I never did post this picture from Mother's Day. This is the first picture we have of all of the children together. Rich is behind the camera, so he's not in this shot. That's our next project. We took a walk on the marina after dinner and Rich thought to get a picture of me with the kids before we left. From left to right, Jerome, Alexander, Dominic, me, Amira in front of me, Elijah. Yes, that is a baggage claim tag on Jerome's carseat. It's proven to be more entertaining to him than any other toys we've given him. We plan on making a drive to Sea-Tac and picking up one of every color they have and making a mobile for him. Now, pictures of food items that you should go buy. This is the Jana Valley butter I've talked about before here. It is found at the Grocery Outlet, is rather inexpensive, and a higher quality butter, with a lower water content than American butters. If you have a Grocery Outlet in your area, you should look for this. For a little over half a pound of good butter, we pay about $1.29, which is lower than most of the sale and coupon prices for store brand butter in our area. We buy cheeses and lunch meats, cereals, canned foods, wine, toiletries, lunch snacks, all sorts of things at the Grocery Outlet. You never know what you'll find, so it's usually better to pick up something that interests you, in case it's not there the next time. We've been known to buy one of something and try it in the parking lot, and send someone back in to buy more if it is worth it. This next item is from Trader Joe's. Since I get so many requests for the Thai Green Curry recipe when I post that we are going to eat it, I thought I'd show you the jar of simmer sauce, so you can find it for yourself. It is made of real food, and is quite tasty. I don't know why this photo is so blurry, but I am too lazy to fix it, I think you can tell what the jar looks like enough to find it at the store. While you are there, you can pick up some of their $0.99 marinara sauce, which is good on its own or can be doctored up when you need a quick meal. I don't often buy their instant foods, though they taste good, because of all the extra salt, fat and sugar. Even at their prices, they are more expensive than making a meal at home, but they are a pretty good deal if you are in a hurry and better than fast food. I shop for ingredients at Trader Joe's, parmesan, fresh basil, olive oil, frozen peppers and green beans, dried apricots, cherries and cranberries, nuts and seeds, grade B maple syrup. We sometimes pick up other things there, like the mini-peanut butter cups to make peanut butter cup cookies (use the chocolate chip cookie recipe from the bag, substituting the pb cups for the chips, using chunky peanut butter for half the butter and adding some almond extract).

Labels: Family, Product Recommendation