Pass on the Sunday ads, 9/5-9/11

I think there were a few deals to be had, but darned if I really care enough to find them!

Safeway

• There is a Sunday ad, but it's lame to the extreme. What's with the junk food Safeway? I'd like some produce deals please.
• I did want to mention if you're interested in the iTunes gift cards deal for a $5 catalina for your next purchase when you buy 2 cards, I was happy to find that they have $15 iTunes cards, so only $30 out of pocket and you get the $5 cat. Remember this ends tomorrow!

Family Thrift Center

• Canned fruit is .58 each, 18oz of peanut butter is 2 for 1.98, a jar of pasta sauce is .50, and 16oz of pasta is .50, all with coupons here. They also have a few coupons for frozen items, like strawberries and pancakes that might go well with the frozen foods sale, see below.
• The only other thing I saw that really seemed great is the frozen foods sale, one day only on 9/11; it looks like all frozen will be an additional 20% off. The Jack's pizzas are only $2 right now, so $1.60 after the sale, and I have a coupon for another $1 off 3, I'm really sorry but I don't know which circular it came from.

Walgreens and Target aren't even worth mentioning. Again, there are some Register Rewards deals at Wags if you want to try that out. Let me know if you have questions!

Cloudy with a chance of meatball cookies.

So I made meatballs this afternoon. I don't know what it is about them, but I just love the little things, and having a supply in the freezer makes it so easy to pull together a meal when you barely have the energy to take your shoes off. And then you get to eat them! I wanted to give you a quick (hah!) overview of how this all works, not necessarily the specific recipe, but more the technique. I ended up with 12 meal sized portions of cooked meatballs, and what I want you all to see is that it really isn't any harder than making a big batch of cookies. In fact the parallels are significant.

You need a sous-chef. Discourage him from eating the "cookie dough".

There's the beef! This is about 7 pounds, remember it's $1.49 at Haggar's til Tuesday!

This is important; once you do your egg, bread crumb, onion and whatever the heck else you want treatment, you'll want to check the seasoning before you commit. I just made little bitty patties from both batches of meat, fried them up really quick, and tried them out. Perfect!

This is a meatballer (I made that name up, just go with it), much like a cookie scoop but it shapes all sides of the meatball. If you are making big batches, or even small batches, I recommend you drop a few bucks on one. It won't make perfect meatballs, you'll still have to shape them a bit, but it will give you a good start and ensure a uniform size.

I never fry meatballs, because the attention they require and mess that they make causes me extreme irritability. I bake them at 350 for about 15 minutes, and they keep their shape so much better, and don't splatter grease everywhere. Don't they look like greasy drop cookies? No?

By the time you get to the bottom of the bowl(s), your thumbs will be tired!

The end result. My 7 pounds of ground yielded 12 meal sized portions of cooked meatballs, which are now nestled into the freezer, waiting to be further crafted into spagetti, meatball sandwiches, pizza toppers, Swedish meatballs, and certainly many other yummy things. I know you guys are busy, so I want you to know that I timed this whole process, and even with breaks to dance with my sous-chef while singing "Carry on my Wayward Son", it took me almost exactly one hour, done and dusted! Hilarious side note; in the above picture, my crap camera advised me "a subject has blinked", and even highlighted the offending meatball with a little yellow box. Much like small children, it's very difficult to get your meatballs to cooperate for a picture.

My best Chinois yet.

I love Chinese food, but making it at home can be a royal pain. It goes so quick and requires so many ingredients that I find myself stressed out trying to pull it together, with every pot, pan, and wooden spoon that I own dirty. Grr. So I have finally come up with a recipe that works beautifully for me, doesn't require a ridiculous amount of ingredients, tastes great, and left me with only one load of dishes. As it should be. Here's the recipe, then I have a few more comments to make. Cause I can't shut up?

