Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Unexpected steals and deals

I have been sick with strep throat this week.  It was a gift from my twins. So nice of them.  I felt a little bit better today so I decided to run a few errands.  I ran to Whole Foods to return 2 soup thermos that I had bought for my twins to use for school.  They had a plastic bpa free lid and bottom but the rest was metal and had cute little princesses on them.  Well the bottom plastic part had a small hole in it so that water would be able to run out after being washed.  Yeah the water never left and I know its just going to rust.  Back to Whole Foods they went! I picked up a few things there and only ended up spending about  $10 after my credit from returning the thermos.  Then I decided to stop by Marks Nw Fresh Produce.

I entered a contest over at Marks NW Fresh Produce stand.  It was one of those guess the pumpkin weight games.  The pumpkin looked about my size so I guessed it was 115 pounds.  A week or two later Mark called me and told me I won. Woot woot!  I had forgotten about the contest or what I even entered to win.  I won the very large pumpkin and $50 cash!  Today I stopped by to pick up my winnings and found out Mark will only be open till tomorrow and everything is 50% off. Woot woot! I picked up all this stuff  using my $50 winnings and still have $10 left in my pocket. 
My goal was to buy things that would be easy to store and last a long time.  $24 of the bill was for the 5 pounds of local honey you see next to the potatoes.I needed honey really bad!  Local eggs were only $2.25 a dozen.  These are usually $6 or more in the stores around here so I really got a deal on those.  The corn you see was free because they need to be used today or tomorrow.  Potatoes were only $1.60 for a 10 pound bag.  They are not organic but I couldn't pass up a good deal.  Pumpkins I snagged for only 25 cents each.  As you can see I really did get a good deal considering I spent no money out of my pocket and came out with $10. 

Tomatoes went right in the oven to be roasted.  I'm really into roasted tomatoes this year.  Once done and cooled these will  go in the freezer for later meals. 

While the tomatoes roasted I decided to make a batch of peanut butter.  2 cups of peanuts + 2 minutes in the food processor= awesome peanut butter!
Picked up 2 bottles of organic concord grape juice for only $2.99 each and some pectin for about $4. 
I did a little of this....

A little of that.
And then your end result is grape jelly.  This batch is going in the freezer.  I just love me some good grape jelly. 

After I was done with all this I started to get a migraine.  My throat and left ear started hurting again and it triggered a migraine.  Off to lay down I go.  At least I did a few things today. 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

What's this about roasted tomatoes? I am up to my eyeballs in the last tomatoes of the season and will do more canning but I'd be thrilled to get some new ideas. It sounds interesting...

Surviving and thriving on pennies said...

Put your oven at 350. Spray olive oil on our cookie sheet. Cut your tomatoes in half or quarter them then put them onto the cookie sheet. I sprinkle salt onto mine but you can leave this part out if your on a low sodium diet. You can also add onion with the tomato if you want. Once the cookie sheet is full you can put in the oven uncovered for about an hour. I leave mine in until I see the tomato juice burnt a little bit. Adds a roasted flavor. Once cooked take out and let cool for about 10 minutes. Add all tomatoes and liquids to a blender or food processor and process until completely blended. You can make it chunky or thin as you want it. Put into a freezer safe container and freeze or can like anything else you would of canned.
Thats pretty much it. Easy peasy!