Central Market - One Of The Hazards Of My Job

Many of you may or may not know that I'm in the food industry. I'm in sales for a company that manufactures & sells things like soups, sauces, hot dogs, BBQ, etc.

I was recently approached by a customer about doing a proprietary line of retail products for their brand of restaurants. (For now they shall remain anonymous, but should this retail line eventually go to market, you'd better believe I will be shouting about it to anyone within listening, or seeing, distance).

Anyway...The first thing we always do when we have a new concept is market research. Today's market research took me to a place more dangerous to my pocket book than Target. I had to go to...




OH SWEET HEAVENS HOW I LOVE CENTRAL MARKET!

I typically try to steer clear of this place because regardless of if I need groceries or not, I'm not walking out of there without having spent $50. Today was no exception. I went in for work research and walked out with (amongst other things)...

Mini Scones



I didn't even make it out of the parking lot before I had opened these little guys up & had one...or two.

Strawberries & a Ginormous Grapefruit



These are probably the best looking strawberries I've seen all season!

A Bottle Of Red Wine



And some Smithwick's Irish Ale - because it was on special today and The Hubs & I recently discovered that we really like it.

But my most favorite find of the day was this section:




The Pre-Made Meal Kit Case!

There was a case full of these pre-made meal kits that you just take home, throw together & serve. Y'all know I love to cook; however, there are some nights I just don't have time. With baseball season right around the corner (yes, I sell hot dogs to professional baseball teams) I am going to be SUPER busy and will be getting home late from the ballpark about 60+ nights between now & September. These little meal kits could be this girls best friend (if only Central Market wasn't on the opposite side of town).

I decided I'd give one of these meal kits a try. There were so many to choose from, it was hard to pick just one. They have all kinds of soups, Italian & Asian dishes, stir fry, etc. I finally decided on Vietnamese Chicken Pho. It's a bit cool & rainy here, so a warm soup sounded ideal. All you do it buy the kits...



And follow the directions on the handy little card that comes with it...



And you have dinner ready to go in under 10 minutes. I must say, these kits are priced very reasonably, as well. This meal was $8.48. Not bad for dinner for 2!

Now if I can just convince my husband that Pho is tasty, I'll be all set for dinner tonight.

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