A Collection Of Costco Quinoa Salad Copycat Recipes

Costco has a lot of great products in their deli section and one of the most popular is the Quinoa Salad.  While searching online I discovered that a lot of people have been coming up with copycat recipes and I thought I might share them with you today. I do want to be clear, I haven’t made any of these but the reviews are overwhelming positive so I thought they should be be brought to others attention.

Here is one from The Tasteful Tribe.

Nourished by Nic also has one.

Another blog focusing on good nutrition, Wellness by Kay also has one.

And finally, we have one by Clean Eating Kitchen.

As you can see, given quinoa’s well deserved reputation as a superfood, many of these copycat recipes are from nutrition focused individuals. That these recipes are also delicious according to their readers makes for a win-win situation!

So please check out these fellow food bloggers, they have done some great work

I hope you enjoy checking these out and happy eating!

Costco 12 Piece Anodized Cookware on Closeout for $119-It has an Asterik!

 Most experienced Costco shoppers know the asterisk on a price tag means an item is discontinued.  I saw that on the Kirkland Signature 12 Piece Non-Stick cookware set.

This generally gets good reviews so this is probably your last opportunity to buy this value priced set.

I also noticed they had a bent box unit of it for $95 at the Kalamazoo, Michigan store.

That is a pretty good price. Somebody is going to get a great deal!

Sweet and Savory Grape Appetizers Inspired by the Costco Connection Magazine September 2024 Issue

 

 I was reading the September 2024 issue of the Costco Connection magazine and I came upon a recipe for Sweet and Savory Grape Appetizers. (When the magazine goes live online, I will add a link to the recipe).  I asked my lovely wife what she thought of the idea and she was quite enthusiastic.  We already had some Jarlsberg cheese in the fridge so I stopped at Costco and bought some grapes, mini mozzarella cheese balls and some salami. My lovely wife has a garden with fresh basil so we were set to try this out.

My lovely wife thought of making two types of skewers: one set with grapes and Jarlsberg cheese and another set with a mixture of cherry and grape tomatoes from my lovely wife’s garden and the fresh mozzarella.  Both turned out to be attractive as well as tasty.

We took these over to our friend’s house for gaming night snacks and they were a tremendous hit.  People liked the mixed of sweet and savory and there were three different food groups in one snack!  

To sum up, these were easy to make, a real crowd pleaser and they had some real variety with just one style of snack. And you can customize them with the cheese of your choice.

We were so impressed with these that we decided that we will take them to our company picnic to impress my coworkers!

Eat, be well and be happy!

Review of Ajinomoto Pork and Chicken Gyoza

 

With this on sale until Sunday 9/1, we thought we would try them.  They come 60 to a box.

They then come wrapped in sub-packages.

They do cook up as quickly as described on the package.  My lovely wife made a pretty presentation and kept with the Asian theme by serving them with green peas and mandarin oranges.

We liked these and they are tasty enough and made for a good meal.  But we also definitely enjoy the beef mandu significantly more. The Ling-Ling Potstickers are also somewhat better and even at the current full price are a better value.  

Let me be clear, they were okay, but simply put, other similar products at Costco taste better and/or are a better value so my assumption is we will never buy these again.

New link posted-Cooking the Costco Way Facebook page

 While browsing Facebook for Costco related pages, I found a fine new cooking site.  

Cooking the Costco Way.

I have added it to our list of links.

He seems to be a pretty good cook with a different focus than what we do so I thought he deserved a solid shout out.

Jarlsberg and Gouda Penne with Chicken Sausage.

 Jarlsberg is on sale this week so we wanted to try something cheesy and different than our previous dinners by making a pasta dish. The Sabatino sausages were also on sale for some added punch to the dish.

I grated Jarlsberg and Smoked Gouda (about 2 cups total).

I added a couple tablespoons of corn starch and distributed it to allow the cheese sauce to thicken and to avoid clumping.

In a Dutch oven, I added a cup of Pinot Grigio and started slowly adding the cheese after it came to a simmer. We will admit we bought the wine from Aldi but Costco has plenty of affordable quality wines that we could have used.  

After all the cheese was melted, four sausages were cut up and added. The dish was seasoned with freshly ground nutmeg and black pepper and finished by adding a half pound of cooked penne.

In the end, this was a very satisfying and easy to make dish which we will surely replicate.  The cheeses worked well together with the simple white wine sauce.  Adding the sausage gave some variety and lent a meat portion to the dish.  The cost for six servings was probably less than the cost of one meal at a restaurant and it took about the same if not less time than going to a restaurant or getting delivery.

A good home cooked meal like this is satisfying, tasty and quick.  And shopping at Costco makes it an absolute bargain.