Thursday, June 27, 2013

This week's Kroger deals

Basic Almond Flour Muffins
Today was my big shopping day for the week and I got a few nice deals at Kroger. One of the best deals was on Kroger cheese. They have 8-ounce packages on sale for $1.25 each with a limit of eight packages. I bought eight of them for $10.00. But, I also had two store coupons; one for 70¢ off 2 packages of Kroger cheese and another one for 50¢ off a $2.00 cheese purchase. That brought the price per package down to $1.11 each. I'm pretty sure that the regular price is about $2.59.

They also had 12-ounce packages of different kinds of Kroger brand frozen fish on sale for 20% off. The Swai fillets were $2.39 on sale and I had a store coupon for $1.00 any Kroger frozen fish. Not bad for $1.39 after the coupon.

I needed some dill pickle relish and they were out of the kind I usually buy at Walmart today. But, Kroger's store brand was on sale for $1.00 per jar. The regular price is $1.19. This week they have 30-ounce jars of Hellmann's mayonnaise on sale for $2.99 and I had a dollar off coupon. $1.99 is a very good price for Hellmann's and was even cheaper than the Kroger brand mayo.

The best deal of the day was on Reynold's baking cups which I use when I make my Basic Almond Flour Muffins. Those are usually 75¢ per package but they were on sale this week for 65¢. I had a coupon for $1.00 off so I got them FREE. You sure can't beat free, can you?


Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Tuesday grocery deal and a product review

Brussels Sprouts with Browned Butter
I got a nice deal on some marked down ground beef this morning at a local store called Food Town. They had large packages priced at $1.29lb so I bought about 12 pounds. I divided half of it in six 1-pound portions and froze them to use in recipes. The rest I browned with some seasonings and onion. I'll freeze it in plastic storage containers and thaw them as needed. I like to have ground beef for breakfast and one container will feed me for about four or five days.

For tonight's dinner I microwaved some Trader Joe's frozen Brussels sprouts that I bought a while back to go with some broiled tilapia. This is the first time I've used their frozen ones and they're very good. You get a 16 ounce bag for $1.19, which I think is a very reasonable price. I do recommend cooking them less than the time suggested on the label. It says to microwave them on HIGH for 5-6 minutes but 3-4 minutes was more than enough. They would have been overcooked had I done them as directed. I served them with browned butter.


Thursday, June 20, 2013

This week's grocery bargains

I did my weekly grocery shopping today and Kroger had a few good deals this week. If you spend at least $10, you can get 18 large eggs for $1.50. They also have their butter for $1.99 per pound and 16 ounce bags or chunks of their store brand cheese for $2.99. I stocked up on butter, got two cartons of the eggs and a bag of shredded mozzarella.

Also, while I was at Walmart today, I noticed that they have small packets of xanthan gum near the gluten free products. It's Hodgson Mill brand and you get .32 ounces (9 grams) for 48¢. I haven't calculated it to see if that's a good deal compared to buying the large bags of Bob's Red Mill or not but it's very handy, and cheap, for those who won't use it all that often.


Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Hamburger Heaven

Cheesy Burger Bake
It seems like I've been eating a lot of hamburger lately but I'm not complaining because I do like hamburger. Yesterday all three of my meals contained ground beef in some form. I had some of the Cheesy Burger Bake for my breakfast, I finished off the last of the Italian Casserole for lunch and for dinner I cooked burgers for the whole family. I ate mine bun-less, of course, topped with American cheese, chopped onion and tomato, mustard, homemade low carb ketchup, dill pickle relish and mayonnaise. Yum!

Today I've had hamburger again, twice. I had the Cheesy Burger Bake for breakfast, topped with salsa this time, and we went to a local burger place for lunch. They have excellent half pound burgers at JAX. Mine was bun-less again, topped with sautéed onions, mushrooms and cheese. I don't know yet what I'll eat later tonight but I think I'll take a break from ground beef, LOL.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Welcome to my new blog...

