 Welcome back. So today I am getting ready to head out for a Costco trip. I've taken you all with me before. This time though this trip is gonna be a little different. I kind of have two different kinds of Costco trips. It's usually whenever I need toilet paper and other types of paper products, ziploc bags, things like that. But today I'm going solely for grocery purposes. So food and more grocery items instead of paper goods because that is one big reason I shop at Costco is for toilet paper, ziploc bags, those sorts of things. I don't think this video needs all that much introduction other than we are gonna go to Costco. You're gonna go shopping with me. We're gonna come back and we're going to really put away everything. I'm gonna show you a few things I do with a few bulk items that I like to kind of store. I have been shopping once a month and if you've been around for a while that might be a little bit of a new thing for you. It's a new thing for me. It's a goal that I've had for a long time to grocery shop once a month and I have been working my way there and also working at learning how to store produce and other things properly so that it lasts for more than a week and I'm putting together a video very soon where I'm going to basically show you how I shop once a month, how I keep produce for a really long time and some of you may be really shocked at how long you can keep produce if you store it properly. So be on the lookout for that. Before we get going though I feel like I'm gonna get so many questions about this mug and I thrifted it. I can't link it and it actually is a really old piece. It looks like it could potentially be something that was meant to look old but it is actually a really old mug and I love it a lot so it's thrifted. I can't share a link for it but I'm gonna finish drinking my tea and we're gonna head out to Costco. Our nearest Costco is a little over an hour away so it's not a trip I make every single month. I do like to make it frequently enough that it's worth my membership and we do really enjoy a lot of the products from Costco but I like to make my trips a little more few far in between and then get a nice bulk pile of stuff whenever I go. One thing we really love is the dried mangoes from Costco. I've never tried the organic ones but the ones that aren't organic that you saw in those yellow bags are so delicious. I think the first time we got those we ate the bag within a couple of days. They are just almost down the line of candy or like a fruit leather just really really yummy but one thing I do like to check when it comes to dried fruits is sometimes they will sneak in some vegetable oil or canola oil or just odd oils that don't necessarily need to be in them so in those dried blueberries you just saw there was an added oil and you can definitely dry fruit. I actually have a dehydrator that I need to get using a bit more often but you can definitely dry fruit without having to add any extra oil. If you're looking to switch to more organic grains which is kind of where I'm at in my health cooking journey this is a great place to check for them. I felt like this was a pretty good price for brown rice and a nice big bag of it so that we won't have to purchase it again for a while. I make homemade mac and cheese or sometimes we make mac and cheese style cauliflower. If you've never tried it definitely give it a try it's really good you can make a nice cheesy sauce and put it over the cauliflower and mix it all together but they do have organic mac and cheese at Costco if that's something you're interested in and here was hemp hearts and chia seeds both of those things I like to keep in my kitchen as a staple. I love making chia seed pudding and also putting it in smoothies as well. Something I actually grabbed the last time I was at Costco and I really think I'm gonna try to keep it around we still have a good amount left is this rice ramen now this does not have the flavor packet with it so you would need to add your own flavors which is just fine with me I'm happy using my homemade bone broths with this and my daughters really love and enjoy these noodles. Oils is something I really do like to get at Costco especially when they go on sale here they have a coconut oil but I've also got an avocado oil and they have a large variety of different olive oils as well. I recently started making our own mayo at home and found a recipe I really enjoy but before that I would occasionally purchase this avocado mayo and this time it was actually on sale I just like to get this instead of the conventional mayo just with a vegetable oil or another seed oil in it I do pick it up for my husband every once in a while because he prefers that but for myself and our kids I do like to get the avocado oil mayo or make my own so here is more oils like I mentioned they have a lot of different ones they even have some in glass I just decided to go ahead and get this one I know it's in plastic but it was a really good deal and we needed an extra bottle to put in our seller so I just grabbed this instead of getting the glass bottled one these artichoke hearts are to die for they are so good I am not even a huge artichoke fan but whatever marinade they put on these is so delicious I didn't pick them up this day but I still have one extra jar in my seller that I'm gonna break out one of these days and just eat for a snack that's how good they are you can eat them right out of the jar okay so we love the kinders spices their spice blends are pretty much a staple in our