Great finds at Cost Plus World Market

I took an impromptu trip into Cost Plus World Market today, because I had heard the store carried a variety of Torani syrups sweetened with Splenda. I've discovered that such flavored syrups are a great way to add variety to my protein shakes without having to invest in myriad flavored powders. It's amazing how much you can do with basic chocolate and vanilla when you have various flavorings to add to them.

However, World Market had more to offer me than just the Torani syrups. En route to the flavoring aisle, I stumbled upon the store's sugar-free section. Tucked away at the end of an aisle by the candy, I found various sugar-free treats that I had thought were only available on the Internet.

Just about every flavor of Joseph's sugar-free cookies were there. The crunchy, bite-size cookies aren't only great for snacking but also make an incredible low-carb crust for sugar-free pies and cheesecakes. I like snacking on the pecan shortbread, which I also use for my cheesecake crusts. The chocolate-walnut cookies are great as a crust for chocolate pies, and I use the lemon cookies in the crust for my sugar-free key lime pies. The only variety I found today that I hadn't previously tried was the soft brownie bites. I can wait to try them and tell you what I think of them.

Enchantments soft-baked cookies were also available. The store had frosted lemon, chocolate-walnut chunk and snickerdoodle varieties in stock. I picked up the snickerdoodles and will report on them later.

Also available was sugar-free black licorice (no red), gummi bears, Jelly Belly jelly beans and Guylian belgian chocolate. I've heard from other bariatric gourmets that Guylian is the best brand of sugar-free chocolate on the market so I picked up a bar in each flavor to try and use in cooking.

I was so excited by these finds that I almost forgot my Torani syrups. Good thing my husband was there to keep me on track. Though the full-size bottles of Torani are on sale right now for $5 each (regular $5.99), I decided to buy the smaller 5-ounce bottles to try out. Sadly, there was not as much variety in the smaller bottles but I managed to pick up raspberry and caramel. I can't wait to make a chocolate-caramel protein shake. I already know it'll be tasty. For those braver than me, the store had full-size bottles in Irish cream, toffee, vanilla, caramel, raspberry, peach and others -- all sugar-free. There was even sugar-free white chocolate and chocolate syrup.

It was an exciting trip, to say the least. I've spent so much time over the past two years investing time and money buying these types of products on the Internet. Not only is it risky to buy stuff sight unseen for the most part, but it gets expensive to ship glass bottles and heavy packaging.

Knowing I can buy such stuff in Tracy makes life so much easier for me. And it guarantees I'll make numerous stops at World Market in the future.