Shopping at a New Grocery Store & Eats

We get pretty excited to check out new grocery stores, and since our city now has a couple Save on Foods, we decided it was time to go and have a look around.  The shopping experience was really good, although we weren't doing our usual haul, more just scoping it out.  We liked the layout, the selection, and the look of the store.  The vegetables, and food in the deli all looked fresh and appealing.

Our purchases included a few new-to-us items including these portobello and Swiss sausages:

Some nitro cold brew coffee:

And a couple interesting sounding smoked cheeses:

The sausage was pretty average, but not bad.  We had it with beets and garlic bread.

On a hot day we sipped the nitro cold brew in the backyard, and thought it was really good!  In the future I am sure we'll just make our own cold brew, but there is a chance we'd buy this again if we were feeling lazy.

As for the cheeses, Christopher enjoyed the smoked Gorgonzola (I didn't try it), but I didn't like the smoked Gruyere at all.  It was really pungent, and reminded me of blue cheese, which I don't like.  I am usually a fan of smoked cheeses, so I was surprised that I didn't like this one.

Speaking of cheeses, we picked up another new one, this time from our corner grocery store, and both enjoyed it.

I've been wanting to try baking different breads this year, and recently I tried my hand at rye bread.

It turned out really well, with a nice chewy crust, and a soft center.  We used one loaf right away, and froze the other.  I'm thinking smoked meat sandwiches are in our future!

Other recent eats have included sausage and fennel pasta:

And spaghetti squash with BBQd chicken and salad:

I forgot how much I like spaghetti squash.

I brushed it with olive oil, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, and roasted it until tender.  After scraping out all the squash with a fork, I tossed it with a bit more olive oil, salt, pepper, basil and oregano, then put it in a sprayed oven-safe dish, topped it with mozzarella and baked/broiled it until melted and golden.  Sooooo addictive!

For dinner this evening Christopher made Thai larb.

Do you like visiting new grocery stores?  Do you like rye bread?  It's almost the weekend!  Do you have any fun plans?