Crispy beef stir fry

3/4-1lb round steak, very thinly sliced across the grain, lightly peppered
1/3 cup cornstarch
canola oil to 1" depth in a wok or large skillet
2 cups green beans
1 red or yellow bell pepper, sliced into thin strips
1 cup beef broth (low sodium would be best)
1 very heaping tablespoon of black bean garlic sauce
a couple splashes of vinegar (rice wine is great if you have it, if not any vinegar would be fine)
a dash of toasted sesame oil
a couple splashes of soy sauce (again low sodium if possible)
a couple squirts of honey
steamed white or brown rice

Heat oil over medium high heat. Combine broth, black bean garlic sauce, vinegar, honey, soy sauce, and sesame oil in a small bowl; stir well and set aside. In a zip top bag, toss the steak strips with the cornstarch to coat. Once the oil is hot, fry the steak in batches until very crisp and dark golden brown. Remove and place on a flour sack towel to drain. Carefully drain the oil out of your wok, leaving just enough to coat the pan, return the pan to high heat. Add the veggies and stir fry for 2-3 minutes, and then add the sauce mixture. Cook until the sauce is bubbly and starts to reduce and thicken, still over high heat. Once the veggies are cooked to your desired consistency, add the beef back in to the mixture, but do not toss to coat, as you will lose the crispiness. Serve over rice.

Printer friendly copy

Okay, so here are some things I wanted to mention.

• I buy round steak only when it is super cheap (duh Megan, isn't that the point of this blog?). I paid $1.99/lb for it at Safeway, probably in May, and bought a motherlode. I cubed and sliced all of it and froze it in meal sized portions. I cannot tell you how handy this is!
• I know you may not have black bean garlic sauce or sesame oil in your fridge, but you should. Really, these are the only 2 ingredients in this recipe that are the least bit exotic, but it makes the flavor of this meal. Buy the tiniest bottle of sesame oil you can find and keep it in the fridge, and seriously go light with this stuff, it is strong. I'm sorry I'm not more specific with measurements, but you're making stir fry, not a souffle, so you don't have to be precise.
• It probably goes without saying, but you can use any veg that you like. Broccoli would be great, carrots would work, mushrooms would be nice, etc. The green beans were great, thanks to my husbands coworker who gave us a ton, and whose name I never got! We appreciate it!
• I don't salt the beef because the broth, soy, and black bean sauce have plenty of salt in them.
• I always used to make fried rice when I made a stir fry, and letting go of this compulsion has definitely made me more relaxed about stir fry. Fried rice is really easy, but I don't like having to tend to multiple things that all need to come together at once, so steamed rice is a better pick for me. Anyone interested in a fried rice recipe? The beef alone would be great with fried rice.
• I have to thank Sandra Lee from the Food Network for the idea to coat the beef in cornstarch and fry it, she was making some kind of stir fry on Money Saving Meals, and that was the only part of the show I caught. Frying the beef is offset by the veggies, right?

More random stuff.

I stopped at Walmart today, and they have corn on the cob for .10/ear, that's a nice price! I didn't see anything else that was great price wise, I was hoping for cheap berries, but no go. They did have something that made me break my produce rule of nothing more than $1/pound though. Have you ever had champagne grapes? They are tiny little red grapes, smaller than a Skittles candy. They are soooo sweet and yummy, and it's really rare to see them in stores, usually only once a year do I actually come across them. If you are masochistic enough to go to Walmart, you should definitely check them out! I bought a clamshell package of them for $2.99, interestingly I didn't see a weight on them but I would guess maybe 12oz?

One other note, if you are interested in free swimming; the current free advertiser thing that the Journal puts out has a coupon for free family night swim at the Swim Center. This is a great deal, family swim is usually $9 I think (it may have gone up), and they have it every Tuesday/Thursday/Sunday evening. We used to go every Sunday without fail, but we took the summer off. I'm looking forward to starting again! You should find the Advertiser in the blue dispenser things next to where they sell the Journal. By they way, there is also a coupon for a free aerobics class, they have some great water aerobics there. I should probably start that again too...

Spiffy biscuits humbles herself, for a minute anyway.

