Grocery Store Dates

It’s date time! Ready to cook up something truly different and unique? I call these the grocery store dates. Pick a letter, pick an aisle or pick a budget. All inspired by Guy Fieri and his Grocery Games. For all three dates, we consider olive oil and herbs and spices as freebies.

Pick a Letter

My husband and I used a Scattergories die to pick a letter. We settled on the letter “B.” At the store, we spent at least 20 minutes shopping around to build our meal. We ended up making stuffed beef burgers topped with bean sprouts, bell pepper and barbecue sauce (from Guy Fieri!). My husband also added bacon and bread-and-butter pickles to his burger. On the side, we had baked beans. We picked out a dessert also, which we rarely have at home. Warm smashed blackberries over banana bread. Yum!! I thought this date was surprisingly fun, and the food was very good. It was more of a challenge than we thought it would be to come up with all the ingredients, but that just made it more enjoyable to cook and put together. We will do this one again for sure.

Pick an Aisle

Our local grocery store offered several good aisle choices, but we ended up in the Italian, Mexican and Asian foods aisle. We wanted to venture out from what we usually buy there, so we picked up basil potato gnocchi to have with a sweet pepper pasta sauce and black olives. We grabbed refried black beans with chilis and added a can of jalapenos. We also bought some crostini, which we paired with a homemade bread dipping oil. The meal itself was a bit of a letdown, as neither one of us particularly enjoyed the gnocchi. We certainly wouldn’t buy it again. However, we did think it was a funny and challenging date. Next time, I think we will try one of the frozen food aisles.

Pick a Budget

We each budgeted $10 to spend on our part of a four-course meal. My husband had the task of picking out a starter and the entree. I got appetizer and dessert. When we arrived at the store, we split up and gave ourselves 15 minutes to shop. In the end, we enjoyed a dinner of minestrone soup; caprese salad; black bean burgers topped with pepper-jack, spinach and mango; and phyllo fruit and yogurt cups. I think this date was my favorite of the three because it was fun to see what my husband came up with for the meal and fun to see how our choices fit together. We will definitely do this one again.

These dates were interesting and entertaining. Plus, they gave us some much-needed quality time, shopping, preparing the meal, eating and cleaning up together. I also liked the challenge of shopping without a list and having to improvise!

Hannah Berry is a freelance writer who lives with her husband in Kansas City. They enjoy regular date nights and love trying new restaurants and activities.