GROCERY HAUL

Grocery shopping is just my favorite thing to do along with eating.

The supermarket is my favorite place. There is just a thrill in what kind of finds I would have at the end of the day. Of course I have my list all ready and I know exactly where to go. But then, there are times when you wonder if that carton of milk, brand of peanut butter or the kind of herbs and fruits you've been looking to get but has not been available for a while, would be there.

Well, for this particular haul, I found some items I've been checking on regularly in the past few months that I couldn't find. Maybe because during the holidays - Christmas and New Year, stocks have ran out and it's just now that the supplies have arrived and it's slowly being put back in shelves or freezers again.

Here are the finds that got me excited:

FROZEN STRAWBERRIES. For this particular item, it's been years since I last saw this in the frozen fruits and veggies section. In fact, the last time I was able to buy strawberries from SM Supermarket was years ago and they were fresh. But fresh or not, strawberries just give me the opportunity to make a tasty combo of mango and strawberry smoothie or as people commonly call it here - fruit shake. Tomorrow, at the top of my "To-Do List" is to make that.

HARVEY FRESH FULL CREAM MILK. This is just the best tasting milk I have tried in the country in comparison to local brands like Selecta, Magnolia, Bear Brand and Alaska among others; and imported brands which they sell locally - Dutch Lady, Meiji and Paul's. I used to buy warm skimmed milk from Café Bob's while working the mid-shift before and loved it so I asked what brand of milk they use and ta' da', it's Harvey Fresh. I just hope that  SM would be able to regularly carry that and make it available for people like me when I run out.

BOTTLED RANCH DRESSING. I have to accept the fact that there is not much of a choice when it comes to picking a good Ranch Dressing here. Last time I checked at the grocery, I did find a bottle of ranch dressing (among plenty of different kinds of dressings) and it was the Lady's Choice brand. It wasn't as good as my expectation of how ranch should taste. In fact, it almost tastes like their Thousand Islands and Caesar Salad dressing. So I'm glad that I found American Brand US Ranch this time and though it's not the same as Hidden Valley Ranch, at least it tastes better. But if you see in my grocery cart, I got some fresh parsley. I'm contemplating on making Ranch Dressing from scratch then maybe I'll get my craving for ranch satisfied. We run out of the dressing because we use it as a dip when we're snacking on carrot sticks. It's just perfect together.

PITA BREAD. I love Shawarma! But in my town, they don't have carts that sell that here. Thus, I'm glad I found Pita Bread at the supermarket because like the ranch dressing, I plan to make my own version of the Shawarma at home. I could use the plain creamy yogurt that I got as well as the tomatoes I have stored in my fridge.

DARK PREMIUM CHOCOBAR. I've been looking for a good reasonably priced block of dark chocolate that's primarily good for baking or making desserts. Before, I'd use Antonio Pueo but lately, I haven't seen that on the shelves of the stores. Bittersweet chocolate chips are good but they practically cost twice the price of this chocolate. This will be good for making chocolate fudge.

I could go on and on about grocery shopping and my haul but I'll save that for more posts soon.