So I have to apologize to Haggar's. I recently commented on how much I dislike their ad as it always seemed like a mess to me, too much random stuff everywhere. But I picked up their current ad today, and I am super impressed, it flows logically for me, and the pictures actually match the descriptions! Oh the little things. Anyway, if they are on your route, I already mentioned a couple of nice deals here. I also see they have green peppers at .60/each, and on the 5th page there is a coupon for .75 off a gallon of milk, which will be 2.50 on Tuesday (sorry, I don't know the usual price of it, but they always advertise that it's 2 for $5 on Tuesdays), so with the coupon only 1.75! I am obsessed with milk.

One other note, on the $5 Kraft coupon here; through Saturday, Thrift Center has their shredded or block cheese, 8oz packages at 3 for $5, no limit is listed in the ad. I'm going to use my coupons there rather than at Safeway so that I don't have to mess with the limit of 3 that Safeway has in place. That will make the price $1.34/lb! Hurray for cheap cheese!

How much are Egg Beaters?

This might make for a good deal, but I honestly don't know. There is a coupon for Egg Beaters here, and you can load an e-coupon to your Safeway card here. That would make for a total of $1.50 off, anybody know what these go for? Handy if you're making mousse or ice cream that calls for raw eggs. Chocolate mousse sounds good...

Wednesday Ad Picks, 9/1-9/7

I'm baaaack! Thanks goodness too, traveling with a toddler is a tough gig; for those of you who haven't done so, just don't. For those of you who already knew that, why didn't you tell me??? Were you all laughing at me behind my back? Just kidding, it wasn't that horrible, but we are so glad to be home. Here are a few deals for you;

Safeway

• First of all, just a comment, I will definitely be waiting to see if there is a Sunday ad this week before I go shopping. Since Monday is a holiday I would bet there will be some more deals come up for Sunday-Tuesday.
• Mushrooms are .99/8 oz pack.
• 3lb grapes are 2.99 (I don't like to buy 3lbs at a time though...)
• Hidden Valley dressings are 1.99/16oz bottle, if you've been loading e-coupons you should be able to get 2 for free. There are also coupons in the Make a Muscle book, but I've heard that several of you still can't find them.
• There's an in-ad coupon for Kraft cheese, 8oz slices or 6-8oz shredded or chunk at $1.69. There is also a coupon here for $5 off 5 items. Unfortunately, the limit on the in-ad coupon is 3, so you'll have to find 2 other Kraft items if you want to use the manufacturer's coupon. When you print the MF coupon, it gives you a list of the participating products, so check them out to see if this is still a good deal.
• Coffee-mate creamer, 32oz size is $1.99 with the in-ad coupon, so only .99 after the MF coupon here - you have to register in order to print the coupon.
• This isn't mind blowing, but I'll probably take advantage of it; if you buy 2 iTunes gift cards, you'll get a Catalina for $5 off your next grocery purchase. This is nice because you're not going to get any perks for buying iTunes cards at a store like Target or Walmart. I like to buy these for my husband, so he'll get one for his b-day and I'll save one for Christmas. I definitely prefer to use these cards rather than keeping a credit or debit card on file with iTunes, this puts a limit on how much damage you can do!

Haggar's

• I haven't really looked at the ad, as I find their ad to be terribly annoying with random things everywhere. BUT, junior and I walked to the store this morning (huge mistake, the wind almost knocked me over), and picked up 80% ground beef at $1.49/lb (I really am going to make meatballs, and that's a great price, you probably won't do better unless you find some marked down due to a short date), peaches at .99/lb, strawberries at $2/package, and grapes at .99/lb (thanks Haggar's for not making me buy 3lbs!) I'll let you know if there's any other fabulous finds there.

I wasn't around to pick up the Sunday paper, so I don't have a FTC or Walgreens ad yet. You can find them both online, but I like to have a paper copy to write notes on (what can I say, I think I'm a coupon artist or something, so I must have my needs met in order to perform!). Again, if I see anything, I'll let you know! I did glance at Walgreens ad to check for cheap milk (no dice), and noticed they have several free after Register Rewards items this week, so it might be a good week to give that a try and figure out how it works.