Hey guys and gals! Hope you are all having a great weekend so far! After reading all the comments on yesterday’s post, I see I’m not the only one who’s so easily amused by things…so, I thought y’all would enjoy this spam message I found in my comment inbox today:
Spam messages kill me, but this one tops them all!
Bahaha!
Anywho! I had quite a workout earlier today…I’ve been trying hard to strengthen my upper body, so today I incorporated something new…weighted grocery bag bicep curls!
This afternoon, I headed to Nashville to meet a good friend for lunch. Annnnd well, you know how it is…
Trip to Nashville = Grocery Shopping Extravaganza!*
*otherwise known as a Whole Food’s and Trader Joe’s run, but you guys no I can’t contain my excitement! 😉Â
So I packed the necessities, and made my way to the land of milk and honey wild-caught fish and organic coffee!
My super sexy insulated tote bag!
Found this baby at Sam’s Club for less than 10 bucks!
Annnd an iced cawfee for the road!
First: Trader Joe’s!
- Horseradish Hummus*
- Bread ‘n Buttah Pickles
- Coconut Milk
- Sweet & Spicy Mustard
- Big ol’ Pretzels (I totally bought the pretzels to go with the mustard…not the other way around!) 😉
- Olive Oil Cooking Spray
- Organic Fair Trade Coffee
- Instant De-caf Coffee
- 100% Pure Maple Syrup (the only syrup that should EVER touch a pancake!)
- Roasted Crunchy Almond Butter with Flax
- Extra Firm Tofu
- Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
- Dried Turkish Figs
- Tempeh x 2
- 2 Pure Bars (new to me)
- and my favorite (chocolate peppermint stick) Luna Bar!
I also found a single girl-sized watermelon (I hate buying a huge one just for myself) and a basil plant forrrrrr 3 bucks!!
I shall call him “Guido”!
Hmm, now that I have Frankie G. and Guido, maybe I should look into a pet cow so I can make my own mozzarella! Everybody come over to Heather’s for a Margherita pizza party!
Next up: Whole Foods:
- Mucho Macho Pasta Sauce (proof that sampling really does work!)
- Organic Canned Pumpkin (I am fully aware that this is not going to even hold a candle to good ol’ Libby’s but I can’t take the pumpkin deprivation any longer!)
- Organic Figs
- Semolina Linguine
- Kashi Go Lean (on sale for $2.99!)
- Tri-color Shells
- Bulk Nooch and Whole Wheat Pastry Flour hiding in the back
- Raw Sugar
- Organic Unsweetened Apple Sauce
- Purple Sweet Potato (Eeee! So excited to try this!)
- Frozen Raspberries for more crack sauce!
- 2% Chobani (free with coupon…score!)
- Maple Flavoring (I’m seriously in love with this stuff!)
- Pavino Cheese (another sampling seduction)
- Super duper fresh (as in came in TODAY) wild-caught jumbo shrimpies!*
*And I totally paid the extra 2 bucks to have them deveined and cleaned! Haha!
Never be afraid to speak up at that cash register! I thought these babies were $3.99 (5 minute internal battle ensued before placing them in the buggy), but they scanned for $4.99. When I kindly asked the cashier to void them out since I thought they were cheaper than that, she said, “oh, they’re on me!”
I think this goes without saying: the best things figs in life are
FREE!
Thank you Pasta Sauce Sample Man for the inspiration for dinner for tonight!
Last Stop: Starbucks!
Another one of my new-found addictions
De-caffeinated to justify the habit!
Whew! It’s been a long and busy day! On top of all this, I actually got up early this morning and met my running buddy for a 3 miler and a yoga class AND ran to the farmer’s market in town to pick up my pre-ordered grass fed finished beef (woot woot!)
I think I need another iced coffee!
I joke, I joke!
😉
What did you do today?
Are you a sucker for buying something once you “sample” it?
figgy wiggy!!!! love those suckers. and nice guns with those grocery bags.
😉
Wow! You were busy today! Loved the muscles with the shopping bag…glad I didn’t bump into you though 🙂 Had a blast and look forward to the next time!!
Haha I totally use random heavy object to increase my upper body strength too 😉 You should see me work with cans and squash *flex*. And I’m totally loving you for using REAL maple syrup. Being Canadian, and all, I kind of get insulted when I see all that “sugar free” imitation garbage that people use. Like… what’s sugar free sugar? Boggles my mind…
I went shopping today, too, but for clothes instead of food… which is kind of a rare thing for me. I hit up grocery stores all the time, but the mall? Not so much. I think I deserve a gold star for broadening my horizons 😀
Your bag is Totally sexy!