As you can see, I've taken the leap to official blogdom. To get newcomers up to speed, I've copied my previous posts here. These were originally posted on Linda's Low Carb Menus & Recipes:


TUESDAY, JUNE 18, 2013
 
I don't really have anything to write about today but I wanted to mention something that I've been getting a lot of questions about since starting this blog. I'm getting requests for a way to post comments here. The trouble is that I'm not using regular blog software, which has that feature built in, and I don't have a clue how to add something like that manually to my site. I've kept my site very basic because I write the HTML code manually in Notepad. I do have a little concern about having a comments feature because I know that I'd have to deal with spammers if I had one. I suppose that there are ways of filtering out that stuff though before it gets posted. At this point, I'm not sure what to say other than that I will consider the idea and might implement that feature in the future if I can figure out how to go about it.


Spinach Lasagna
SUNDAY, JUNE 16, 2013

Well, here I am. I thought I'd just go ahead and post something today and see how it goes, this blogging thing. I hope you won't find this boring, reading about my cooking and shopping lists and all the hum-drum of my day-to-day low carb life. I'm not sure if I'll post something every day but I will pop in whenever I've got something to write about.

I baked a ham and cheese quiche this morning. Even though my husband isn't really eating low carb, he likes having some kind of quiche for his breakfasts. Quiches are handy because for half an hour's work, you get a few days worth of breakfasts all ready to reheat in the morning. For the quiche I made today, I basically followed this recipe: Ham & Swiss Cheese Quiche. Walmart has lately had packages of about a pound and a half of honey-baked ham scraps for a very good price. I split the package into three portions and freeze them to use in this quiche. I add 8 ounces of cheddar cheese, or whatever cheese I have on hand, usually 4 eggs and 1/2 cup of heavy cream. For extra flavor, I add a squeeze of Dijon mustard. Jerry says this is his favorite quiche so I make it every couple of weeks.

I also cooked up a package of poblano cheddar sausage links that I found marked down at HEB (a local grocery chain). They'd been in the freezer for quite some time and it was about time to use them. The label said there were 3 carbs per link but they must be from the chiles and the cheese because there was no sugar added.

I've been enjoying the leftovers of the Italian Casserole that I made on Thursday. There are still two or three servings left and it's one of my favorites. I was planning to make Spinach Lasagna but realized that I'd forgotten to buy the spinach earlier in the week. Oops! In any case, both casseroles are favorites so I wasn't disappointed.
This morning I had an unexpected experience with a carton of heavy cream, also from HEB. The carton hadn't been opened yet and it's the kind that has a little pour spout on the side of it and you need to pull out a plastic plug before using it the first time. Imagine my surprise when I started to tug on the pull tab and the whole spout came out in my hand. First thing tomorrow morning I will call HEB and let them know about the problem. Luckily I still had the empty carton that I'd just finished off and poured the new cream into it. I couldn't very well store the cream in a carton with a gaping hole in the side of it.

Earlier today I compiled a quick list of food items, and a few other things, that I won't have to spend my grocery money on once our son moves out. Milk and cold cereal are probably my biggest expenses every week. I stock up on dry cereal whenever I see a good sale on it. Luckily, my son doesn't mind eating the store brands because those are often on sale for the best price. Some other things that I won't need to buy anymore are orange juice, ice cream, chips, bread, pasta, rice, soda, frozen pizzas, cookies, tortillas, flour and Bisquick. And, of course, our other food will go farther when we've only got the two of us to feed instead of three. Mind you, it's no hardship having our son living with us. He's a good kid. Besides paying us room and board, he's also been paying our cable TV bill all these years. I won't miss that much after he's gone but I think that Jerry will. I've got so many other things to do with my time that TV isn't a high priority for me.

Please let me know what you think of my new blog and also tell me if there's anything in particular that you'd like me to write about.