I don't believe in buying a lot of things because I can. Everyone has a right to access or buy everyday products and if one person buys everything at once, that's unfair. However, I do go through phases of piling up. While recovering from illness, it was KIND bars. At one time, I was good for having at least 6-8 flavors at one time. Then when I gained too much weight, it was salad fixings. Soup comes and goes, which is strange because it's mostly hot where I live. A few days ago, I discovered those Sargento snacks and bought more than a dozen in less than 24 hours.
My family has been buying those Balanced Breaks, and while they are pretty good - I am assuming on a per weight basis, you're paying a lot more for those to be individually portioned like that, when you can simply buy all the ingredients and make up smaller portions for yourself for much less. I would be more inclined to just make my own and pick up some cheap reusable plastic containers from the dollar store to store them. One ingredient I often stock up on is El Pato spicy tomato sauce. It comes in a couple different varieties: I love them both, and use them frequently to make spanish rice, or chili, or spanish omelettes and various other recipes. The yellow can is the hotter of the two and has a slightly smokier taste - as if it were made with dried chilis, whereas the green can is milder and tastes more like it was made with fresh peppers. They're both sort of like a smooth salsa, minus the vinegar/lime/lemon juice. They add a lot of spicy flavor to dishes without that strong sour taste you get from a jarred salsa. I also like to use them in place of those taco seasoning packets, when making ground beef taco meat. I just add the sauce plus some cumin to the browned beef, and let it all simmer down until the sauce thickens up a bit.
When we went to Batanes, the province in the northern tip of the Philippines, we have sampled a bottle of preserved swordfish. It was actually baby swordfish that tasted like an exotic sardines. Since my husband liked it so I bought 8 bottles. Back home, I had forgotten to unpack it and it remained in our stock room for several months before our housemaid called my attention to it when we were putting out the Christmas decorations. We couldn't finish all the 8 bottles so I gave away 5 bottles as Christmas gift to some of my girl friends.
That sounds so good. From your description, the yellow can must have some kick. I love spicy food so I will look for that brand.
My family seems to stockpile those packets of soup. I expect we have over 100 sachets in the cupboard right now. Every time they see another flavour they don't have they seem to buy it... And half the time they had it already! They're handy to have but when they just keep buying and buying. Them it does get over the top!
