Justifying My Addiction

If you haven’t heard of Tastefully Simple, well, I pity you, first off.   But I don’t want to rub it in, so let me just say it is a home-party based business, which offers food (both ready-to-eat and mixes) that claim to be both simple and, yes, tasteful.

I have an addiction.  I admit that.  There are few meals in my house that don’t have at least a shake of one TS seasoning or another.

If you have ever attended a party of a home-party based business, you can guess that these items are not inexpensive.  Many of their items are priced well-above similar items at the grocery store, and I feel a bit of guilt considering spending nearly $8 on a box of brownie mix when I know I have a Duncan Hine’s coupon at home that would bring that mix to under $1.

So how does my tight-fisted heart justify a love for possibly over-priced convenience items?

The seasonings!

Dried Pesto seasoning, which lasts much longer than jarred pesto and is actually less expensive than even homemade pesto (and I don’t care how easy pesto is to make at home I am not making it at home because the thought of cleaning up from that makes me not hungry.)   You add a bit of olive oil; heat it up, and its pesto.  Or you use it dry in just about anything from eggs to pasta sauce and its flavor.  We use it on pizzas instead of sauce and he douses his turkey sandwich to add flavor. 

Simply Salsa is meant to make a can of diced tomatoes into instant salsa.  It does that, but it also turns an avocado into guacamole and tilapia into a southwestern dinner.

I could go on, but I am actually getting hungry and Tastefully Simple isn’t actually paying me.  So.

My point is that it’s important to splurge on good seasonings.  Pasta and eggs are two extremely inexpensive foods, but you can make them into 50 completely different dishes with a bit of seasoning. 

Not the old, expired, smells-like-nothing spices you got from your mom that time you wanted to make crockpot chili and didn’t even have a crockpot. 

Fresh spices.  And not just spices but seasonings, which take the guess work out of everything.  Basil and oregano are both great, but Italian seasoning and mozzarella tossed on a tortilla and microwaved makes the whole house smell like pizza.

OK.  It’s officially dinner time.