This Week's Hot Grocery Deals

We have a new sale starting today at our Sprouts stores in Boulder County, while the current sale continues at Whole Foods (scroll down through posts forlast week's report on that one).  I believe there's also a new one recently started at Vitamin Cottage, which I'll have to check out.  Here's what looking particularly good to me now.

Sprouts will kick off this weekend with another 72 hour sale, running from Friday the 8th through Sunday.  There are a number of items in the sale, but the ones particularly catching my eye are the grass-fed organic ground beef for an impressive $3.99 a pound, and jumbo avocados (and they really are big) for $1 each, although my fridge is already stocked with the smaller ones for controlled ripening.

In the regular Sprouts sale that runs through February 13th, I'm especially enthused about fresh asparagus for $1.49 a pound.  It's conventional, but asparagus so often is, and in the winter doldrums, I need a spring-like break from hard winter squash, much as I like butternut.  Boneless skinless chicken breasts are $1.99 in the value pack, and while I'm not familiar with "sirloin tip roasts or steaks," at $2.99 a pound, the steak might be useful cut up in something like a stir-fry or stew.  Whole, split, or cut up chickens are $1.29 a pound, and chicken Italian, parmesan (it's good), or bratwurst sausage are all $2.99 a pound.  In fish, fresh Atlantic (farmed) salmon fillets are $7.99 a pound, okay but certainly not as good as the $4.99 a pound they were two weeks ago.

In organic produce at the Sprouts sale, dry pints of grape tomatoes are $2.50 each, one pound bags of baby carrots are $1.25 each, five pound bags of russet potatoes have bumped up a bit to a still very good $2.50 a bag, bulk spring salad mix and spinach both remain great at $3.99 a pound ($6.99 elsewhere), and there are lots of deals on apples and pears.  Elsewhere in the store, select Cascadian Farms cereals look awfully good at $2.50, eight ounce Mozzarella Fresca fresh mozz cups are $3.99 each, and if you're looking for a dozen roses for your valentine, they're $16.99 for the dozen.

Two-Day Warning Re Good Sprouts Sales

Just a heads up that you only have through tomorrow to grab some particularly good deals at Sprouts, most notably to me, the 25% off all bulk, including very good Fair Trade organic coffee at the Baseline store (and if you need pine nuts in the near future, get them now in bulk at one quarter off their $19.99 a pound price!), and Hass avocados at three for $1.  I've followed the advice of my esteemed friend, Ms. A., and now have several in the fridge to enable me to stock up by controlling their ripening process (you can pop avocado ripening in the search box in the top left corner of your screen for prior posts about that).

One-Day Sale At Whole Foods Tomorrow

Our local Whole Foods stores are doing a rather nice sale for tomorrow only, the 6th, with $3 off the usual price of their fine olive bar.  Olive bar is something of a misnomer, since there's so very much more on that bar.  It's a cook's paradise for small amounts of things you might otherwise need to buy in an entire jar, like when you need just one roasted red pepper.  Think creatively, and stock up on olives, too!

One Day Sale
Tomorrow only!

Wednesday, February 6th!

Olive Bar
$6.99/lb
(save $3/lb)

Chinese New Year Coming Up

This Sunday, February 10th marks the start of the Year of the Snake, and Epicurious has your dinner covered with this celebration guide.

Healthy Shopping Talk At Alfalfa's

This Wednesday, Alfalfa's will host a free talk about how to make heart-healthy food shopping decisions.  Here are their details:

Feb. 6


Wellness Wednesday with Sarah Eley

Is Your Shopping Cart Healthy?

6:30 to 8:00pm, Alfalfa's Community Room

Learn how to make heart-healthy decisions when you shop for yourself and your family! Register here. FREE.

Super Bowl Party Rules From WSJ

The Wall Street Journal has published a hilarious set of rules to guide you through your Super Bowl Party, some of them food-related, in an article currently available here (I suspect they don't leave those links out there for free for very long).  You'll find how many pizzas to order per person, how long to expect to find chicken wing bones in your couch, and the like.  But no - is it possible that there's going to be a time conflict between the game and Downton Abbey?  Not particularly caring about the game, I know where I'd head.

Reminder Re Super Bowl Ideas

If you're still angsting about what to serve tomorrow, here's a reminder about a previous post with lots of ideas to help you out.  Or just get some buckets of wings from Whole Foods at a great sale price this weekend (see below for that post with details).

Free Personal Shopping And Delivery From Alfalfa's

Wow, this might just appeal to a lot of people (too bad I'm just outside the city limits).  I've just seen that Alfalfa's offers free delivery of grocery orders over $25 within the Boulder city limits, excluding Gunbarrel.  Here are the details from them:

Free Delivery and Personal Shopping!


That's right. Just call us up and we'll bring your shopping list to your doorstep. For orders over $25 within Boulder City limits, we'll even bring your groceries to you for free.

Did you know that we offer FREE delivery to locations in Boulder City limits*? That's right. We'll load up a bags full of whatever you like--fresh organic produce, housemade baked goods, fine cheese and charcuterie, and a bottle or two from our amazing wine selection-- and drop them off at your door! For more details, check out our website.

*excludes Gunbarrel; orders must be over $25

Chicken Wing Buckets On Sale At Whole Foods

Yippee!  For my annual Super Bowl indulgence in Buffalo wings, Whole Foods has buckets of them (just under two pounds each, so pretty big to me) on sale for $7.99 a bucket, nearly half price.  Note that this is a Weekender Sale, good only today through Sunday.  In addition to the Buffalo hot style, I also saw bbq and sweet chile options at the Pearl Street store.  Check around the store for other possible Weekender options too; I saw shrimp trios as part of it, but wasn't in the market for those, so didn't make note of the price.  Let the Super Bowl snack party begin!

Dinner Ideas Across Super Bowl Weekend

I'm torn between two ideas for the Super Bowl, so I think we'll do one tonight as a sort of preview.  Some years ago, I made some lightened Buffalo-style chicken fingers from a source I can't locate in the limited time I currently have.  So it looks like tonight's version will be as close as I can quickly come, which is Buffalo chicken fingers from Allrecipes.com.  Sprouts has value packs of boneless skinless chicken breasts for just $1.88 a pound for these, and with the oven already heated, some organic yam spears will go into it as well, as a version of fries, also in the junk-food-goes-healthier spirit.

Not wanting to sustain a Super Bowl-type culinary atmosphere for three straight days, we'll veer back into something more sophisticated for tomorrow, which I think will be the MSC-certified halibut fillets Whole Foods has on sale for $17.99 a pound. They'll be done simply on the grill pan, unless I can convince the family griller to head outside in the dark to the grill, with buttermilk mashed potatoes to go alongside (five pound bags of russets are still super low at Sprouts at $1.99 each).  Sprouts also has fresh wild Sea of Cortez halibut fillets for $11.99 a pound, although the last time they did that, I wasn't terribly impressed.

For Super Bowl Sunday proper, we have something of a tradition around here.  I indulge in buying some really good (and actually not greasy) Buffalo wings from Whole Foods, sometimes even in a small bucket size, then we make amends by having my favorite vegetarian (and very veggie-oriented) chili, which is black bean chili with butternut squash and Swiss chard from Bon Appetit.  I usually make my own cornbread from scratch to go on the side (a recipe with scallions from Bon Appetit is a favorite, but I don't have time to grab it), but Whole Foods offers a prepared cornbread that is pretty darned good as an alternative, and also mighty tempting as a timesaver.

And happy February, all.  Does anybody else say "rabbit" on the first of the month for good luck?  (I think it's an East Coast thing, but once you get going on it, you fear the world will implode if you stop.)