Do You Shop the Weekly Specials?

With newspaper flyer or online flyer, do you shop your favorite supermarket's specials and plan meals around them?  Do you shop several local (gas is still pricey) stores?  If not, you may want to reconsider. 

We're in the enviable position of having new Trader Joe's and Walmart within easy driving distance. The Walmart has an expanded food section, and I'm quite pleased with it.  The salad offerings are fresh;  the Polish ham is cheap; bananas are cheap, too.  Bread at $1.68 a loaf!  When was the last time you saw that price?  Dairy is also good, and I'm crazy about the Triscuit, the Shredded Wheat and Bran and the granola bar prices.  

Walmart doesn't have everything.  Cheese selection is poor.  Not a lot of organics (salad excepted).  You probably won't find radicchio and fennel.  We like Trader Joe's for cheese and dairy, wine, and the odd delicacy or frozen item.  When I asked whether the peppercorns could be removed from the peppermill they came in, the clerk demonstrated  by opening it up that they could.  

What is it with peppercorns?  I have two pepper grinders that I LOVE, and do not, repeat, do not want to buy pepper in a grinder, but that seems to be the latest thing.  I had to return a jar that didn't indicate except in small print that it was only a grinder.  One could not open it.  Phooey!  

Yesterday, we shopped the specials, spent $79.00 and saved $ 29.00.  These savings add up fast.  We don't buy a lot of heavily processed food, so I'm pleased to find avocados, strawberries, pears, pork chops, pasta, orange juice and cheese marked down.  Pizza dough!  Never see that on sale.  Good prices is the dairy aisle always welcome.  Savings on laundry detergent and seltzer.  BTW, I don't like seltzer but other family members do. 

We had a dynamite vegetarian stuffed shells this week.  The shells were stuffed with fennel, radicchio, red onion and ricotta bound with egg.  Somehow, this turned into a meaty concoction that was extremely satisfying and I am not always "satisfied" by vegetarian food.  I bought the pasta, and eggs and the cheese at Walmart, the veggies at Whole Foods, sort of the Yin and the Yang of grocery shopping.  The veggies had to cook forever,  but was the dish ever good and it made enough for 4 meals, which makes it economical even with the trip to Whole Foods.  The recipe came from Food and Wine.  

What are you making for the SuperBowl?  Meatloaf is out traditional  offering with bean dip and chips to nibble during the game.  Maybe Brussels sprouts and baked potatoes as sides.  It has to be something easy to eat in front of the TV, although we can usually time dinner for half time.  Everyone in Boston is bummed that the Pats lost to the Ravens, but whatchagonna do? 

It got so cold this week that I had to haul my ancient sheepskin coat out of the cedar closet.   It must weigh 10 pounds and is as warm as toast.   Patriots fans can be  glad the playoff was last weekend in mild weather rather than this weekend in the freezer compartment.  

Latkes with sour cream and apple sauce make a delicious cheap vegetarian meal

What do you eat on Superbowl Sunday?  Significant Other doesn't like chicken wings, or I would make them.   We have to journey to Stop and Shop because it's impossible to find Bean Dip anywhere else.  Some things just don't make any sense.  

Shop well and you'll save a bundle.  Now that's sensible!  


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

Blueberry Sauce

It's blueberry season and if you buy the frozen ones (on sale), then it's always blueberry season.

That means blueberry desserts, waffles, pancakes, and your very own blueberry sauce served on pancakes, waffles or even ice cream.

In a saucepan with a heavy bottom, stir 1/4 cup sugar and 1 T. cornstarch. Slowly add 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup orange juice. Grapefruit or cranberry juice will also work, just something fruity. Grate in a little citrus zest. Orange or lemon are good.

Cook over medium heat until thickening, and keep stirring.

Add 1 cup of blueberries, more if you like, and continue to cook and stir until the sauce is the color of blueberries. The berries should be cooked but not mushy. You may add a pat of butter if you like, but it's not necessary.

I read the ingredients on a bottle of supermarket syrup, and just about gagged. Artificial crud to the max. Yech!

You can make orange, strawberry or even apricot sauce or syrup at home. So tasty. Adjust sugar as necessary.

Serve warm, and bask in the compliments.

Folks, on my last two supermarket trips, I have saved a total of $75.00. Not too shabby, huh?

I'm finding I do more and more shopping at Walmart, now, not just for cat supplies, but more household items and food items.

Yours in frugality and savings,

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

Stuffed Peppers - Yowza!

Our supermarket had big green peppers on sale for 77 cents a pound. I had some ground beef (from a previous BOGO) in the freezer, and all the other ingredients were on hand.

These babies were good. It would have been even cheaper to stuff the ones we grew in the garden this summer.

The second photo is with cheese sprinkled on during last five minutes of cooking. Yum! The recipe called for parboiling the peppers before baking, a definite improvement in getting rid of the harsh raw taste. Those Southern folks sure do understand cooking.

http://southernfood.about.com/od/stuffedpepperrecipes/r/bl30220q.htm

Savings at the Grocery Store

This week, with a hard memory of our retirement investments tanking, I went over the grocery specials more earnestly than usual, and the store, perhaps responding to the bad economic news, had a number of tempting specials.

We broke down and bought one large pumpkin for $9.99. We usually buy three but the crop failure this year has them at astronomical prices. Hard to do without a pumpkin. Just need one.

Except for the specials, I only bought groceries I needed for this week. We're trying a new cheese spread for the cocktail hour. We've discovered some of the pretty good "spreads" made in-house at the store are about $5.00 a pound, which is a decent price, cheese-wise.

So the final grocery total came to $65.77 and the savings were $40.73. That's not bad. I didn't have to buy any paper, plastic or cleaning products. We bought a 24 case pack of cat food earlier in the week at Walmart. BTW, Walmart has the best and the cheapest cat litter. We never buy anything else.

I potted up 8 geraniums that I saved last winter and put in the big whiskey barrell by the side of the house. They grew and flourished and will spend the winter indoors again, thereby saving beaucoup bucks.

I made spaghetti alla amatriciana this week. We got three meals out of a pound of spaghetti and a 28 oz. can of tomatoes and 1/4 lb of bacon. This works out to pennies a meal. Can't beat that. Tasted first-rate, too.

Cheaply yours,

The Cheeseparer