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.
Pumpkin
Well, it’s not really on sale, but it is appearing in stores everywhere, from King Soopers to Sunflower Market to Safeway! (For more on why this is a big deal, read about the Great Pumpkin Shortage.) So, it appears that we can stop fretting about how we’re going to stretch out those last 2 cans of pumpkin we have left over from last year and get started with the pumpkin goodness!
Joanne posted a yummy looking recipe for Chocolate Pumpkin Brownies on the Facebook page. Got any other fall pumpkin favorites?
Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breasts
Albertsons has boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.88/lb. I’m often asked why I’d only rate that a 3 on a scale of 5, and the reason is simple: we see this price very frequently – probably around once every month and a half at Albertsons, Safeway, and Sunflower Market. So, in my opinion, it’s a good price, but not one worth stocking up your freezer on because it comes around so often.
But at any rate, there are lots of things you can make with chicken breasts! My favorite are Chicken Parmesan and Asian stir-fries.
I’ve had lots of compliments on my Chicken Parmesan and I’ll tell you the secrets. ;) First, use panko bread crumbs instead of “regular” bread crumbs. They fry up so crispy and crunchy – they are the key to amazing Chicken Parmesan. You can find panko at the Asian market, and Sunflower Market carries them as well. For that matter, all the other stores carry them, too, but they’re a little more expensive.
Second, pound the breasts before you coat and fry them. I just use the bottom of a heavy pan, no fancy meat pounder necessary. This definitely tenderizes them and is worth the extra work!
Pasilla Peppers (or Poblano Peppers)
These large, dark green peppers are on sale for $0.67/lb this week at Rancho Liborio. I actually bought some when I was there on Tuesday – at full price! Their regular price is only $0.99/lb, so still a great deal when compared to other stores that sell them for $2+/lb.
These peppers are super yummy when you roast them, and then stuff with some yummy goodness. I typically do a mixture of ground beef, onions, cheese, and red bell pepper, then dip in egg and then a cornmeal/flour mixture and pan fry. Then, I top with a relish of corn, black beans, red onion, jalapeno, red bell pepper, lime, and cilantro. Serve ‘em up with a side of Mexican rice and maybe some refried beans.
They are definitely one of Jeremy’s favorites! I based my “recipe” on this one for Cheese Stuffed Poblanos with Black Beans and Chipotle Sour Cream, so you can read that to give you a more official recipe to follow. ;)
Petite Sirloin Steaks
They’re on sale for B1G2 free at Albertsons, which works out to about $2.66/lb if you’re lucky enough to find three packages of the same size. I’ve got no personal experience with these, but this recipe for Grilled Petite Sirloin Steaks rubbed with mustard and pepper sounds good if you were to use a decent mustard. Or, you could use some of the steak seasoning mixes we got for free earlier in the summer and get some grilling in before it gets really cold!
Pasta
Barilla whole grain and Piccolini pasta is $0.50 after coupon at King Soopers this week – hopefully you have extra coupons so you can stock up! I personally would rather be able to get their “regular” pasta for $0.50, but there aren’t any coupons out for it. :(
So, what do you do with the tiny Piccolini pasta or the whole grain? I don’t typically make real “meals” with them as they aren’t our favorites, but my husband has ahem a rather strange habit of liking pasta with ketchup (yuk), and he really likes fried pasta with ketchup, so that’s typically how I use those types of pasta.
Well, that’s all I’ve got! What are you making with what’s on sale this week? Share your tips, ideas, recipes, and questions in the comments!
Apples are starting to show up on sale! I’ll be canning some apple butter to give as Christmas gifts. I love Ball’s recipe for “Sweet Apple Cider Butter”: http://www.freshpreserving.com/pages/recipe/215.php?recipe=112. King Soopers has Colorado-made apple cider in their stores now too, but I don’t know what the price is.
I *think* the cider is $3.99, which is cheaper than it was at Walmart last time I checked.
I saw large cans of pumpkin at Sam’s Club this week – sorry didn’t have time to write down amounts and prices.
I picked up some at the south Sams.. 3 large cans for $6.88. There was only about 1/3 of a pallet left yesterday.
My 18-month-old LOVES the piccolini pasta so I buy lots for him. Sometimes I will use it in place of regular pasta for my husband and me but I agree that it’s not our favorite to eat either.
Pasta doesn’t have to be anything fancy in our house. In Italy, we learned to love it (any shape, although rotelli is the girls favorite) almost bare. Cook it up in salted water al dente, drain, and add olive oil and parmesan cheese. Yummy!
Ok, I have to ask…how do you do fried pasta? Is it like chinese lo mein? I’d love a recipe.
lol! It’s not even that fancy. We just take leftover (cold) pasta and fry it up in some olive oil. It’s actually pretty yummy, but I prefer it with a little parmesan cheese or just salt rather than ketchup!
my kids eat this with italian dressing. Actually not bad.
