Heirlooms

Quick post to show off some awesome food I ate after some recent trips to Whole Foods!

A note on Whole Foods

The closest grocery store to where I live happens to be Whole Foods, and while I’m well aware of and agree with the notion that it can be prohibitively expensive, I shop there regularly, mainly because a) their produce is the best I have found in Boston (besides heaven Russo’s, and I can’t ever get there because I have no car :() and b) they are the only store I know of that carries many of the vegan products that I prefer to buy.

Nonetheless, I have learned how to maximize the value of what I end up spending at Whole Foods.  First, I always go in with a finite list of things to buy.  Because I usually don’t know what is on sale before going in, the list almost always contains either a general term like “green vegetables” or has single lines that list several options (for example, it might say “blueberries/strawberries/mango,”and then if none of them end up being on sale, I don’t buy anything, and instead wait until H gets home from work and can drive me to a more affordable store!) Second, I am only allowed to try one exciting new food or product per month.  This is because I am passionate about food (in case the blog was not an obvious indicator) and it is something that genuinely excites me.  Which leads me nicely into the real topic of this post…

Heirloom Products

My March “fun purchase” from WF was this gorgeous thing:

An organic heirloom tomato

It was gigantic and beautiful.  I ate it for lunch over two days, both days sliced up and drizzled with garlic-infused olive oil and sprinkled with a little sea salt and ground black pepper. 

I thought the bright orange pulp was so pretty!

I know it sounds weird that I ate half a tomato for lunch two days in a row, but this thing was so meaty and flavorful that I was totally satisfied.  I mean, I definitely ate some more food like 2 hours later but still.  Really, really recommend trying one of these if you have never done so.  They come in all shapes and sizes and are just so much fun.

Before that, I had my February fun purchase:

Whole Foods heirloom bean chili

I had never heard of heirloom beans so was insanely curious.  I am happy to report that while they taste much the same as regular beans, they are quite pretty to look at, and that overall this chili/soup is delicious, nutritious, and filling, and a pretty good value (since buying individual soups at WF is super-expensive–I got three giant steaming bowls out of this for the price of maybe 1.5 medium soups at their soup bar).  Yum!