Free Butter at Safeway

Hey DC Folks! All of the Safeway stores in our area double coupons so here is this week's freebie.

Land O' Lakes Spreadable butter .99 (with in-ad coupon)
-.50 7/18 SS
-.50 doubled
Price: Free

Giant Deals

I hear there were $1 doublers in Wednesday's paper.

Freebies

Free Wacky Mac pasta when you buy Carapelli Extra Virgin Olive Oil
3 free ears of corn when you sign up for giant online


Good Deals

$1 Skippy Peanut Butter
.99/lb seedless green grapes
1.88/lb sweet red peppers
6/1.88 sweet corn
1.29/lb peaches
$2.88 Kashi Golean Cereal
$2 Eggos -$1/2 Eggos 7/25RP
$2 Raisin Bran -$1/2 Raisin Bran 7/25RP

Scenario
Buy 2 Eggos or 2 Raisin Bran
-$1/2 coupon
- $1 doubler
Price: $1 Each

Spinach Wontons

Someone has asked B to cater a rehearsal dinner and requested collard green egg rolls. For two months he's had the egg roll wrappers in the fridge, but he hasn't tested it out. Since I still had deep frying oil from the fritters I wanted to use it again. So I got the idea to make a spinach wonton. If I had of thought ahead I would have added lentils or quinoa for some protein.

Spinach Wontons

8 Egg Roll Wrappers
1/2 onion diced
2 cloves of garlic
1 thinly sliced large carrot
5 cups of baby spinach (one bag)
1TBSP fish sauce
1TBSP hoisin sauce
1TSP soy sauce or braggs liquid aminos
2TBSP plus Oil for deep frying

Dipping Sauce
2TSP Spicy garlic sauce
2TBSP honey

In a medium skillet add the oil and heat. Add the onion, garlic and carrots and cook until soft. Add spinach in 3 batches until completely wilted. Add the fish sauce, hoisin sauce, and soy sauce and cook for 3 minutes. Following the directions on the egg roll wrapper package use the vegetable filling to make the egg rolls. Deep fry for one minute on each side. For the sauce mix the spicy garlic sauce and the honey together. Enjoy.

More Vegan Food

I spent this weekend stuck in the house so I spent some time cooking. I made two things, Vegan Maple Banana Muffins and Curry Black Eyed Pea Fritters. I don't think I want to be vegan but I want to try going all organic but I am on a budget so that means finding protein sources that are cheaper.

Maple Banana Muffins were exactly the same recipe as found in Vegan Soul Kitchen but the Black Eyed Pea Fritters took a significant departure. I started with the recipe from the book but it seemed runny and bland. I think it's because I used a blender and not a food processor and I had to work around a nut allergy. So here is what I came up with.

Aisha's Black Eyed Pea Fritters

2 cups blacked eyed peas (soaked overnight will yield 4 cups soaked)
1/2 cup of water
1/4 cup of almond butter
1 small onion chopped
3 garlic cloves
3 TBSP of curry powder
1 TBSP red pepper flakes
salt to taste
4 TBSP corn meal
1 bell pepper minced
1 cup of oil for deep frying

Blend 1 cup of black eyed peas, water, almond butter, onion, garlic, curry powder, red pepper flakes in a upright blender. Once blended add each remaining cup of peas one at a time until the batter is the consistency of waffle batter. Mix with a spoon between to make sure all the peas are blended and no hard pieces remain. Put the batter in the refrigerator for one hour.

After the batter comes out heat oil in a large frying pan. Oil should be hot but not smoking. Add the corn meal and bell pepper to the batter and mix with a spoon. Use a small scoop or a tbsp to put the batter into the hot oil. Fry as many as will fit in your pan. Each fritter should fry for 5 minutes. Once golden brown remove to a paper towel lined backing sheet or plate. Serve with a sweet and spicy sauce such as the Pastor's Sauce.

Disclosure: The Pastor is a friend of friend but I really did eat the fritters with the sauce.

Inferno

Heat index of 105. I have nothing else to say. Knowing that I would probably spend my entire Saturday in the house running up my electricity bill, I got up early to run some errands (including going to urgent care because I have pink eye). As I waited for my eye appointment, I decided that I needed to start cooking from Vegan Soul Kitchen before I need to return it to the library. Too bad I didn't have the book on me but I figured if I just grabbed a few beans and veggies that I surely would be able to make something. We had our last head of broccoli in the fridge so I started with that. I made Broccoli with Citrus Dressing which is inspired by a recipe in the book. I didn't really have enough broccoli so there was a lot of extra dressing. Using items on hand I created a spinach salad but it is not vegan because I used honey but if you have agave or maple syrup use that.

