Partyin’ ALDI style! #ALDISummer

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Y’all know I loves me some ALDI! Great prices without having to cut coupons, wheeeee!! So when my pals at ALDI asked me to sample some of their great groceries to throw a party, I was all for it! ALDI sent me $100 in gift certificates and some party ideas and I went with it. Since I eat gluten-free, I decided that a “South of the Border” taco party would be a great fit. Although, because I’m such a considerate person, I did buy some flour tortillas for those who like their tacos soft. I’m a giver!

I set out on a kid-less afternoon with my shopping list and got shopping! It didn’t take long to fill my cart. Some of the things I was on the lookout for: my favorite Little Salad Bar salsa for $1.99, and Little Salad bar guacamole for $2.99. I L-O-V-E both of these items! Sadly, my ALDI only had the *spicy* guac, and I can’t do spicy, so I ran down the road to another ALDI and got my guac! 🙂 It was worth it. Here’s my cart at the end of my main shopping trip:

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An ALDI cart full of awesome! Everything in this cart was $80.76, add $2.99 for the extra guacamole I picked up from another ALDI store.

I got everything I needed for my party including meat, taco shells and tortillas, tortilla chips, vegetables, salsa, guacamole, cheese, sour cream, fresh fruit, drinks, paper plates, cutlery, plastic cups, etc. for less than $85! I was honestly shocked. Even though I am used to ALDI’s great prices, I still expected to use the entire $100 ALDI had provided.

Now that I had my food, I needed a reason to party! I decided to provide food for our house church group to celebrate my BFF Luanne & her hubby’s new house! They moved in on Monday, and we partied the following Sunday with delicious ALDI food!

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The tacos were delicious, especially with the Little Salad Bar salsa and guacamole and the Happy Farms sour cream and Mexican shredded cheese. MMMMM. I was also feeling adventurous and bought the ingredients to create a recipe from the ALDI Test Kitchen: Blue Corn, Great Northern Bean & Salsa Pie! It was awesome!

The pie crust is made out of Clancy’s blue corn tortilla chips and parmesan cheese with a little butter to hold it together.

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Then you add in some heated Dakota’s Pride black beans (which are like, 59 cents and are sooo good!)Untitled

Dakota’s Pride Great Northern Beans, sour cream, salsa, and mozarella cheese make up the next couple layers of the pie. Chill it for a while and then dig in. It’s delicious! And so very gluten-free! 🙂
UntitledYou can find the recipe here at the ALDI website. Note, the recipe is for mini-pies, but it does have instructions for making one big pie, which is what I did.

In addition to all of the fabulous food, I also made a delicious raspberry lemonade with frozen lemonade and Season’s Choice frozen raspberries. It was deeelectable. Seriously all I did was mix the lemonade and dump in the frozen berries (which were only $1.99!) YUM. Another one of my favorite ALDI items I picked up were the cute yet very sturdy paper plates. I thought they went so well with the southwest theme, too!

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We had the best time at our #ALDISummer South of the Border party! It was great to christen my BFF’s new home with good friends and great food. If you have any get-togethers coming up, head to ALDI for a great deal on everything you need for your event.

Thanks ALDI, for making our party great!

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The Is 40.

Andy turned 40 yesterday, and the whole event was way less depressing than the second half of the movie I titled this post after. (I couldn’t think of anything better, and have you ever googled ‘quotes about turning 40’? Don’t. They must have all been written when the average life expectancy was 32.8 years.)

Don’t mind me, I haven’t had my coffee yet.

Anyway, we celebrated yesterday in Northern Michigan, where we’ve been vacationing all week with dear friends.

We started the day playing on the beach and jet skiing.

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The kids and I took Andy out for lunch at a local hole-in-the-wall restaurant, the best kind.

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We came back and Andy and I read books on the beach while Kate and two of her friends made paid homage to our trip and the memories we’ve made this week.

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Later, we had a steak dinner, cheesecake, and wine, and we talked and laughed with our friends until way past my bedtime.

It was one of the best days I can remember in a long, long time.

Happy birthday to my favorite.

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Humility

So, I’ve been having a *few* problems with my hormones lately.

In the interest of not horrifying my male reader I won’t go into the unpleasant details.

But here’s a clue about one of my symptoms: This morning, as I was enjoying my morning cup of coffee, and the sun streaming through the blinds, and Jonah’s cute singing in his high chair, my sweet, darling, observant eldest son says to me:

Mom, why do you have red spots all over your face?

I wish it were because of some terrible infectious disease.

No such luck.

 

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