How to Select a Can of Crushed Tomatoes

I love crushed tomatoes. I eat them on toast with shaved pecorino romano. I eat them from the can. With a little doctoring they make a good pasta sauce and I never have to buy jarred sauce again.  (And believe you me, I have a long and public history with pasta sauce.)

There are two things to consider when buying a can of crushed tomatoes: price and number of ingredients. You want to pay the fewest cents and you want to eat the fewest different ingredients. Cook's Illustrated tested a lot of crushed tomatoes and decided they liked the can with the most chemicals and basil and every other thing. They also love the flavor of cottage cheese in lasagna, so Cook's Illustrated is no longer a publication I respect. Anyway.

The best crushed tomatoes I've found are Colavita. $1.50 at Key Food. I keep a can of this in the refrigerator so it's always cold and tasty.

For a survey of the junk they try to stick in the other brands, continue reading.

My favorite part about Fridays

All the grocery sales are new!

I check Western Beef's specials through their website before I go. I walk around the other stores for fun.

Cake mix for $1! That's what I need to practice my ice cream cakes. 101 oz can of extra virgin olive oil for $16! I'm buying that.  I'm disappointed that pecorino romano is $5.98/lb though. I should have stocked up when it was $4.99. Now I'm almost out of cheese and am going to starve.  Spam's a good price ($2.50) but I should only eat that once a month.

Key Food's Redeeming Qualities

Despite generally having higher prices than the other grocery stores in the neighborhood, Key Food is good for some things. It is the easiest place to take my plastic shopping bags to recycle. I usually bring my own bag since the day I realized that I was filling up my garbage can with plastic bags and taking one reusable bag saves me 4-8 plastic ones. But I still end up with some bags in my life and Key Food is the best place for that.

And among stores I can walk to, it has the best selection. Since its expansion by one aisle, it's the least cluttered. It never enforced a credit card minimum on me.

You can get an 8 oz block of Key Food brand pepper jack for $1.99. They want at least $2.19 at any other store unless you wait for a sale, but I eat hunks of cheese every time I don't know what else to eat, so I can't wait for a sale.

Finally, I can get Colavita crushed tomatoes for $1.50. I don't really even find Colavita at other stores, and I'm picky about my crushed tomatoes.

On to the shortcomings I found yesterday.

Do you like my butter?

The deli across the street sold Eric a single stick of butter for $1.

I usually pay $2.49 for 4 sticks, but this was an emergency for him. He wanted to make mac and cheese.

BQE Liquors Always Treats Me Right

Like at Associated, I am the mayor of BQE Wines & Liquors at Foursquare. I don't think they know that, but they always are so kind to me. Today the lady untied the knot of my bag, loaded up my boozes, then retied it. It was the retying that impressed me.

Since Chase gave me $100 to get their credit card, I've been perusing those booze shelves even more thoroughly. Today I found Evan Williams Honey. $9.97 isn't bad for a bottle of something that's 35% alcohol and the quality of Evil Willy. I debated it for a while, but it seems like the kind of liquor I could talk someone else into buying and letting me try if I speak highly enough of it for a while. I also considered $9.99 for the 750ml brand of brandy I dislike. (I like E&J VSOP, for the record) and some $11 1L Montezuma tequila. But people like tequila, and I'm trying to spend my free $100 on rebuilding my inventory, so that means I can only get gross things. I got a $10 bottle of J.W. Scotch. If it tastes like I hope, it will evoke the flavor memories of brown Listerine in anyone bold enough to try it.

I also found something I can't pronounce and have never seen, but it was in the vodka section.

I like orange. I like cloves. I like things that cost $12.86. But like the Evil Willy Honey, I bet someone else will buy this--namely, my brother. Right next to it was orange and mint, which he also might buy. Based on the neighborhood and that L with a line, I reckon it's Polish.

I ended up with 1.75L of Georgi vodka, which tied my 3-way taste test with Tito's and Ketel One, 2 bottles of Fleischman's whiskey ($5.97 each), and that scotch. Fleischman's is what I call smiling whiskey, because your wallet smiles when you buy it and you smile after you finish a glass. (You wince when you start a glass, but you get over it.)

Food Bazaar's the Second Best Place for Garbage Bags

After yesterday's fiasco, I still had to find some garbage bags. Walgreens wanted $5 for 15 bags. The other Walgreens had the same prices. Walgreens also bought Duane Reade and shut down the one near here, which I didn't know. I couldn't risk going in the tiny stores because I only have $3 in cash because I spent all my other dollars on beers and pizza on Sunday. I couldn't go back to Associated because I would be embarrassed and I already bought everything I wanted yesterday. So Food Bazaar it was.