Spinach and Citrus Salad

Dressing: Combine all of these ingredients in a blender
1Tbsp Honey
2Tbsp pink grapefruit juice
2 Tbsp lime
9 Tbsp olive oil
3 garlic cloves
1 tsp salt

Salad

Spinach
Red Onion
Avocado
Almonds
Cherry tomato
Red pepper flakes (optional)
Grape fruit slices

Using everything

So the broccoli is ready and we took the machete to the stalk today. Well, a serrated knife. You can't use scissors for this one. What didn't occur to me is that we could cook the leaves of the broccoli plant in addition to using the broccoli head itself. The greens are quite tender so I cut them into a chiffonade and just sauteed them quickly with olive oil, salt, pepper flakes. Yes I actually cooked today.

What did we cook last week?

I'm a lazy blogger and didn't post each of the delicious meals you see below as we cooked them. I wanted to show you all what we cooked last week. Well actually I only made the pizza and he made everything else. So that means there were no recipes involved. He just put all of this together from his creative mind. I'm one lucky lady.

We made sure to try and use everything from the box. We still have the avocados but I will just eat those raw with salt and lime. The corn and sweet potato will be roasted just to have on hand. We took a different route this week and made sure to use the thing that were the most fragile first. That means leafy vegetables need to be cooked first. then the squash family, and then root vegetables.

Red Beans and Corn: Goya canned beans with corn fresh off the cob.

Sauteed Cabbage and Red Chard with Onion and Garlic

Zucchini, Yellow Squash and Red Pepper with Roasted Pork Loin

Whole Wheat Pizza with Tomato, Basil and Mozzarella

Healthy Solutions Box -July 3, 2010

This week I went for the little box from Healthy Solutions for $15. Last time it was a stretch for us to use all of the stuff in the small box. If I followed the nutritional guidelines from CDC I should eat 1.5 cups of fruit and 2.5 cups of vegetables. I don't always do that so this week I shall try. Let's see what's in the all organic Freggie(fruit and veggie) box this week.

1 head butter lettuce
1 head cabbage
3 nectarines
1 peach
3 Avocados
1 red onion
1 tomato
1 large bunch chard
3 Zucchini
2 Spaghetti Squash
2 ears of corn
5 medium sweet potatoes

It would cost $36 from the local chain grocery with only half of the items being organic vegetables. So you would save more than $20 and get all organic produce. For more information visit www.producecoop.com or www.healthysolutionsgroup.org

Giant Dollar Doublers 7/2-7/8

Earlier this week you should have received a Giant flyer in the mail. On this flyer are four $1 Doubler Coupons. I am very excited...I think. Generally most stores in my area double coupons up to 99cents. Meaning if you a 99cent coupon it's really worth $1.98. If you have $1 it's worth just that dollar. With the addition of a $1 doubler you can combine it with a $1 coupon so you get $2 off. If you use all four that's $8 instant savings. I'm going to sniff the interwebs to see if I can come up with some good deals this week.

The Best of Giant

It's officially summer so it's time to load up on fruits and vegetables. Giant has some nice deals this week for things to add to a healthy summer meal.

1. Pints of Blueberries 4/$5
Eat some now! Take the rest and flash freeze them and you will have them for baking and smoothies all summer long.

2. Corn 12/$1.99
Soak them in water and put them on the grill during your 4th of July BBQ.

3. Whole Seedless Watermelon $3.88
Make some basil salt* and sprinkle it on. Grind sea or kosher salt with some finely chopped basil. I learned this trick from Vegan Soul Kitchen.

4. Tropical Mangos $1
Put into a salad. If you have an ice cream maker you can make mango sorbet.

Trader Joe's

In order to decrease the temptation of eating out at work I am taking a weekly stroll to TJ's and the library. Both are about a mile walk from my office. Using the TJ Fearless Flyer andthe Grocery IQ app I am able to get what I need and get out. TJ's is a very tempting place as you pass by all of the different imported meals, cookies and wines. My goal was to spend $25 on things I would actually use.

1. 1/2 pint of organic raspberries (for my Raspberry Frangipane Cake)
2. 1lb of organic strawberries
3. 2lb. bag of clementines
4. sea salt (for my basil salt and cooking in general)
5. Almond milk
6. Wild Arugula
7. Pizza Dough
8. Mozzarella Cheese
9. Frozen Pizza Dough (i know i can make it myself)
10. Nonfat Plain European Style Yogurt (to use in smoothies)
11. Ezekiel Raisin Bread (healthy and yummy)

$25.35 @ Trader Joes
$37 @ Local Grocery Chain