to do a little online sleuthing. A few keystrokes later, I uncovered that Costco contracts with Ken's Salad Dressing for their dressing packets in the Kirkland Salad.

If you have enjoyed the Kirkland Caesar Salad as much as we have, the cat is now out of the bag. Costco's dressing is actually "Ken's Creamy Caesar with Roasted Garlic". Hands down, it's the best bottled dressing I have ever tasted. I checked with the 3 grocery stores I frequent, but none of them carried it. Amazon has it for about $7 a bottle. But go to Stockup Express, an online grocery wholesaler , and you can score 9 bottles for less than $18....bringing the cost per bottle down to $1.94. That's a pretty small price for the biggest tasting caesar dressing in a bottle.

Really Great Coffee on the Cheap: For years, Becky and I have been Keurig K-Cup fans. Our coffee of choice is a really hearty dark roast.... Barista Prima Italian Roast. We love that each cup is fresh, piping hot and ready in less than a minute.

While we were on vacation last February, we ordered 2 French Press coffees on our last day. Damn....those were tasty! (thanks Bigs) A French Press makes incredible tasting coffee through immersion (letting the boiling water commingle with the ground beans) and air pressure (forcing the water through the grounds and a micro-filter).

When we got back, I started researching what kind of French Presses were available for home use. One name kept jumping to the forefront....AeroPress. Unlike the competition that were married to the classic coffee pot design, AeroPress kind of resembles a big test tube. I could describe how it works, but watching it in action is much more fulfilling: https://youtu.be/3rHj76QLSe0?si=KXrTFVaszo-LEFWw

I think it makes the best cup of coffee around. And it grabs 3 of my brass rings: it's delicious; it's easy to use/clean; and it's dirt cheap. In a world of outrageously priced espresso machines, this leaves them all in the dust. I got mine at Amazon for just $34.99. We still use our K-Cups, but the AeroPress is our go-to when we want that special cup of coffee.