With current economic conditions, grocery receipt totals seem to grow every week. However, careful planning can help you take advantage of seasonal sales to “preserve” your budget as well as your food items.
In January, this site will include a printable week-by-week list to help families systematically shop for preparedness and food storage items. For now, I’m highlighting some ideas for purchasing and using seasonal items that work well for food storage. This month, watch for baking supplies on sale at your local stores. Don’t forget butter (which can be frozen). Starting in October, many items for holiday meals begin to be discounted including canned vegetables, stuffing mixes, turkey (freeze an extra for meals later), yams, canned pumpkin, cranberries (freeze or dehydrate for baking), etc. These are super things for your food storage.
You can even put your leftover Halloween candy to good use. I purchase extra M & M’s discounted after Halloween to use in baking (and for medicinal purposes…every first aid kit should have some :)). My kids think these make cookies SOOOO much better than regular old chocolate chips. (I do too, because they’re soooo much cheaper when I find them at 75% off.) Chop any plain Hershey bars (or other solid chocolate) into chunks and freeze in Ziploc bags for cookies or other recipes. Chop other candy bars into chunks to use in this fun brownie recipe.:
CANDY BAR BROWNIES
3/4 cup butter, melted
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup baking cocoa
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
4 Snickers bars (2.07 ounces each), cut into 1/4 inch pieces
3 plain milk chocolate candy bars (1.55 ounces each), coarsely chopped
Directions: In a large bowl, combine the butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. In a small bowl, combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt; set aside 1/4 cup. Stir remaining dry ingredients into the egg mixture until well combined. Toss Snickers pieces with reserved flour mixture; stir into batter. Transfer to a greased 13”x 9” baking pan. Sprinkle with milk chocolate candy bar pieces. Bake at 350° for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean (do not overbake). Cool on a wire rack. Chill before cutting. Yield: 3 doz.
Kim, I love your site. Such good ideas you share. This chocolate candy bar brownie recipe really caught my attention. It sounds unbelievably good (and unbelievably fattening, of course).
I wonder if you’d like to share it with my chocolate loving friends at my homemade chocolate candy recipe page? It’s easy to add, and I know my visitors would really enjoy it. They may even be persuaded to pop on over here to see what else you’ve come up with. 🙂
Blessings,
Angie
You are totally correct, I believe that you have to shop smarter. Things that I normally throw into my shopping cart I know think twice about. Like the head of lettuce at 1.99 at my favorite supermarket. The old saying “Shop til you Drop” is no longer an option with the high prices.