After giving away 3/4 of the kitchen, the cupboards felt oddly creepy so I got busy filling the kitchen with clean foods and cooking supplies. From the reading and research I'd done, I knew how to stock my kitchen. So I went shopping. On my list: fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, spices, healthy oils.
The shopping wasn't as easy as it sounds. A lot of these items I had never even heard of. I had to google them just to know what I was looking for and where I might possibly find them. I made notes that agave nectar was a liquid low-glycemic sweetener, that Sucanat was a non-refined brown sugar, that pepitas were sunflower seeds, that chickpeas were the same thing as garbonzo beans, that quinoa was a grain (actually it's a seed but everyone refers to it as a grain), that cardamom is a ten dollar spice, that coconut oil is the same as coconut butter because it's solid at room temperature, that bulgur is not a person trying to break into your house but a whole grain, etc, etc, etc. I knew I probably wouldn't be able to find everything I needed in one place so I started with Winco and tried to get as much as I could.
Here's what I found at Winco:
organic skim milk yes,
almond milk yes, it's by the cans of evaporated milk
organic eggs yes,
organic butter no,
non-fat Greek yogurt, yes, but not organic
kefir no,
agave nectar yes, it's by the the peanut butter and honey
coconut oil no, they need to do something about that
pumpkin seed oil no,
quinoa yes,
steel cut oats, yes in the bulk section
organic rolled oats, yes in the bulk section
organic salad mix, yes
organic spinach, yes
organic carrots, yes
buckwheat flour, yes
spelt flour, yes
aluminum-free baking soda, yes
Dave's Killer bread, yes
Ezekiel bread, no
unprocessed peanut butter, yes
unprocessed almond butter, yes
low-sodium black beans, yes
organic, low-sodium chicken broth, yes
organic, low-sodium vegetable broth, yes
nitrate and nitrite free bacon, no
organic meat, no
ground turkey breast, yes but not organic
ground chicken breast, yes but not organic
low-sodium tamari, yes
small BPA free plastic containers for freezing or storing food, yes
I buy bananas from Winco because they don't need to be organic
At Costco I found:
organic apples
organic spinach
organic carrots
organic milk, it's 1% there so I get the organic skim from Winco
organic eggs (they are a little less expensive than Winco's organic eggs)
organic butter
organic peanut butter
organic almond butter
organic quinoa
organic wild rice
organic short brown rice
organic boneless, skinless chicken breast
bison steaks
grass-fed ground beef
Dave's Killer Bread
multi-grain sandwich thins
nitrate and nitrite free turkey bacon
protein powder
Trio Bars
Larabars
pure maple syrup, they need to get organic pure maple syrup
Who would have known Costco would have so many organics? Yay for Costco. Now they just need to change some of their items such as the butter, broths, canned tomatoes, and black beans to low-sodium.
Next was the Boise Co-op for hard to find items such as:
kefir
organic yogurts
virgin coconut oil
all kinds of healthy oils
organic ground turkey
organic ground chicken
Sucanat
local, organic, fruits, vegetables, and herbs
spices and spice blends
whole grains
their bulk section is awesome
organic mango chunks (a favorite of mine)
organic frozen berries
frozen acai berry
dehydrated fruits (the dried mangoes are killer)
non-fluoride toothpaste
non-aluminum deodorant
safe housecleaning products
seeds for sprouting
The Captial City Market is also a wonderful place to buy food. However, I will save the market for another day. It deserves its own post.
Now I had the knowledge and motivation, I had the cookbooks, and I had the ingredients. It was time to start cooking!
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