« November 10, 2009 | main | November 12, 2009 »

Deja Soup

\n\n\nIt's no secret that I kind of love Trader Joe's, and if I could only shop there, I totally would. But the thing is, they don't have everything. So most of the time, I end up going there and then sometimes right after, I end up at my local grocery store or even Whole Foods. It's not an ideal set-up grocery shopping-wise, but I've grown to accept it. I'd rather have it this way than not have my Trader Joe's.\n\nThough, lately, I've been trying to get away with only shopping at TJ's when I can. If I end up making a recipe that I want to put in regular rotation, on my next shopping trip I try to see if everything I need is at TJ's or if there's something that works as a substitute.\n\nI decided this week that I wanted to make the broccoli soup again, so while we were at TJ's I looked for the ingredients. To my surprise they had ALMOST everything. That damn grainy mustard was the ONLY thing I couldn't find. (I ended up picking some up at a little produce stand that was next door.) \n\nThe one good thing about buying ingredients at TJ's was that they had whole wheat artisan bread (I had to settle for a plain whole wheat loaf the first time). It was one of their under-baked loaves that you finish baking for 10 minutes in the oven and it was kind of on the dense side. I figured that I could slice the bread into cubes instead of tearing it into chunks and that the croutons would just have to bake a little bit longer than the recipe said.\n\nYou guys, this bread made the best croutons! They were so much better than the croutons I made the first time! Not that the first whole wheat ones were bad, but the ones I made tonight just had so much more character. Trader Joe's bread for the win! And now that I've finally got a jar of grainy mustard, I can continue to buy everything for this soup at TJ's. \n\nI think we're going to be eating this soup a lot.