 Food Bazaar has one of the best potion sections around.  You have to look these things up to find out what they're even supposed to do. Beef, Iron, & Wine? Oddly enough, this is now where they keep the Marmite which is a legitimate, though bizarre-tasting, foodstuff. Maybe this is how they show what they think of it. I think it would be better off in the MSG aisle that has every variety of Ac'cent msg seasoning on one side and a wall of ramen on the other.

Why Associated is Replacing Key Food as my most visited store

I get such deals there! Yesterday I set out to get garbage bags and I found them at Associated for $2.19. I even went to Key Food to compare and nothing was close. I went back to Associated and grabbed the bags and since I felt bad using a credit card for $2.19, I looked for what else I could buy.

I got crema salvadorena for $2.50. It's usually $2.99. Tortillas that are made on my street for $1.39 (usually $1.50). Heinz hamburger dill pickle chips for $1.99. You can't even find those most places. The spaghetti was $0.67. I make a point of buying pasta when I can find it for $1 or less. I haven't seen pasta in a box at that price since 2005 or 2006. Sardines were on sale for $0.99, even the kind that isn't in oil. They're usually $1.29. And I got about a pound of jalapenos because they were $0.99/lb. You usually find them for $1.49.

Unfortunately, when I got home, I realized that in my haste I picked up the garbage bags that are tiny. The garbage bags you never ever need to buy because they are the same size as plastic shopping bags. Now I'm stuck making a Halloween costume out of them if they're going to be useful at all.

Western Beef's the place for cheap chicken

I have since forgiven Western Beef. I became its mayor on Foursquare today, in fact. And I introduced Andrew to it and he is in love. I have a healthy relationship with it, but he walked around it with stars in his eyes.

Today I bought 2 cans of Roland mushrooms ($0.99 for about a 15 oz can. Can't beat that), a can of pumpkin so I can make these gnocchi from Delallo, and about 15 lbs of chicken leg quarters. If you buy in bulk like that, it's normally $0.49/lb, but they had a sale so it was $0.39. That's a lot of chicken! Then I biked home with it through the rain with the bag hanging from my handlebars. I think the added weight gave me enough inertia to get up the hill more easily than usual.

Western Beef Impugned my Integrity!

I wrote them this nasty letter. A summary of their specials to follow.

Dear Western Beef,

I was just shopping in your Ridgewood store, and as I was checking out, a cashier who seemed to be new held up my cabbage and asked me what it was exactly. At that time, another employee named Lena, who seemed to be training him, told him not to ask me because customers will lie to him. Please tell Lena that I would not lie about groceries, whether it is $0.39/lb cabbage or something more expensive. I consider grocery shopping one of my hobbies, and I've even written a blog on and off about it for the last several years. Of course, there was no way for Lena to know that, but there was also know way to know or suspect that I am a liar. I just recently started shopping at Western Beef and now I don't feel so good about my choice.

Best regards,
Mike

Their website is stupid in that to send an email, you fill out a form and then it loads your local mail client to stick the form into an email to send it.

Anyway, they had packs of hot dogs 2/$3. Tuna is 3/$2, but I must have grabbed a wrong can because one rang up differently and cost more. And cabbage is $0.39/lb, and you can't find a better price than that. They had a very good price for generic hot dog buns, but I can't remember it anymore because I'm mad.

Plum tomatoes are on sale at C-Town

But they're not that good. They are, however, only $0.99/lb, and in a first, not ugly. C-Town always has the ugliest produce.

In a more somber note, someone who isn't me thinks he's the mayor of C-Town on Foursquare, so we're foes now and I'm very angry.

Fontina Surprise

Pecorino romano was $11.99/lb. Heck on that! I got fontina instead, which was $9.99 lb. Lo and behold, when I checked out with my key food card, it only cost $4/lb! What a shock.

I also bought crema, which is my favorite food.

I did not buy white asparagus. It was previously 2 bunches for $1 at Jesus, but now all asparagus is $3 bunch. Heck on that!

Pecorino Romano

When the heck is Key Food going to put pecorino romano on sale again? I miss it.

I have to live on Colavita crushed tomatoes for now. You get a 28 oz can for $1.50 and you know they're the good kind because there only two ingredients: tomatoes and salt.