With chicken – I have to love my “quick” standby…simply take your chicken (preferably boneless and skinless, but whatever you’ve got will work), dump it into your Crock-Pot, add a 16 oz jar of your favorite Salsa (I like Pace Mild for this application), put on the lid, and let it cook all day long on low. The chicken will fall apart, and really will fall off the bone.
Serve it up with your favorite tortillas, some cheese, lettuce, sour cream, tomatoes, olives, green onions…whatever your favorite Mexican food accessories are.
I’m also big on a pumpkin smoothie and have been known to go through a can of pumpkin in less than a week!
Take anywhere from 2 TBSP to 1/2 C of pumpkin and place it into your blender with milk (I’ve not noticed a difference with various % milks, or Soy, or Almond varieties), sprinkle some cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and either a sprinkle of sugar, or a drizzle of honey, add enough ice to make it cold, and blend til smooth. It’s like pumpkin pie you can drink!
I also enjoy baked apples this time of year, especially when they’re on sale. I do mine on our grill. Prepare normally, and then wrap in foil and place on the grill at the same time you start your meat and/or veggies, and let them bake on the grill with the lid closed at a medium flame level (or tuck them into the charcoal embers if you use a charcoal grill) for the remainder of your dinner cooking and eating. Remove from the heat, peel back the wrapper and enjoy!
I must have missed it, but where are pumpkins the cheapest right now?
Tonight I’m cooking up some chowder with all the veggies I got from Miller Farms last week. Here’s the recipe I’m basing it off of, although I’ll be putting in carrots as well….maybe even some finely chopped green beans, we’ll see. :) Anyway, I add and delete a lot from almost every recipe I make, but here is the Potato Chowder Soup I’ll be making tonight.
http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Potato-Chowder-Soup-I/Detail.aspx
I have SOOO many pumpkin recipes it’s kinda crazy (although I’d much rather use real pumpkin instead of canned), but right now I’m focusing on apples, then I’ll get to the pumpkin recipes in a few weeks. :)
I have bought the Petite Sirloin Steaks several times at Albertson’s. You can definately tell it is “bargain” steak. So I usually put some sort of dressing – basalmic vinigar is our favorite, in the bag and then freeze it. Then it marinades as it thaws and that really helps the taste and texture of it. My hubby is a steaks on the BBQ kind of guy so that is what we usually do with it. Not too fancy but that is my hubby.
Chicken Breasts- We use these a lot in our house. Some of my favorite recipes to make using them are southwestern eggsrolls, chicken fajitas, crockpot chicken tacos and hawaiian haystacks. Here are the links to them
http://castlerockcouponqueen.blogspot.com/2010/05/chicken-fajita-marinade.html
http://sistersstuff.blogspot.com/2010/02/southwest-egg-rolls.html
http://castlerockcouponqueen.blogspot.com/2010/10/crockpot-chicken-tacos.html
http://www.favfamilyrecipes.com/2010/04/hawaiian-haystacks.html
I didn’t buy much this week except pasta from King Soopers and produce; we are 6 weeks and counting till our half a steer shows up and I need to empty the freezer. I made it to King Soopers on Tueaday to get a butternut squash that we will roast and eat with pasta. We will stuff apples with oatmeal, raisins and a little brown sugar and cook in the crockpot overnight to eat for breakfast (7 year old’s favorite). I have ten lbs of Rancho Librario potatoes to use so I am going to make up a batch of BBQ meatballs (also a crockpot recipe) to eat over mashed potatoes. I also got poblano peppers but roast them, stuff them with cheese and layer them with corn tortillas in tinfoil and cook on the grill. Everybody gets their own packet and we eat them with home made salsa, guacamole and sour cream. I only spent $38 on groceries this week.
Melissa those poblano peppers sound really good! I am putting them on my menu.
And tell me more about those apples. Do you just core the apples and then put the “dry” oatmeal in them with the other stuff? I want to try that too.
We make soup with the small pasta and since our neighbor was nice enough to donate a pressure canner to us we will be canning chicken noodle soup. MMM.
Here’s my actual menu plan for the week – meant to post this sooner!
Calzones x2 (all ingredients from pantry except ricotta)
“Grilled” Zucchini
Stuffed Poblanos (Rancho Liborio, pantry/freezer)
Mexican Rice
General Tso’s Chicken (freezer)
Broccoli
Brown Rice
Chicken Tamales (chicken from markdown special at Albies, rest of ingredients from pantry – oh yeah, and I have to pay full price for masa!)
Mexican Rice
Refried Beans
I have Asian Pork Ribs on the menu, too, but not sure if I’ll need to make them or not since I’ve already improvised on the official menu!