house at this point I think in almost every single meal prep I pull out the buttery steakhouse and they have this new one the caramelized onion butter that one is so yummy I've been putting that in to chicken noodle soup and I've noticed that Costco has had these vanilla beans for quite a long time I used them last year as well in my vanilla and they're a fairly good price for vanilla beans another thing I always like to check out if I have enough time when I met Costco is their book section being a homeschool mom I've been able to find resources here and I also wanted to check over this because I figured I probably will make one more trip before Christmas so I was kind of peeking around for some possible Christmas gifts they have some really cool kits that remind me a lot of like a unit study whether it would be on a certain dinosaur or how different vehicles work and they even have a model that you can build with them which I thought was really really neat and would be super hands-on for science if your children are in the preschool and kindergarten age group they have so many resources here I have found some very large thick workbooks for that age group in the years past for my daughters and it's just usually eight or nine dollars for that book and you can really make use of it through an entire school year I noticed this space kind of unit study type book and it had a model that you could build with it as well I'm really keeping these in mind for Christmas because my daughters saw them and they thought they were really neat and they got really excited about them so it's definitely something I want to keep in mind so these chips kind of going back to the groceries these chips are my personal favorite chips they're grain-free so if you need a grain-free option they are so good another thing that I often keep my eye out for at Costco is cheese they don't have a whole lot of organic varieties of cheese however they do have a lot of cheese a lot of large variety different types and kinds and you can buy them in big blocks for a very good price and so I like to kind of check it out see if anything peaks my interest or sounds good for that month something I've been getting from Costco for a long time is the Amy Lou I think I'm saying that right the Amy Lou brand of sausages they have dinner sausages and breakfast sausages they're fairly clean ingredients and they honestly just taste so delicious I really love the way they taste they make a super fast dinner lunch breakfast anytime type food if you're in a hurry and you need to whip something up fast I feel like at this point cucumbers are a staple in our house my daughters can each eat their own cucumber very nice size cucumber just plain without dip I do give them ranch once in a while but they really do enjoy eating cucumbers and I think I've mentioned it a couple of times before then they had this huge pack of these organic mushrooms I thought I'd make some stuffed mushrooms this coming week and something else that I've gotten before are these really huge bags of Brussels sprouts I think they're usually $3.99 I think that's what the sign said there and this time around they didn't look as good as they often do so I didn't get a bag of them but the last time I was at Costco I did and it's such a good price for Brussels sprouts again if you are looking for organic fruits and vegetables that are frozen Costco is your place to do that I mean they have these massive bags of frozen fruits and veggies for a very low price and I actually prefer buying a lot of fruits and veggies frozen because I know that they were frozen right after they were picked so a lot of times they are actually fresher than something that is not frozen so keep that in mind when you are shopping for your fruits and vegetables something else that's a great price at Costco is their almond flour I didn't need any this time around but if you are gluten-free like some of our household is that's a staple as well another great price I have found at Costco is their grass-fed butter and I love grass-fed butter it's so yellow and creamy and just has such a great flavor and so I stocked up on that this time around as well and this was a quick little treat for my daughters they were eyeing up these fuzzy blankets and they just really needed a nice soft warm fuzzy blanket with the cooler weather coming on so I got two of my daughters each one of these and they were thrilled with them all right so I tried to get everything set up so that you could see it all I talked to you at the same time so I am really happy with what I found I've really been trying to switch to a lot of organic things just because of some health issues with family members and so of course with that you're always looking for the best deal just because organic is often priced a little higher than something that is not organic so I'm just gonna go ahead and go through what I have here and then we're gonna get putting everything away I think I'm gonna start back here so I did get a box of almond milk we do drink almond milk mostly in our house although I do get some local milk to make like yogurt and things like that but for drinking or for granola those sorts of things we use almond milk underneath I've got over here I have two cases of waterloo this is kind of like my treat item my eating and what I can eat because of health issues is very limited and so having a like flavored seltzer club soda drink is something that I count as like a treat for me and this is our new favorite brand I actually got these last