Wednesday, June 3, 2009

The Third Stockpile post - bake a cake

Safeway is having a promo this week - buy 10 (mix or match) of participating items get 5 bucks back. The prices in the flyer reflect the price if you buy 10.

Okay - so buy 10 of the Betty Crocker cake mixes for 79c each. In fact, if you have a major sweet tooth, buy 10 more.

What to do with a all those cake mixes? Make cake, of course! And cookies and other goodies, including that Dump Cake I told you about in a previous post. I found this site which has plenty of ideas of what to cook starting with cake mix. This is a pretty close to rock bottom price for cake mix. Sometimes it goes lower, but not often and Pillsbury and Betty Crocker don't often put out coupons for them. Coupons are generally for specialty items like the fancy brownie mixes, or low-sugar mixes, or those awful Warm Delights thingies. (blech. Personal opinion. I guess if the bombs were dropping and I had no other choice, I'd eat them.)

If you have a lot of cake mixes, you need oil to bake them (or applesauce as mentioned in a previous post, to save fat and calories). Basha's has various Food Club brand oils on sale - $1.50 for 24 oz. That's a pretty good price. Oil can go rancid, so don't buy a lot of it. Buy two and keep both in your refrigerator. If you bought those eggs as I suggested last week, you're ready to rock and roll on the creative goodie-baking.

Fry's has Kroger brand butter for $1.88/lb and the 48 oz container of Kroger Deluxe ice cream also for $1.88/48 oz. Anytime butter falls under $2.00/lb is a good time to stock up. It goes right in the freezer and will keep indefinitely. And ice cream. Well...y'know...it's ICE CREAM. Enjoy. Buy 4 ice creams and 4 butters, mostly because I have to give you a number to do this post - you know best how much to put away - figure 2 weeks worth on the ice cream and two months worth on the butter.

How much are we at? About $16 for the cake mixes, $3 for the oil and $15 for the ice cream and butter. That's $34 total.

If you've been stockpiling and cooking with me here for the last couple of weeks and with me on the Coupon Sense message board for the few weeks before that, your pantry and freezer and probably getting full. You can start being picky about where to spend the extra $50 bucks.

This week's ads were not very exciting to me. Most items, I know I can get cheaper, sometimes with coupons, sometimes just because they'll go lower. 88c/lb for the split chicken breasts at Safeway and $1.67/lb for boneless, skinless chicken breasts at Fry's are stock up prices. Also, Banquet Brand Brown 'n Serve sausages are 49c each as part of the Safeway Buy 10 Mix and Match promo. Cook 'em up with those eggs I hope you stockpiled last week. Also, Albertson's has 32oz bricks of cheese for $4.99/lb. It sometimes goes about 20% cheaper at Fry's, but not often, so this is a stock up price.

I've suggested chicken and cheese on this blog and previous on the Coupon Sense message board, so I say don't miss the brown and serve sausages. If you buy 30 packages that's about $15 worth and takes you pretty close to $50. It will also provide a nice weekend breakfast accompaniment to your eggs once a week for the next half year.

This week, I'd also recommend the 77c/lb peaches at Sunflower Market this week and the 99c raspberries at Safeway. Peaches will go lower as the summer progresses, but this price is worth enjoying them now. Raspberries are a seasonal treat that go cheap for only a few short weeks about this time of year. Anytime you see them at this price, stock up and eat with careless abandon. Remember your jam making skills from previous posts and make raspberry freezer jam for the months to come.

The raw shrimp at $2.99/lb is a good price at Sprouts. These are larger than the shrimp being sold for the same price at Albertson's. Base your shrimp purchase on price per pound, not size unless you are doing a recipe where the size of the shrimp is important, such as shrimp kabob. I really love shrimp sauteed with butter, garlic and olive oil, then tossed with parmesan over pasta. Serve it with some of that 5-minute a day bread that I hope you're all experimenting with and a $1 bag of salad from Albertsons and your family will love you. Serve the Kroger ice cream over a piece of frosting-free Betty Crocker cake for dessert and they'll REALLY love you. Start to finish to cook it all, not including oven time for the cake and bread is about 15 minutes.

By the way, if you're out of the free pasta from about a month or so ago, La Perla pasta is only 20c for a 7 oz package at Food City until Sunday. Get enough to hold you until you can score on cheap whole wheat stuff.

Happy shopping and especially happy eating!

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