Grocery Deals

Now that I am on summer break I find I can make it to the local gym more frequently. I like to go in the morning shortly after it opens at 6 am. There are not usually too many people present at that time. The other morning after my workout I stopped at a local grocery store. I had a few items in mind to pick up, but then I saw some real bargains.

They had vegetables in bags for 99 cents a pound. They were not rotten just close to the best sell by date. I got a head of cauliflower, 3 orange bell peppers and 4 pounds of tomatoes all for $5.00.

After I got home I used the tomatoes to make a batch of homemade tomato soup. I canned 9 pints for a grand total of about $3.00 which seems like a bargain to me.

In addition I know exactly what is in the soup. It has already been placed away in the soup portion of the canning cupboard.

The next day I tackled the cauiflower and peppers. Cauiflower is one of the few vegetables that does not can well on its own. It also does not dehydrate well. It does freeze but I am not in the habit of serving cooked cauiflower. We don't like the taste unless it is roasted fresh. A few years ago I made a recipe of pickled veggies that included cauiflower. I remembered it was quite tasty.

The recipe called for some of the ingredients I had on hand and some I did not. When I made it before I remembered I bought pearl onions just to try the recipe. No one ate the pearl onions so I was totally fine leaving them out. I subbed celery for the zucchini in the recipe. The recipe yielded 5 pints.

Not too bad for 2 days work in the kitchen. My daughter and I will eat the pickled vegetables and the tomato soup can be used as a base in many recipes.