Key Food won the most grocery dollars from me last year

American Express sent me my year end summary.

I thought I went to Associated more and more, which is true. But it seems to be mostly at the expense of C-Town.

I spent about $130 each at Food Bazaar, Western Beef, and Stop 'n Shop, which is the grocery store at the beach.

The only place I spent more at than Key Food was Time Warner Cable.

I got 3% back on my these grocery purchases. I like my credit card.

Grocery Circular Round Up

Mussels are back on sale at Food Bazaar! I'm going to get them this time. $2.49 for 2 lbs. Eggplant is $1/lb, so maybe I'll make eggplant parmesan too.

Western Beef: Eggplant is $1/lb here too. And I need a new shopping bag because my current one got a hole.

Associated: Salt is cheap. I need that. $0.59 for a container. Lasagna is $1.50. The other day I cut all the lasagna noodles in half lengthwise to see what it would be like to eat big pasta. I liked it. Jumbo shells are on sale too. I've never made them. Spikes Salsa is buy one get one free. I wonder how much it costs. I never heard of that brand, but I like salsa.

C-Town: They don't have anything to tempt me this week.

Key Food: Tomato juice is $1.50 a can. That's good to have around. Ricotta Salata is $7/lb. I've had that on my shopping list for 6 months at least.

Grocery Circular Round Up

I never got mussels last week :(

C-Town: London Broil is $3/lb. Nothing else worth getting.

Key Food: 8 oz of mushrooms for $1. Cottage cheese is $2.

Associated: London Broil is $3/lb here too. C-Town's meat might look a bit better. But Associated is closer and has other things I want more. Like some table salt for $0.33! When was the last time you got anything for $0.33?

Western Beef: Skippy peanut butter is $2. Hormel ham is $3/lb! I love Hormel ham!

Shrimp is more expensive than lobster these days

$8.99/lb vs. $6.99

Grocery circular round up

Food Bazaar - I wanted shrimp to be on sale, but they're not. Mussels are 2 lbs for $2.49 though. Wow. Clams are $4 for a dozen. And you can get a pound of bacon for $3.

Western Beef - You can get a 7-10 lb bag of chicken drumsticks for $0.69/lb, but I got the chicken quarters last week for $0.39/lb so I'm stocked. Maybe I'll get a bag of cooked shrimp for $6. That's probably cheaper than I'll find elsewhere.

Key Food: London broil is $3/lb. Maybe I'll try making steak again. Key Food wants $6 for 2 lbs of mussels. And they make fun of you for buying them there.

Associated doesn't have anything particularly worth going for.

At C-Town I'll get some Ronzoni pasta for $1. And diet mug root beer. And Luigi Vitelli whole wheat pasta for $1.50.

Grocery Circular Day

I ate all my food before going to Pittsburgh for Christmas, so now I have to replenish. This is my first grocery circular day (i.e. Friday) since I got back. Food Bazaar is on a Th-We schedule and Key Food will show you next week's a day early, but I don't look at them all til Friday.

So what should I buy? I'm going to look at all the circulars. Key Food has quartered chicken legs for $0.69/lb. They're good for an excuse to keep the oven on a long time. Good in squash soup too. Cottage cheese for $2 sounds good. Wasa crackers would be good, even if they're not on sale. Diet Mug root beer (and other pepsi products) are 4 for $5. That's pretty good.

C-Town's chicken legs are $1/lb, so I won't get them there. C-Town had nothing else I want.

I didn't see anything good in Associated's circular, but I'll probably go there when I don't have anywhere in mind because it generally is the cheapest.

Wow! Western Beef has chicken legs for $0.39/lb. You have to buy at least 10 lbs though. The add even says "Wow!" which is how I feel.

Thanksgiving shopping

Other than a free turkey if you spend $150 (how you do that without a car, I don't know), Associated doesn't seem to even realize it's Thanksgiving in this week's circular.

Western Beef hasn't updated their circular page of the website. C-Town's is broken.

I bought a turkey yesterday at Key Food. Key Food takes Thanksgiving seriously. I end up getting most of my stuff there every year. This year I didn't buy the smallest turkey. First time I did that I think. I got one that's 15.65 lbs. I'm going to supplement it with some more turkey legs. I think about thirty people are coming to Midnight Thanksgiving.

In non-Thanksgiving news, Associated has my olive oil for $18 if you spend $15. Too late, I got it at Key Food last week. Bravo has cans of pineapple juice for $1.69. I'm going to stock up on that.

At long last! Olive Oil!

On July 10 I wrote about needing a big can of olive oil and waiting for one to go on sale. And on November 15, I will FINALLY get one. Key Food has Filippo Berio extra virgin on sale for $20.

I've been using Trader Joe's olive oil in the mean time. That's good too. And I did find a big can of pure olive oil which is useful for a lot of things.

Peanut Butter

I was worried I'd have to remember to go to C-Town today to get some Jif peanut butter while it's on sale 2/$5, but I just read the Key Food circular for next week and they have that same sale. I'm safe.

I eat a lot of peanut butter and bacon bit sandwiches lately. The dog is very envious.

Now at Western Beef: Lamagna ricotta cheese!

I'm so excited. I was walking around Western Beef yesterday with a basket too full to add anything and I spotted Lamagna ricotta cheese. This stuff is the best. It was the first ricotta I had in my life and no other kind has ever lived up to it. Its curds are ever so slightly bigger. And it tastes much better. Other ricottas don't really taste like anything. When I make my Christmas Eve feast for my family, I make sure I use this. You can't even find it at Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh, but now it's at Western Beef! (Lamagna's from just outside of Pittsburgh.)

It's baked ziti season now. What timing. You'll never find another ricotta cheese in my refrigerator again. Unless you come over right now because I still have half a container of some inferior brand that I have to use up so I can go buy Lamagna. I should have a toast party too.

Bogopa and Food Bazaar

Finally, I know what that means! The New York Times is the best.

He would eventually open a chain of supermarkets under the corporate name Bogopa, which in Korean means “yearning for you,” in low-income neighborhoods.

 One of those stores, the Food Bazaar on East 161st Street in the Bronx, is enormous...

I'm so glad I know.

I also like thinking about moving to another country and naming a brand "yearning for you." I don't say yearning enough as it is.

2 Months Later: Still Olive Oil

Nowhere has put a big can of olive oil on sale in the last two months! I did buy a can of pure, but I need extra virgin too. So I've been buying it at Trader Joe's. I just got back from there.

There was a line to get in the door. That used to happen when Trader Joe's first opened and had only one store, but I haven't seen it since. But I biked 4.5 miles to get there so I just waited in it. I sure bike far for that.

I manage to spend more at that store than any other grocery store. I got extra virgin olive oil ($7), coconut oil ($5.5), 2 cans of cannellini beans ($.9 each), farro, bulgur wheat, gorgonzola, asiago, and parmesan. And frozen broccoli and frozen kale. And capers. I already had capers, but I forgot. I wanted frozen peppers but they didn't have any. Oh, and soy sauce because I noticed we were out of soy sauce this morning.

I guess I'll make polenta for dinner so I can use up some cheese and get to fry an egg in my cast iron skillet. I should make another post soon about my cast iron skillets. I love them.