The Supermarket Trifecta

Trader Joe opened a store a few miles from here.  And Walmart, also a few miles away, just added a HUGE grocery department.  The competition must have caused our local supermarket to offer a whole slew of BOGOs.  (Buy One Get One, in retail parlance.)  We saved hugely shopping at all three stores one week.  French cheese at Trader Joe's, Polish ham at Walmart, and a pound of fresh mushrooms for 88 cents at the local store, where they're having an anniversary sale.  It's not a bad trip to drive up Route 1 and hit all three stores.  We take our own shopping bags and load 'em up with bargains.  Christmas baking and shopping should be a dream. 

With pears on sale, I'm trying a dessert with pears, apple jack and hazel nuts.  Real uptown.  
Tonight we're have a classic Quiche Lorraine with Trader Joe's cheese, and bacon (BOGO) and pie crust from the supermarket. 
 Chicken Chasseur a few nights ago.  Fresh tarragon, the mushrooms (again) egg noodles.  Wine and brandy.  Cooking up a storm and loving it.  Photo of Chicken Chasseur below.  Brussels sprouts (so good for you) on sale too.  When great food is a bargain, one likes to cook even more.  

Here is a recipe from Bobby Flay  (Food Network) that is very close to the one I used. Chicken Chasseur 

Chicken Chasseur from Cook's Illustrated 

 

Chicken Chausseur

Hadn't been to the grocery store in ages.  Getting hair done (finally) late this afternoon, so better get something cooked or ready to cook.  Freezer only offers bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts, a BOGO (buy one get one).  I have a voluminous file of recipes, and would you believe the chicken is divided into:
1)  rotisserie chicken
2)  boneless breaks
3)  Bone in breasts
4)  roasting recipes
 5)  recipes calling for a whole chicken


I dig out the bone-in breast recipes.   Find Chicken Chausser which calls for mushrooms which I have (none too fresh) and canned tomatoes.  Also calls for a shallot, but I can substitute a couple scallions and a garlic clove.  I don't have any broth but have a boullion cube and a little aspic from 2 former rotisserie chickens.  


I get started and the smell is pretty good.  Skin doesn't look too great so I remove most of that.  Brown chicken, mushrooms, add brandy, etc.  Decide to try the package of spaetzle from Ocean State Job Lot.  


A mere scrap of lettuce in the fridge, but there are a couple organic carrots, 1/3 of an English cuke, 5  big grape tomatoes, and said lettuce.  I add dill, oregano, basil and  a bit of mint and toss.  Looks and smells good.  Nice colors. 


The chicken sauce is a little salty, but the spaetzle needs salt, so that works out good.  Chicken very tasty, salad good, spaetzle a nice change.   We eat it for a late lunch instead of dinner.  


In the pantry there was oil, brandy and the substitutes for the shallot.  I always keep canned tomatoes around.  The salad was delicious, by the way.   It was damned near soup from a nail.  


 Breast halves were big enough for a second meal, and I have some ideas for the other package of breasts.  Even without skin, the breasts browned up  nicely. 


BTW, I have found the true secret to dieting.  You can eat absolutely anything you want.  Just eat less.  I've dropped 7 pounds with NO HUNGER.  Small helpings and no seconds except on fruits and veggies.  Fruit salad rocks in the summer, and todays salad of leftovers was a winner.  

The Chicken Chasseur recipe was from an old Cooks Illustrated magazine.  Anything calling for wine And brandy is bound to be pleasing to the tongue.


The Cheeseparer

Kielbasa BOGO

Kielbasa BOGO!  Does that sound like the name of a rock band or what?  For readers who never worked in the retail industry, a BOGO is a "Buy One Get One," also known as a "two-fer."  Roche Brothers, the supermarket where I shop, sometimes has a BOGO on Kielbasa.  We like the lighter turkey Kielbasa because it is less greasy and lower in calories.  Now, don't get me wrong.  I love ribs, fried chicken, heavy cream, etc., but when you have a chance to cut some calories and not lose any flavor, go for it! 

I make a middle Europe dish, (so homey, so comforting) with the Kielbasa.  I take 1-2 pounds of sauerkraut and rinse it (get rid of some of the salt).   Saute an onion, diced, a carrot, also diced in oil/fat of your choice until tender.  At a small portion of chopped tomato,  1/2 of  an apple, diced, the sauerkraut, the kielbasa,  (one pound, cut in half), some dry white wine, a little chicken broth, some caraway seeds, paprika (regular or smoked).  Cook as long as you can, adding more liquid if necessary.  If you are feeling carefree, saute a couple slices of chopped bacon to get your fat and cook the bacon with the kraut.   

Serve with mashed or boiled potatoes and a green salad.  This would make an excellent slow cooker dish.  I don't have a slow cooker, but maybe you do.  The sauerkraut becomes mild and savory and the concoction is actually rather mellow.  Add a clove or two of garlic if you like.  Improvisation is good.            

This will serve 4 if you aren't piggy.  Make the salad big.  There should be enough sauce in the kraut to nap the potatoes.  This is tasty and cheap.  My shabby little secret.  I use Hungry Jack mashed potatoes.  I know.  I know.  The more cream you put into them, the better they taste, but I try to stifle this impulse.  

The Cheeseparer    
 

Saving at the Supermarket

The past month, using specials and coupons, I've been saving between 20 and 45 per cent at the supermarket. There's 3 pounds of butter in the freezer (yes, butter freezes, and no, I wouldn't even consider using margarine for holiday baking.) No how, no way.