month when I went to Costco they are just so delicious the flavoring is really really good in them so here I've got some bulk items some things that are in really big bags like you would expect from Costco so I have some organic brown rice I do have other brown rice but like I said I'm trying to kind of like swap out some of our staples for organic items especially grains because I know that they are more heavily sprayed and things like that then a lot of other things and then next to that I've got broccoli and string beans and both of those things are a really really good price if you're looking for organic at Costco so I grabbed some of those the broccoli is actually already in smaller bags inside of the big bag the green beans aren't and I'm not totally sure what I'm gonna do I feel like I probably should put them into a better freezer bag situation but we'll see about that this over here I am so excited about these are the organic dark sweet cherries and I've seen these before but I never really investigated to see what was in them and they have nothing in them they are complete they're pitted they're frozen they don't have any added sugars or anything like that I have a couple different projects planned for that so stay tuned for that over here I've grass-fed butter another thing I'm trying to swap out is our regular butter for grass-fed butter just because it is tastes so much better first of all and of course it's just so much better for you over here I have a bag of hemp hearts and that's something that for myself I don't eat much grains at all with my health diet I have to really stay away from a lot of grains so I will take that and I'll make sort of like a hot cereal with it a little bit like oatmeal put a little bit of fruit in with it and it's so delicious we are a half and half gluten-free family so I do sour dough and other things but for the most part I am picking gluten free options because two family members in the household have gluten sensitivity and absolutely cannot eat gluten it's not an allergy so we can have gluten in the house but if any of you have gluten sensitivities you understand that whole thing so these outer aisle cauliflower sandwich rounds are amazing for like a grilled sandwich almost like a panini and I've gotten them before they also freeze well so I probably will freeze half of them if they're still in two different packages it's been a while since I've gotten them I got a bunch of bananas and they are pretty green so I'll probably leave them out and let them ripen up and then whatever doesn't get eaten until they're to their fully ripe state I do freeze whatever's left and I got some romaine lettuce they did not have organic in the romaine and romaine is super hardy in the refrigerator as far as how long it lasts so that is always my choice of lettuce I have some cucumbers here my daughters love cucumbers they eat them sliced all the time also celery sticks and then I got some organic raisins these come in two different bags which I really love and their expiration date is like two years from now so I know that they will be good for a nice long time and I think they were on sale I'm sure you guys noticed in the footage from the store and then here is my choice of tortilla chips these are actually made with avocado oil and that's something else that I'm very sensitive and picky about is what things have oils in them I know sometimes you can't really get away from it but for the most part if I can find an option that has a better oil I will do that speaking of oil here is some organic extra virgin olive oil we do mostly use avocado oil in our house and I actually buy it in gallon jugs on Amazon so one of the best prices I found I'll leave it linked below I know that occasionally I talk about it and you all ask for that link so I will leave that linked below I love buying it that way it comes right to my door I don't have to worry about it they also had these organic mushrooms on sale and so I got a big pack of those and I figured I'll do like stuffed mushrooms or something this week they don't last very long so it's usually a matter of me using it up kind of quickly and I got some more of the Madagascar vanilla beans I use that to make my vanilla last year and I did actually reuse my vanilla beans if you guys did not watch my extract video from last year I'll link it below I know I talked about it in my last video as well but you can actually reuse vanilla beans but the problem is is we use so much vanilla in our house that I need to get another batch started so I went ahead and grabbed another pack of the beans and I got a couple of things that are kind of what I would consider non-essentials a little bit of grab-and-go type food we don't have a lot of options for that in our house just because of the way that we eat so whenever I can find something that's okay enough for everyone in the household that can be a quick snack so I got some dried pineapple and the only ingredient on these is just pineapple so and it is organic so I thought that would be a great thing to try out with the girls we got a pack of chomps I feel like every time I go to Costco I get a pack of some kind of meat sticks because they're an easy quick protein there's something that we can grab and take with us and or I can keep it in my purse or in the car and it's something that if we're in a pinch that we have a snack on hand that nobody's gonna get sick on because that's part of our problem in our house is we just can't eat certain things and especially when it comes