In preparation for Freezer Cooking Day today, we went shopping at Aldi and Dillon’s yesterday and here’s what we bought:
A few of you have recently been commenting that you never see meat in our pictures. Well, a lot of that is due to the fact that I only stock up on meat once a month — for Freezer Cooking. So, please take special notice of the whole roast and 3 big bags of chicken breasts. Yes, we really do buy meat. 🙂 I already have another roast and a package of bacon in the freezer, so we’ll use all of that meat to make the meals for this month.
All totaled, we spent $61 for groceries this week. Coupled with items we already have on hand from our stockpile and the items purchased above, we should be able to make at least 3+ weeks’ worth of main dishes to have in the freezer!
Not pictured: two more bunches of bananas. One bunch got eaten when we got home from the store and the other bunch failed to make it into the picture.
Aldi has strawberries on sale for $0.99 and avocados on sale for $0.39 each this week so I was planning to buy a bunch of those. However, they were all out. So I’m going to try and head there on Tuesday and hope they are back in stock again!
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Hi Crystal and everyone-
Just wanted to say that as vegans, we never buy meat here at our home and survive/thrive quite well 🙂
You can stretch your food budget immensely if you added some veggie meals to your menus more often…. and believe me- you add lots of variety to your diet as well… there are so many great recipes out there that are meatless! 🙂
http://www.vegweb.com has tons of recipes!
I often see that you have items that are marked down because their best by dates are drawing near or they are manager’s specials. Is there a certain time of day or week that these may be more readily available?
Hi, I linked up! come see how I feed my family of 7….I nabbed some good deals but overall I still spend a shocking amount of money!
Here’s a yummy idea for your over ripe bananas:
http://funmajors.blogspot.com/2010/05/super-easy-ice-cream-healthy-too.html
Do you think the savings of freezer cooking makes up for the cost of purchasing meat when you need it? I’ve been planning my freezer cooking by sales (for example when fresh chicken breast is on sale under my chosen price, then I set aside time during that sale to prepare and freeze those meals. So, I rarely do my freezer cooking at the beginning of the month, but instead 1-2x during the middle of the month when I find the best sales.) The thought of doing my cooking at a specific planned out time each month is quite appealing, but I don’t want to lose out on the savings of purchasing meats when they are at their lowest prices.
Re: using frozen meat to prepare meals….
I buy frozen chicken to marinade too (huge bag of frozen chicken breasts from Costco)….I just pull out the # of chicken breasts I want to put in my ziplock for a meal…..Dump the marinade on top and then put the ziplock in the freezer. In my opinion they don’t have time to defrost. When I’m ready for the meal, I let it defrost in the fridge for 1-2 days (they marinade during this time) and the chicken always tastes wonderful!
Here is the info. on refreezing previously frozen meat. I do it all the time with no problems at all.
http://lancaster.unl.edu/food/ciq-refreeze.shtml
Hope this helps!
@Tracy, Thanks! I should have searched for an answer a long time ago! 🙂
Not sure where I heard this – but somewhere in my memory someone told me that I should not re-freeze meat – can someone disprove that for me? I would love to be able to do it – just never have because I faintly remember someone telling me not to – help! 🙂
@sara, You can refreeze meat, if you cook in in-between. So, for example, you could thaw some ground beef, cook it up for tacos or burritos, then put it back in the freezer.
I noticed you bought frozen chicken. Can you thaw it to prepare your meals and then freeze it again? I don’t know if you can freeze chicken twice, so I’ve only ever bought fresh chicken and then frozen it prepared.
Love Aldi’s too wish we had more of them around! Found a great deal at Dillons with Old Spice body wash and deoderant! My husband used this stuff so getting it for $1 before tax was awesome!
Body wash On shelves for 2/$7 this week
minus $3.00 e-coupon
minus$ one free ($3.50) BOGO coupon in sunday paper insert
total $.50!
same deal for Deoderant so paid $1 before tax!
Hi, thanks for all the information that you provide on your site regarding coupons and deals for groceries, but I was wondering what your feelings are regarding fruits and vegetables that are not organic. I’ve been reading a lot lately about some of the concerns regarding the pesticides used on vegetables and fruits and as a mom of two young children, I don’t want to expose them to these chemicals. I have been trying to purchase organic produce as much as I can, but it is expensive and there are rarely any sales. Any ideas? What are your feelings on the subject?
My Aldi did not have prices that low this week! I’ll be shopping there tomorrow though – maybe I’ll be lucky 🙂
Question about your meals: How do you store and reheat the Southwest Rollups? And the marinated chicken – are you freezing it in the marinade? If so, how long are you letting it soak first? I’m thinking it won’t penetrate the meat once frozen.
Thanks!
@Kandice, We just reheat the roll-ups in the microwave if they are being eaten one or two at a time (for lunch or snack). Otherwise, I thaw and heat through in a pan in the oven (350 for around 30 minutes).
As far as the marinade goes, I don’t let it soak before freezing because when you thaw it, it marinades while thawing.
we finally got $0.99 strawberries here- yipee!
My super Wal-Mart was price-matching the Aldi prices the other day. Got a .99 cent pineapple, too.
That sounds like a great deal! I got some great snags for organics this week – 50% off organic milk, organic almond milk, and free tortillas!
Thank you for all that you do! I love your blog!
I am SO jealous of your avocado prices!! (And strawberries!!)
I use avocados in green smoothies (running a series of recipes for them this week) and they are a yummy and nutritious addition!
They are never under .79 cents each around here. 🙁 We need an Aldi’s!!
Fresh strawberries never drop under $1.50 but frozen ones are at the Dollar Tree for $1 and we enjoy those in Green Smoothies too.
@Jessica @ Life as I See It, I heard there was a strawberry abundance this year, so maybe you’ll see some inexpensive strawberries, too!
I don’t ever recall seeing avocados for under $0.50 here, so I’m super excited to get them as I LOVE avocados!
Question Crystal. About the avocados – when you buy a bunch of them, how do you store them? Freeze them? Cut them up and save? Just curious. I buy tons of avocado, b/c we’re vegetarians and use them in tons of recipes. Once you cut into them, they go quickly, though. Any ideas?
my parents buy a half of cow twice a year so i never have to buy meat..that is so nice going to store and not having to pay the prices they want for it…and having lean ground beef is very nice too..
I would love it if there were Aldi stores around here, seems like (from what I read around the blogasphere), that there are really great deals to be had there 🙂
Thanks Crystal! I do the same thing you do – stock up on meat when I can get a great sale, then just use what I have and free up freezer room for the next good meat sale. 🙂
I noticed you bought Tropicana50 orange juice. Do you by chance freeze it?
@Sandy,
I freeze Tropicana orange juice all the time!
@Debbie,
Thanks! I thought it would be fine but wasn’t sure with the paper carton.
@Sandy, I didn’t — because we drink it like crazy and it won’t last long enough to freeze. 🙂
@Crystal, I know what you mean. It wouldn’t last long in my house either. I printed the BOGO q’s and I did freeze 1 carton to try it. Good to know it works.