We've been loading up on "winter stores," because here in the New England a blizzard may surprise us, and we want to have 4 days food in the house. I've got a plastic bin full of good stuff to eat, and in April, when all danger of storms are past, we eat it up.

We're been buying BOGOS (buy one get one) and specials like flour, sugar, and raisins for the holiday baking. I began it yesterday with some shortbread with cocktail nuts roasted, chopped and pressed into the dough. The sweet-salty combo is really good.

I splurged and got some phyllo dough on sale, to make some cheese twists to take to a party. Hoping the recipe will make many, as they can be frozen.

What I've been busy with mostly is upgrading my computer--transferring the data from a dying Dell to a sparkly new Mac Mini. And Christmas shopping on Craig's list. By the way, magazines, which can frequently be got quite reasonably. will be a yearlong gift.

Finding supermarket sales and using a coupon will save you big. And of course you recycle your grocery bags and take the reusable ones you buy for a dollar. And shop places like Building 19 and the Ocean State Job lot--these are Boston area stores that have Good Stuff Cheap.

If a few days, I'll scare up the shortbread and cheese twist recipes. It's always nice to take something homemade to a party if you're any kind of cook at all. If you aren't, pick up a bottle of wine. The newspapers always have articles about good buys in good wine. Clip the article.

Be frugal, but don't sacrifice good taste. If nobody eats it, then you haven't saved nuthin'.

Happy Holidays,

The Cheeseparer

Cheap Trick

On Saturday, I saved $48.57 on a $93.36 grocery bill. 21 of the items were on sale. The savings broke down at $1.60 for coupons, Sales items $26.55, and BOGO savings $20.42.

Saturday's shopping involved several challenges. I only had $97.00 left in the grocery budget for the month. The store had some specials I needed to stock up on for houseguests arriving th second week in July. We needed meat for two meals.

I didn't buy any specials that I didn't need immediately or else for the guests. The guests have difficult to meat eating requirements. We don't even want to go there.

What we are eating. I had a package of chicken breasts, and we ate chicken piccata two nights, one night with grilled zucchini and lettuce from the garden, and the second night with corn on the cob and organic romaine hearts on sale at a good price. With the romaine, I could plan that I would use all the lettuce before leaving for the 4th of July weekend.

Last night we had petite sirloin on the grill, and I saved one of the steaks and a portion of a 2nd for steak salad (remember the romaine?) tonight. Cluster tomatoes were also on sale. Tomorrow I'm making a minestrone with Italian sausage, on sale two weeks ago. I bought zucchini and coleslaw mix for the soup, and one can of tomatoes.

Eating cheap does not mean forgoing food pleasures. Remember the steak! Cherries and blueberries were also on sale, and we had blueberry waffles yesterday morning and blueberry pancakes this morning. Sale bacon, of course. Some of the cherries went into a ricotta dessert last night. Tonight I may use the rest of the blueberries for a freeform tart. I'll be making the crust myself and baking some food processor bread tomorrow to go with the soup. I do hate to pay $4.00 a loaf for decent bakery bread. I can make the bread while dealing with the soup.

Thursday, en route to the holiday weekend locale, we're packing a lunch of chicken sandwiches on home made bread, cookies (on sale two weeks ago), chips, plums and coke on special last weekend. We'll eat better and faster.

Remember, eating cheap(er) doesn't mean yucko margarine and boiled cabbage. We had a delicious salad last weekend of cucumber, dill from the garden, and a dressing of plain yogurt and sour cream.

Menu planning and keeping a well-stocked pantry are your greatest helpers on the road to supermarket savings.

For instance, after the chicken piccata, we need capers. I'll haunt the job lot for a nice big jar at a fab price instead of paying through the nose at the grocery store. Capers (if you like them) add zest and flavor to a lot of dishes.

Everything is a balancing act between time, money, health and taste. It's a lot to consider, and you do have to plan ahead.

Yours in frugality,

The Cheeseparer

Couponing

Today's Boston Globe had beaucoup coupon sections in the Sunday supplements, but out of 4 sections, I only glommed on to 10 - 12 coupons. Most of them are not for food. Lots of vitamins and health "stuff," cosmetics, weird things I would never buy. And the food coupons are invariably for the most processed of foods. No one ever has $1 off on a bag of carrots, although I did have one tomato coupon this fall.

Sometimes you find canned soup or cleaning products, and some paper and plastic. Yogurt is often available by coupon. Haven't seen cat food for ages. It's not on sale either, but we did buy 24 cans and get $1 off on Fancy Feast. Such a deal. One kitty is diabetic and we try to buy cat food without glutins. It's weird standing in the cat food aisle looking for specific flavors (each with its own color). Kitty doesn't care.

The best deals, food-wise, are the BOGOs. Buy One Get One in retail parlance. Chickens and pork tenderloin are particiularly coveted, but just about anything I regularly buy is welcome. Of course bottles of Tabasco would be useless. We are entering a 5 Tabasco bottle marriage. That's a lot of years.

Most weeks I'm too lazy to shop the 3-5 supermarkets and cherry pick specials. I stay with my main store and bop into the others if I'm driving by or in the neighborhood.

We had a half-ham over Christmas and the bone with plenty of meat clinging to it will be utilized for bean soup this week. From scratch with the soaking of the beans. I add lots of onion, and some garlic and carrots. Always yummy. Don't forget the herbs.

Some recipes call for a Parmesan Cheese rind, but that implies that you buy a big mother of a Parmesan Cheese, not exactly a frugal purchase. (See Photo).

The Cheeseparer, paring away