Cooking With ALDI - Cheesy Pinto Bean Dip

Did you know there's a whole section of ALDI's website filled with recipes? Yeah I know, endless possibilities! So guess what? Welcome to a new blog segment - Cooking With ALDI - where we take a recipe from the ALDI website and make it using ALDI products...or as many ALDI products as we can find. Let's face it, one of the reasons we love ALDI is product turn over, but that's going to make following a recipe an adventure. So on with the first adventure - Cheesy Pinto Bean Dip.

 Let's get this party started!

There's got to be some rules, right?

1. Use the specific ALDI products listed in the recipe whenever available.
2. If the product in the recipe is not available, substitute with a suitable ALDI product.
3. If rules 1 and 2 can not be followed, purchase item from another grocer OR if the item is deemed not integral to the recipe, leave out altogether.

That's it, let's see how we did.
 
I couldn't find Benita Shredded Quesadilla Cheese which is denoted in the recipe as a specialty item that may not be available. Correct! I also didn't find Benita Diced Green Chiles or green onions. I substituted Happy Farms Pepper Jack for the cheese, Casa Mamita Tomatoes and Green Chiles (a Rotel knock-off) for the chiles and left out the green onions altogether. Also, I didn't find Stonemill Essentials Taco Seasoning so I used Casa Mamita Taco Seasoning in it's place, but it's 1 oz instead of the 1.25 oz called for in the recipe. I don't think it made a difference.

F&A Devil's Food Fat Free Chocolate Cookie Cakes

Hello internet! We just got back from a lovely mini holiday and walking back into my office after four days off made me realize that all my hopes and dreams of a better life are resting on this little blog.* Anyway, Fit&Active's Devil's Food Fat Free Chocolate Cookie Cakes are what we're talking about today.

Drop and Give Me Twenty! -- Strawberry Cereal Bars

Even though the Lady forces me on nightly three mile marches, fit and active are two words that have never been used to describe me. But they are two words that describe today's post - readers, strap on your leg warmers we're you're about to jump into Fit&Active Strawberry Light & Crispy Vitality Cereal Bars!

You Could Read War And Peace Quicker

So the first thing I want to talk about is the name.  Fit&Active Strawberry Light & Crispy Vitality Cereal Bars - come on ALDI that is way too long for blogging. Let's dissect it and see what we can take out. Fit&Active - okay, they want to position these as healthy and you can see they have lots of goodness listed in green blocks. Fine, that stays. Strawberry, I have no qualms with that - I don't want to get home and find out they're jack fruit or something. Light, yeah okay sure - only 90 calories and they don't weigh much either. Crispy, they are not. Strike it. Vitality, why? What's makes them that? It's not explained - dump it. Cereal, I've never seen any F&A Strawberry cereal so that can go too. Bars, yes they are. So we come up with  Fit&Active Strawberry Light Bars. Or maybe Fit&Active Light Strawberry Bars. (TM www.whatsgoodataldi.com) Much more manageable.