Our TJ’s is opening at the end of the month!!! (SQUEAL and DO CARTWHEELS!)
That canned pumpkin sucks (But you already knew that 😉 )
Free Food Rocks.
Good Night!
OK, so 3 posts without BBQ/PB&J combo…who are you and what have you done with Heather?!? 😉
I love TJ’s Horsey hummus and always used to make my own. Plain hummus plus pure horseradish, NOT the creamy horseradish sauce made with soybean oil. Blech. So easy, so good. I LOVE horseradish. So good on eggs and atop veggies. Good in guac as well.
Coffee, how I love thee.
I’m leaving next weekend for the rest of the summer. Are you coming to N’ville at all this week?
Oh I’ve had it…I just haven’t blogged about it…yet! 😉 Haha!
You know, I thought about texting you, but it was such short notice, I wasn’t sure. As of right now, I’m actually planning on meeting a friend in Nashville on Wednesday if you wanna meet up for a bit! Just let me know! We need to catch up!
lol…at work, we keep 5lb bags of ice in the freezer for iced coffee, and i’m always the one who wants to go get the ice. the store is close enough that it’s a bit of a walk, but pointless to drive…so i always dead lift it on the walk back! haha.
100% maple syrup as the only thing that should ever touch a pancake? a-to-the-men. i also used to be opposed to maple flavoring, but you’ve shown me that it can be an incredibly useful tool to just amp up the maple, not to be used as a replacement for syrup…and now I think I need some, too!
lastly…oh, man – some of the spam comments I get crack. me. up. But yours? I think yours trumps all 😛
uh, yes! I’m totally a sucker for buying something I like after sampling it! That’s how they get me! Now I try not to sample so many things. That way if I don’t know I like it, I won’t buy it 🙂
Those figs look delish! And even more so because they were free! 🙂
I love shopping extravaganzas! And I’m loving everything you bought! It’s making me hungryyy. Good thing I’m about to head to dinner in 30 mins.
I love all of your grocery finds! And, Sbucks is an addiction for me too!!!
oh my god, some of the spam comments are SO ridiculous! That one, though, is one of the funniest I’ve seen. I die!
You just really really really made me miss living in my apartment. It’s 5 minutes from a TJs and 20 minutes from a WFs. At my parent’s house (where I’m currently residing for the summer) I’m and hour from TJs and 2 hours from the closest WFs. Is summer over yet?!
Okay, I take that back. I’m just desperate for foodie goodies!
Oh my gosh I would never have any money if I lived that close! I’m about 45 minutes to an hour away now and I always seem to have a small stroke every time they tell me my total! Haha!
I pine for Trader Joes, i can’t wait to go to Philadelphia for the HLS so i can worship, err i mean shop there 🙂 My closest Whole Foods is an hour, it really is tragic 😛
YAY for free food 😀
It takes me an hour too which is why i just write up a giant list and make a day of it! Foodie field trip! 😉
I swear you stole my grocery list! I get that Pumpkin haha, it isn’t as good but I promise it will do it’s justice. (: I swear I am addicted to that Luna Bar, ohh sooo good. Ten times better near Christmas too!
I am such a sucker for Starbucks. I usually get a Vanilla Chai Ice with Soy, orrr a Latte with Soy. MMMM.
Today I work, sigh. Day’s at the restaurant are endless! Oh, and grocery shopping for me later. I am planning on making a Broccoli Mushroom Noodle Casserole!
Sampling things for me can send me into a danger zone. Meaning I buy every flavor. 😉
I fell in love with Edamame dip after I sampled it at Whole Foods. From the lady who makes it for them 🙂
How far do you have to go for Whole Foods? I have to go 2 hours.
Mmm! Love edamame dip!
It takes me about an hour to get there…if I don’t get lost…which sadly is about 80% of the time! Haha!
i just did the nashville tj’s/wf trip on friday! we both bought coconut milk and the spinach tomato pasta shells 🙂
next time you’re in nashville, you should try great harvest bakery if you’ve never been. they have loaves of bread, sweet treats, and sandwiches. they’re a great bakery company, and they’re right across the street from tj’s- in that little shopping area.
greatharvestnashville.com
Oh wow, great minds, right? How far out are you from Nashville?
Actually, I did go to Great Harvest once, but I wasn’t sure what to get. Any favorites you’d recommend?