FRESH & SUPER EASY! And Awesome!

Fresh & Easy: Bring your boyfriend. Wear matching shirts. Have a great time!

OK, first off my sincere apologies for posting this blog SO embarrassingly late, but I'm just now getting my personal blog, FunnyYellowMom, in order after a whirlwind of traveling and whatnot earlier in the year. Telling you of my true love for Fresh and Easy is something I couldn't just let fall by the wayside, even if it is five months too late, so... here goes...

Waaaaay back in July 2009 (yes, 5 months ago... time flys when you have a toddler), I was lucky enough to attend a Fresh and Easy cooking demo with their Head Chef, Mike Ainslie at Sur La Table in the Los Angeles Farmer's Market. I can not begin to tell you how much fun I had at this event, but let me begin anyway...

First off, if you're not in CA, NV or AZ, then you probably have never heard of Fresh and Easy... I think it's best described as Trader Joe's meets Whole Foods but simpler and more affordable. The employees are friendly and helpful, the stores are basic and food is natural with lots of organic, they have yummy free samples every day, recycle bins on the way out the door, two sizes of shopping carts... I could go on and on. SIMPLE and AFFORDABLE! LOVE IT!

Back to our cooking demo night: upon arrival there were appetizers and drinks and then we broke up into four groups and prepared four simple and affordable dishes with ingredients entirely from Fresh and Easy. My group made mini pizzas and I think mine were quite spectacular! They look like amoebas, don't they?!

The other dishes were baked honey dijon chicken fingers, salmon with soba noodles and beef fajitas. All of the dishes were prepared and cooked and then, the best part, we all got to eat together. Everything was delicious and at the risk of sounding like a complete cheeseball, I was really impressed by the affordability of the complete meals. One of the things I loved about this event is that we each received printed copies of all of the recipes with itemized prices of all of the ingredients.

Since this event, I've made the beef fajitas, pizzas and chicken fingers several times. I even had my friend, Marsha (aka Sweatpantsmom) and her family of four, over for Fresh and Easy pizzas last night! I'm not kidding, I'm really in love with this store.

And I'm lucky that I have a Fresh and Easy about 3 miles from my front door and since discovering it, I haven't set foot in a Trader Joe's. Their parking lots make me want to shoot myself in the eyeball. So good on ya, Fresh and Easy. Once again, I'm sorry this is so late, but I'll keep throwing pizza parties in your honor!