to eating out and restaurants and things like that so I also like the Archer brand that Costco carries I did get a bag of those last month I think we have a few floating around here but I thought to change it up I would do the chomps we like this brand as well along with the snacky stuff the stuff that wasn't really not essential the girls did so well I was kind of a last-minute Costco run and I told them I wanted to get them a little treat so I grabbed them some of these organic fruit bars again the ingredients were very clean with these and I thought it would be kind of a nice little candy for them I got a tub of sour cream now I normally buy cultured sour cream but this month because of where I was going and stuff I did not I was not able to get it and so I just grabbed a big tub of the daisy and then another dairy product we needed some parm and I really like this brand from Costco it's like the Kirkland brand and we use this to make Alfredo sauce and then when we were shopping I showed you all and talked about this amalou I think that's how you say it amalou sausages these come in a bunch of different flavors or at times I've seen different flavors I really like their garlic something I can't remember I'm sure you guys saw it in the footage from the store but this one I've never tried but it's like very clean meat clean sausages now something that we really love is their breakfast sausages from this brand and the thing that I love about this is it's actually in three packs in there so what I do is open this up I cut the three packs apart and I just put them in the freezer they have the date along the edge so I'm able to keep track of that and then we get them out we can actually put them in the frying pan frozen and they fry up just fine again one of our absolute favorites it's so delicious and then last but not least I also get the tortillas from this brand and they are just a really clean brand they're not it's not organic but it honestly beats out some of the ingredients that are in some of the organic chips and tortillas and I just really like what they're made out of and we enjoy how they taste if you guys are totally new to my channel and haven't seen how I shop how we do a lot of food in our house I do a lot of home preservation and canning and things so you might be saying where is the meat or where is some other things that you would find as staples well if you guys want to go check out my food storage tour and how our cellar is laid out and stuff there are things that I buy in very very large bulk things like rolled oats and other things like that that I can during the canning season which is not right now we're going into late fall and into early winter and so that all fills in we also buy all or I should say most there are occasions where I do buy meat in store but we buy most of our meat local so we don't buy a whole lot of meat in store and like our beef is grass-fed our chicken that we buy locally is free range on occasion I do buy things like chicken breasts from the store because I can't get just the breast from our source with the free range chicken or some sausage or bacon those sorts of things I might buy from the store but otherwise I find local farmers I have been trying to get in the habit of putting away my groceries the correct way every time we come home from the store because I feel like everything lasts so much longer it is in a much fresher state whenever I put it away correctly so then everything is just more tasty and I have a longer shelf life in my refrigerator with it something that Costco is really good at is I feel like they have quite a few items that are already vacuum packed I know that they have chicken that's like that and other things like the sausages where it's so simple to freeze it it's already ready to go into your freezer and I appreciate that a lot I have like I mentioned been learning a lot more about how to store foods properly and I'm working on a video about how I am grocery shopping once a month how I'm keeping lettuce that is actually good for up to five weeks I know might sound a little crazy but I've been testing these things out that's why I haven't shared yet because I wanted a couple of months to test out some of these methods and to be able to tell you how long things have lasted in my refrigerator first hand not just reading it off of another blog or something like that so one way I like to store my celery and helps it last nice and long is to store it in water now you do need to make sure that it does get fresh water every once in a while but it helps it stay crunchy and fresh for much longer than if you were to just store it in the refrigerator I have been doing a lot of testing of recipes and methods of doing different food preps and things like that in the background and I have so much to share with you all over the next little while I've been doing a lot of homemade things from scratch and just really eliminating things that are pre-made in the store that way I know the ingredients that are in them and I can trust the sources of where they came from so stay tuned for all of that but I hope this video was inspiring to you if you like to shop at Costco and even if it wasn't and you were just here to hang out with me thanks a lot for hanging out with me if you're new here don't forget to hit that subscribe button I have lots of meal preps coming your way and leave me a comment below let me know what you're up to this week and if you're getting ready to do a Costco run yourself I'll see you all in the next one