Saturday, April 21, 2012

Stretching your Grocery Budget with ‘IFFY’ produce-UPDATED

This was our payday week. We went shopping and bought a lot of things we’re out of recently.  I’m trying to plan a no spending month coming up soon—so I’m trying to stock my pantry and freezer with essentials for meals.
One of the favorite things to do at our local grocer is to shop on days when they’ve culled the ‘IFFY’ produce and packaged it and marked it down. Lots of times I’m able to get quite a bit produce I can bring home—pre-chop or prepare and put in the freezer. 100_1561 This week I bought packs of  TOMATOES, ONIONS AND BAKERS (big potatoes) CUCUMBERS, JALAPENO AND BELL PEPPERS AND a package of LEMONS AND LIMES. Cost: approximately $6.00 dollars.
I didn’t take a picture before opening some of the packages, but you can still pretty much see the prices—every pack was $1.39 ; but the LEMONS and LIMES PACK  were $2.00 dollars.
Here is how I will divide this produce up for The Honey and myself.
The BAKERS easy. Baked potatoes for dinner one night with some grilled chicken or tuna salad.
The ONIONS, JALAPENOs and BELL PEPPERS and SOME TOMATOES—get diced up and laid on a cookie sheet in the freezer. Once they are frozen—I scrape off with a spatula and toss into pickle jars and put on the door of the freezer for quick grab ingredients for soups, casseroles, salads and what not.
The rest of the TOMATOES AND THE CUCUMBERS and the FRESHEST ONION will be eaten in a matter of days in salads and sandwiches.
The Honey likes when I make Cucumbers and Onions in vinegar as a salad; or TOMATOES AND CUCUMBER SALAD (chopped and drizzled with RANCH DRESSING.)  Both quick and easy on a warm afternoon—or with an evening meal. 
This is what I did with the LEMONS and LIMES: 100_1563
***** Homemade Lemonade******
6 CUPS COLD WATER
1 CUP SUGAR
6 LEMONS – juiced.  (approximately 1 CUP)
ADD to a pitcher, stir together.  ** I sliced off about 3 rings and tossed into the pitcher…just to make if pretty! 
For LIMEADE… just use LIMES!
****edited to say for Lime-ade you only need 3 large limes instead of the 6 as previously stated.


100_1573
Chill and serve.
Here is a TIP for Lemon Rind uses:  place rinds in a freezer bag and freeze …until you google: lemon rind uses  AND COME UP WITH WAYS TO USE THEM! {wink}
You can toss them down your garbage disposal to freshen it up, rub your cutting board down to disinfect and clean it, you can create blonde highlights by spraying juice on your hair, get pit stains out of clothes… ENDLESS POSSIBILITIES!
FOR MORE TIPS you can click here—31 uses for Lemons and Lemon juice

The Grace of the LORD Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Phil 4:23

7 comments:

Revi said...

Love it! I think my fave is the frozen veggies on a cookie sheet. I remember years ago Martha Stewart said lemon juice will keep frozen and be just like fresh. It won't keep just refrigerated, though. I've also seen someone use the lemon peel grated finely, lemon juice and sugar, and cook it together to make a syrup that made lemonade. It kept for quite a while.

I'll be curious to see how your no spending month goes!

-Revi

Pioneer Woman at Heart said...

Great ideas. We love making a lime drink here.

Granny said...

Great ideas. I often buy marked down produce and get creative in using it. Love your idea of chopping the veggies and then putting jars in the freezer for later use. I'm going to borrow that idea.

The Boston Lady said...

You are so smart! Smarty-pants! I love all your ideas. I love to pick up those IFFY items too, but you have some even better ideas for them than my mundane everyday ones. It used to be, when we had a rabbit and hamsters, that those IFFY veggies were given to them after we dealt with them, but those rodents are long gone and it's just me and Mr. T. And he's no rodent! I've been scoping out all the veggies packed with iron and feeding it to him - someone suggested a veggie smoothie, but Mr. Picky, I know would have none of that. He's like my kids - when they were toddlers (sorry Mr. T, but its true!) if it is mixed with eggs and cheese then it must be okay tasting and therefore eaten. Shhhhhhh. Don't tell him. Ann

Vera @ Cozy Little Cabin said...

Love our ideas and we too, buy the bargain produces from time to time. What we do with extra lemons is make limoncello. . . lemonade with a kick!

Thanks for care and concern for my son, Kevin & his wife, Mira. I'll post updates as I get them.

V

Intentional Living Homestead said...

Looks great...and wonderful ideas as well.

Blessings,
Connie

Jacqueline~Cabin and Cottage said...

I admire your efficiency! Love that pepper relish idea. So nice that you came by!