New Deals At Vitamin Cottage

Our local Vitamin Cottage (aka Natural Grocers) stores have a new set of specials lasting all the way through March 26th. Deals looking particularly good to me are Clif or Mojo bars for 79 cents each (you probably won't want to buy them anywhere else in March), two pound bags of organic short or long grain rice for $1.99, eight ounce blocks of Organic Valley cheese for $3.49, Amy's Kitchen frozen enchiladas for $2.99 each (9.5 ounces), Mary's Gone Crackers gluten-free crackers or Sticks & Twigs for $2.89, and Santa Cruz organic peanut butter at $3.49 for 16 ounces, accompanied by their 9.5 ounce organic fruit spreads for $2.29. In health and beauty, ShiKai Color Reflect shampoos or conditioners look great at $5.49 each ($5.99 for the intensive conditioner), and of course there are tons of deals on supplements. Also, check out Mambo Sprouts coupons to make some of these deals even better, like taking an extra $1 off the Mary's Gone Crackers, 75 cents off any Santa Cruz organic product, and $1 off two Oikos yogurts (on sale for $1.39 each, not the best sale price, but great with the coupon).

End-of-Sale Headsup

Just a reminder that our local Whole Foods' two-week sale runs through tomorrow, if there's anything you still want to pick up from it. Standouts to me are the organic roma tomatoes for $1.49 a pound (too bad they're too perishable to be a stock up item, but yesterday's were on the green side, so will probably last a bit) and WFM Two Bite cinnamon rolls at $2.99 for a tub.

Whole Foods Sampling Report

When I should be snacking on an organic apple or orange, or not snacking at all, the Pearl Street Whole Foods store is severely testing my resolve by sampling yummy Laurel Hill potato chips and my fave Two-Bite chocolate brownies today, or at least just a few minutes ago. Oh, temptation.

Weekday Dinner Ideas

If it's Sunday, it's time to get planning again. For tomorrow night, I'm looking for a pasta dish, and something vegetarian would be a nice change, so with organic romas a fantastic mid-winter price of $1.49 a pound at Whole Foods, we'll go with pasta with winter squash and tomatoes from the New York Times. The organic butternut squash for it will come from Sprouts, where it's 99 cents a pound.

For Tuesday, it will be time to reheat the big pot of something made over the weekend, this time being the Mexican chicken soup, a big salad on the side (with more of those organic romas from the Whole Foods sale).

Moving on to something based on rice, I'm looking at the $2.99 a pound chicken sausage sales at Sprouts (apple or basil) and Sunflower (all varieties), and am thinking about sausage and lentils with spinach from Bon Appetit, served over brown rice. The chicken sausage needs to the thoroughly cooked of course, since it isn't a precooked variety, but that only takes a few minutes more.

To get us through Thursday, we'll do sirloin and vegetable stir-fry from Cooking Light, catching the the beef stir fry on sale at Sunflower (or the beef stew meat at Sprouts, a perfectly good substitute) and the organic broccoli on sale at Sprouts by the time those sales end Wednesday. The beef really can be bought any time, popped in the freezer, then taken out when you're ready for it, and broccoli has a pretty nice shelf life, as veggies go. I'd normally serve this over rice, but since that will have been on deck the day before, this will go over soba noodles, which cook in a flash and are whole grain, to boot.

And that will get us through to next Friday's planning.

A Kitchen Musing

Looking around my kitchen, I have a whole chicken in the fridge that I couldn't resist because of the fantastic Rocky Jr sale at Sprouts, asparagus left from Whole Foods' great one-day sale, and a cupboard full of Chocolove bars, also from a one-day sale. Is this smart shopping, or the foodie equivalent of the Collyer brothers? I'd like to think the former, sort of a smart shopper's version of a CSA. Instead of inventing dinner from the contents of a surprise box of veggies arriving from a farm each week, I'm creating them from the best the weekly natural grocery sales bring me. Not Homer and Langley, no, not yet.

Finger Food Ideas For Oscars Night

Need more ideas for munchies for tomorrow night's Academy Awards? My fave Saveur magazine has collections of finger food recipes, including American Finger Food picks and Asian-Inspired Finger Food. There's also a collection for fried finger food, but I won't go there.

A Fresh Domestic Swordfish Sale

Newsflash - the Boulder Sprouts has fresh, wild caught swordfish from the good 'ol USA for $8.99 a pound today. That's a decent price for a sale on previously frozen from who knows where, but absolutely fabulous on fresh and from the US. It's a "manager's special," so there's no telling how long it will be on sale. It changed my dinner plans for tonight in an instant.

Dinner Plans for the Weekend

Happy Friday all, time to get going with dinner plans, starting with tonight, which will be cod, potato, and fennel casserole from Gourmet magazine. This week's sales at Sprouts are screaming for this delicious dish, since organic russet potatoes are $2.50 for a five pound bag, and haddock, which is easily interchangeable with cod, is just $3.97 a pound. Asparagus from Wednesday's one-day sale at Whole Foods will go on the side, roasted in the oven in the style of my friend Ms. A., making good use of an already running oven.

A big soup for Saturday sounds like a good idea, and I'm in the mood for Mexican chicken soup. This recipe is from Whole Foods and calls for boneless skinless chicken breasts, which you can get there or through the sales at Sprouts and Sunflower. My own recipe isn't online, since it's from the American Heart Association Cookbook. It calls for a whole chicken, which I have from the last day that Rocky Jr chickens were on sale at Sprouts for the incredible price of 99 cents a pound. I'll also get to use some roasted chilies stashed away in my freezer during last fall's chile roasting season.

A bit of beef will round out the weekend, and the boneless beef short ribs that are $3.99 a pound at Sprouts are calling me. We'll probably bake them tossed in some barbeque sauce, baking some of those sale organic russets on the side. A fun alternative is pasta with tomato sauce and ribs, a slow cooker version originally published in the New York Times, although I don't see it there now. Having something in your slow cooker for Oscar night might be a good idea.

And that gets us through the weekend, with weekdays still to come. Stay safe in the little bit of snow we're having this morning.

Food Fit for the Oscars

Looking for a dinner menu or finger food suitable for Sunday's Academy Awards? Epicurious.com can help you out with an Oscars Party Planner, complete with menus centered around each of the best picture nominees.

Rocky Jr. Reminder

Just a reminder that today's the last day you can catch Rocky Jr. whole chickens for just 99 cents a pound at Sprouts. We see lots of statements about "all natural," but Rocky Jr. explicitly addresses the antibiotics issue, good for them.