Circular Roundup - May 12

I don't even know what I'm looking for. I bought Maruchan ramen yesterday so I can make chicken soup salad. Gala Foods said it was 6/$1 but it rang up 2 of them at $0.25. Oh well. I have a lot of basil in my window so maybe I can find foods that go with basil.

Associated: An 8oz block of Muenster for $1.67. I like grilled cheese with muenster and tapenade. Sour cream is $1 for 16 oz. I can find a reason to eat sour cream. Starkist tuna is $0.89, but I am trying to eat less because it's not very sustainable. It's sardines for me. I made fish tacos with sardines (and hard taco shells) and they were weird.

Gala Foods doesn't update its website in a timely manner. No review, other than they ripped me off on ramen to the tune of 8 cents.

Key Food: eggplants and zucchini are on sale for $1/lb. I will make ratatouille and use my basil in that. Eggs are $0.80 to celebrate Key Food's anniversary again this week. I went yesterday but they were out. A 12 pack of Natural Ice is $7. That is the lowest price I've ever seen and maybe I will drink disgusting beer just to enjoy that price.

Bravo: Bravo's website changed and the circular is easier to read. Tomatoes are $0.79/lb but I don't know if I trust tomatoes in May. I've had some good ones, but Bravo doesn't usually have good ones. Rolling Rock is $8, which might be worth it compared to Natural Ice. Rolling Rock is acceptable.

I'm still mad at C Town.

Circular Review - May 5

Since Fine Fare changed to Gala Foods, their special schedule is Friday-Thursday instead of Sun-Sat. But they don't update their website in time, so they aren't getting reviewed.

Things I'm on the prowl for: red onions, deli turkey breast, bacon.

Associated:  Ortega products still have their Cinco de Mayo deals going. Corn is $0.40/ear, which is an ok price, but I don't trust corn that's ready in May. Crema is $3.59. I haven't had crema in a long time, but it's so good. Queso fresco is $3. Basis is $2.50--I bought a whole plant at Gala Foods for $3! Now it grows in my window. Don't buy basil there. $4 for store brand bacon.

Key Food: It's celebrating its 80th birthday, so there is a list of products that whose prices now have .80 in them. Tree Ripe orange juice is $1.80. A dozen large eggs are $0.80.  Skippy peanut butter is $1.80 (I will stock up at that price!) Corn is $0.40 here too, but I still see no reason to trust it. Radishes are $0.67, which seems pretty good. Key Food has Old El Paso stuff for Cinco de Mayo.

Bravo: They are celebrating Cinco de Mayo by putting Heinz Ketchup (20 oz) on sale for $2. Why? Their ad is too hard to read, so I'm done.

Food Bazaar: I'm still on the hunt for my red onions, turkey, and bacon, so I will expand my usual reviews. Corn is $0.25/ear here (if you spend $20). If it's on sale everywhere, maybe it's good. Maybe they got a shipment from somewhere warm. Turkey breast is on sale, but I don't like the price. $6 for honey turkey breast. I don't want sweet meat. Ortega crunch taco shells are $1.25 for 12. What a good price. Mussels are $2.50 for 2 pounds, which makes me want to buy them.

C-Town: I'm still mad at C-Town because I went in on a Thursday evening and there was a sign up for ground turkey on sale for $3. So I got it, and it was $6 because the sale didn't start until the next day. You need to read the fine print if you want to shop at C-Town and not be taken advantage of, and I don't want to read fine print. No use looking up what might be on special if I'm just going to be abused.

Eggplant emoji and more deals from Fine Fare/Gala Foods/Graham Market

(This is why I always call it "the store around the corner" or "the new store around the corner.")

I got regular eggplants and a Dominican one. The regular ones had no seeds, which was nice. I think I read that male eggplants have no seeds and females have a lot, so you should buy males. And I read about how to tell them apart, but I forget. Look it up. Maybe the Dominican one was female or maybe it has different rules.

Here are all my other good prices. I got a thyme plant for $3, which will save me more than $3 when I don't have to buy thyme for a long time. Butter was cheap. I was going to make a turkey pot pie but I chickened out. Most other things went into ratatouille.

I also made a beet salad to try to replicate what I ate at Indikitch because it was good. It has cumin, salt, lemon juice, and cilantro. Cilantro was only $0.50/bunch.

Fine Fare Name Change

When a new grocery store opened around the corner, the craigslist ad for jobs called it Grand Market. The store opened as Graham Market (it is on Graham Ave), but its website changed to Finefaresupermarkets.com. FineFare is a chain, and Graham Market seemed to be this specific stores name. That still is the website, but now the circular I'm looking at says Fine Fare changed its name to Gala Foods.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

A price mystery at Fine Fare. And olive oil prices by volume.

This morning I went to Fine Fare because the circular said that 10 oz bags of Cafe Bustelo were $2.50. But they change their prices over on Sundays and no signs about new prices were up. The price on the shelf said $4.25 or so. I found a scanner to check a price and it said it was $3.33. I needed coffee, so I bought just one. It rang up at $2.50. I was surprised the self-scanner and the cash register would show different prices.

I was just thinking about the price of olive oil because I don't want to do my homework. My roommate has a 250ml bottle of Filippo Berio Pure that cost $5.49, according to the price tag on it. I am going to Key Food this week to buy a 3 liter can of the same kind for $16. I hope he quits buying the small one.

Cock-a-leekie

Yesterday was Burns Night, so I looked at Scottish cuisine on wikipedia. I can't make haggis, but cock-a-leekie seemed easy enough. It's chicken (cock) and leek (ie) soup.

Graham Market/Finefare sells leeks for $0.89 each. That seems like a good price, but now I have to look everywhere else. I watched a Jacques Pepin video about how to prep leeks and he said they are expensive.

Here's the video. It's about 2 minutes.