Time for What To Make With What’s On Sale! Let’s get to work pulling together what’s on sale in Colorado Springs with what’s in our pantries from previous weeks, and plan meals for our families that maximize those sales.
Oatmeal
Oatmeal is on sale a couple of places this week: Sunflower Market has rolled, quick, and steel-cut oats for $0.50/lb, and Albertsons has large containers of Quaker quick or old-fashioned oats for $1.40 (works out to $0.53/lb).
A few months ago I bought some steel-cut oats, just to try – and I am so glad I finally did. They are so creamy!
The steel-cut oats do take quite a bit longer to cook, but it’s worth it. I originally made this steel-cut oatmeal recipe from Alton Brown and used cream instead of buttermilk. Add some fresh or frozen peaches, and you’ll have peaches and cream oatmeal.
Another great way to use oats is these homemade granola bars from Katie at Kitchen Stewardship. I’ll confess I haven’t made them exactly according to the recipe due to poor planning and never having enough of all the right ingredients at once, but I tweaked it a bit when I didn’t have enough oats and it was good. I’m sure the real recipe is even better!
Barilla Pasta, Sauce, and Johnsonville Sausage
Safeway has a great deal on Barilla products: buy two sauces and get two pastas free! You can go here to see the coupon matchup, but it can be as low as $0.69 per product and a reader even reported an additional catalina you may receive!
Jeremy once had a dish called Sausage Classico at Macaroni Grill and really liked it. It was quite simple to replicate at home: roasted peppers, Italian sausage, tomato sauce, and a little crushed red pepper tossed over rigatoni. It’s one of our favorites, and simple to make.
Red bell peppers are $0.88 each at Sunflower Market, and Johnsonville Italian sausage is $2.99 at Safeway’s weekend sale. Sausage Classico is a pretty inexpensive dish to make with all these deals put together this week!
If you’re not headed to Safeway, Da Vinci Pasta is on sale for $0.79 at Albertsons (limit two).
What are you making this week?
There are lots of great sales at quite a few grocery stores this week – check them all out here. I’m stopping with just those two suggestions because we’re excited to have some great friends in town this weekend, so we’ll be treating them to Rudy’s BBQ and serving Pioneer Woman’s Enchiladas. Not necessarily what’s on sale, but friends are worth a splurge. ;)
Would love to hear your recipes, ideas, tips, and questions!
$1.25 for Lucerne (half gallon) at Safeway, Fri-Sun Only
Just found an old Kraft Food and Family mag recipe (fall 2007) that we had last night..
1/4 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup italian dressing
4 boneless skinless chicken breast halves
Marinate chicken in parmesan cheese and dressing for about 30 mins then bake for 20mins or until 165 degs.
Serve with egg noodles and a green veggie
So tasty, and so easy with only 3 ingredients.
I bought the peppers last week from Sunflower and made Italian Sausage and Peppers my Nana’s recipe. With the Oatmeal I will go and buy today I want to bake I will make Oatmeal Cookies with Butterscotch Chips I got on sale last week. Yummy.
I may try the home made oatmeal I have never done that before. I will look up the recipe. Thanks, Carrie
We’re having tacos – bell peppers, turkey from the Safeway sale, taco shells and seasoning from the Albie’s sale awhile back, onions from Miller Farms. Then probably some kind of pasta bake with Barilla noodles, peppers, turkey and sauce. And cheese – Costco always has good prices on mozzarella. Maybe some homemade macaroni for los ninos. We love the tiny wheels from Barilla for their mac’n'cheese. Makes my son very happy. :)
Carrie. I love this What’s On Sale post that you have started.
And I love the granola (recipe) websites you posted links to. Thanks so much. Your site is fabulous!
I just have a suggestion for steel cut oats. I put them in a small crock-pot with 2 cups apple juice, 1 cup oats and let them cook overnight on low. It’s a great way to get the day started. I use the organic Tree Top apple juice from Costco.
Ooh, that’s a good idea! It would be nice not to have to wait 30 minutes for breakfast!
I do the crockpot thing, too. I use my mini crock and use 1 cup oats to 4 cups water and cook on low. I set my crockpot on a timer (commonly used for lights when you go on vacation) to start 6 hours before I wake up. I actually think the steel oats come out much better this way than on the stove.
We got through alot of oatmeal at our house, so I stock up on the Sunflower Mkt oats. To get my kids to eat oatmeal, I’ve made two shakers one out of cinnamon & sugar and chocolate & sugar. I use leftover spice bottles (normal size, not large). I put 1 Tbsp of cinnamon or cocoa in the bottle with 5 Tbsp of sugar. I put the hole top on and the lid, then shake it up to mix. I label the bottle so we know the contents. Then the kids pour it over their oatmeal as I watch. My kids love the independence of being able to season their oatmeal.
My kids are fans of the homemade Steel Cut Oatmeal…so much so that 2 of the 5 now refuse to eat the instant that I stocked up on months ago for pennies a package. Our recipe is very similar to the one you linked to, Carrie, but I LOVE the idea of the apple juice in the crock pot, and I wonder what the buttermilk would change in the flavor.
That granola bar recipe looks so simple I can’t wait to try it! My kids LOVE granola bars, but they prefer the simple ones, and I never seem to see recipes without a ton of ingredients!
Thanks for the heads up on the Albertson’s Oatmeal deal…that’s awesome stuff. I’ve really been getting into the oatmeal thing. Super healthy and keeps you charged up for such a long time.
If you’re cooking oatmeal the Scottish way, you should soak your steel cut oats overnight. The next morning, you’d add a generous “pinch” of salt to hot milk and then add your oats.
Basically, if you want your steel cut oats to cook faster in the morning, you should soak overnight.