east coast grocery shopping

At home in Provo we had food storage. Then we had to pack it up and give everything in our fridge or open containers away before putting it in storage for the summer. So all we came here with was some peanut butter.

We bought bread and jelly, oatmeal and cereal for breakfast

We bought bread and turkey and cheese and mustard with pretzels and goldfish and Clif bars for lunches and snacks

We bought pasta, red sauce and pesto for dinner.

Turns out we have a lot of variety for breakfast and lunch and not so much for dinner. It also turn out that here on the east coast, I'd much rather buy in bulk than take the time (that I use now for finding sites to see and events to go to) to hunt for the sales like I did in provo.

Enter: Costco.

Oh how I love Costco. They have the largest container of pretzels I've ever seen, and they're amazingly salted, so I'm in heaven. We also added to our diet by buying spinach and frozen chicken breasts. BUT after buying Clif bars two weeks ago, we went to Costco last night and they were out! They said they discontinued them. Hopefully it'll be like those Hershey's chocolate covered pretzels and they'll bring them back, but let me tell you, when they didn't have the Clif bars, I think Ry's heart broke just a little bit. :(

Well, so the place isn't the greatest, but I'd much rather buy stuff there than pay an enormous amount at the regular grocery store. 2.99 for milk and 4.99 for Cheerios. It's outrageous!

The good thing is that we have a Trader Joe's nearby. I've never really shopped there before so I don't always know what to get, but they've got great prices on a lot of high-quality ingredients so I'll be experimenting with a few recipes in the next few months and hopefully everything will work out!

If anyone's got ideas on meals that are easy to prepare with minimal ingredients that are good for you (aka not just grilled cheese) please send me the recipe or the link. I've got a few cookbooks here but I'd love to know you're go-to recipes.