My awesome sister Chef Sarah Lee is the manager of a Cooking Connect at the H-E-B on I-10 and De Zavala Rd. H-E-B is currently having a store-wide promotion called Ciao Italia and Cooking Connection is featuring some vegan-friendly products that I just had to share!

Ciao Italia products from Cooking Connection

If you’re unfamiliar with Cooking Connection, it may be because your local H-E-B doesn’t have one. Neither of my stores have them, but they are essentially a live kitchen where H-E-B Chefs interact with customers to show them new recipes utilizing ingredients available in-store. They also have their own line of products that changes throughout the year. Right now they have a selection of products made in Italy.

Arrabbiata Sauce, Minestrone Soup, and Tomato & Basil Sauce

If you visit my sister’s Cooking Connection you’ll see a video of the sauces actually being made in Italy. The hubby and I tried the Arrabbiata Sauce for dinner last night with the Toronado Pasta below. It was a little spicy for me, but Mark loves spicy food so he really enjoyed it. Right now the pasta sauces are buy-one-get-one-free, so I also got the Tomato & Basil Sauce to try. Since the products are All Natural they will only stay good for three days in the fridge. So we’ll open up our Tomato & Basil once we finish the Arrabbiata.

Penne Rigate Pasta and Toronado Pasta

Part of what makes the Cooking Connection popular is that they make samples for customers to try. Chef Sarah made the Penne Pasta with Marinara Sauce for me to try, and I loved it. The pastas above are also buy-one-get-one-free and were selling really quickly when I visited. To be honest, most of the recipes made at Cooking Connection are not-vegan friendly. It’s location near the meat market and customer base has some affect on that, but my sister will often tell me about recipes that I could try or will tell me how to make something vegan from the items she’s currently promoting. The Chefs at H-E-B are there for you, so feel free to ask questions about these items!

Rustico Unfiltered First Cold Press Olive Oil and Calabria Bread Dipper

My favorite purchases were the Olive Oil and Calabria Bread Dipper. You should know by now that I love bread, so when I found out the fresh Ciabatta Bread and Bread Dipper came free with the purchase of the Rustico Olive Oil I was all over it. (We still have some bread which I’m thinking about having with vegan cream cheese for brunch – yum!)

Cooking Connection Ciao Italia Vegan-Friendly Products:
Truffle Salt, White Truffle Cream, Penne Pasta, Toronado Pasta, Marinara Sauce, Arrabbiata Sauce, Tomato & Basil Sauce, Minestrone Soup, Calabria Bread Dipper, Florentine Bread Dipper, Rustico Olive Oil,  Lemon-infused Olive Oil, and Orange-infused Olive Oil.

Visit H-E-B Cooking Connection from now through October 15th for all these great products and deals!

xo angie

*This post is not sponsored by H-E-B. I simply want to share products I enjoyed that my sister is currently promoting at her H-E-B Cooking Connection location.