Spend The Money

There are certain items in the kitchen I firmly believe you spend the extra money on for the better quality. Listed below are those items and why I spend the money for them. I will continuously update this page and I find things that are worth the investing in.

Olive Oil: I only by Bertolli olive oil and most often I buy the light because I use it as a general cooking oil. Buy the extra virgin for salad dressings and to eat raw.

Sea Salt: Salt is essential to seasoning food and building flavors, it should be good quality. Kosher and sea salt are both better quality than iodized. With higher quality salt, it takes much less to develop flavor, therefore lowering your families sodium intake.

Bread: I buy Sara Lee Delightful 100% Whole Grain, it’s only 45 calories per slice and has a great flavor. It has more fiber and protein than most whole grain breads. White bread is no more in our house, we are transferring to all whole grain/wheat flour products.

Pepper: This one seems strange, but I buy whole peppercorns and use a pepper mill. The taste is so much better. Pepper that is already ground in a container is often stale before you even get it home from the store. Plus, you can decide on the pepper you want to use: black, white, pink, there is a whole variety of peppercorns. I use a medley.

Cheese: If I am not buying cheese out of the deli (we get a new cheese for the family to try twice a month, something they have never had before-this often comes from the deli),  then I buy Sargento. It is amazingly different from most other cheese. My favorite is the Pepperjack, it is a lot spicier than other Pepperjack cheeses out there.

Pasta: I use Barilla pasta. It cooks evenly and they have a huge variety of pasta shapes available. I recently switched my family over to Barilla Plus, their version of multigrain pasta. My family loved it and didn’t even notice it wasn’t white flour-based pasta.