Week 4: The 'Sale' Produce



BUT WAIT! Sale Produce Exists!

Part of my stash just before steaming, pureeing, and baking. 
I made loaves of cheeder zucchini bread that turned out great!



One of the things that I should share - or should have shared earlier - is my secret for produce.  I plan my meals for the week on Sunday and the grocery shop on Monday or Tuesday depending on how my LO's morning is and how organized I am.... and I only buy brand names if they are on sale and I have coupons.  With packaged foods there is often a perfect storm of sale and coupons.  With fresh foods there is no such luck.

One of the things that I learned by grocery shopping at 8am (or earlier, isn't that sad?) is that each morning the produce department goes through the shelves and stacks of fruits and vegetables to weed out the undesirables.  And then those items are repackaged and priced to sell at a raging discount.  The usual fault with the produce being how it looks or its degree of bruising.  Now you have to seek out the reduced produce shelves.  In my grocery store they are back by the "staff only" doors in the seafood section.  Not sure what they are trying to say by placing the shelves there.  You can decide.  However, with making my own baby food each week it has been like gold.  If you bought cans you would be looking at 60 cents a meal for a total of $12.60 a week.

I purchased 16 POUNDS of fruits and vegetables for $6.  Yes, you read that right.  Ok, I had to toss out two apples because they were bruised beyond what I had hoped and I was cooking for guests that week.  But that was really my only casualty.  The most expensive item was a sugar pumpkin for 79 cents a pound.  I cooked up all the baby food that afternoon and baked bread so even the zucchinis, which had a little white mold on the ends, didn't have the chance to get any worse.  

With a little extra research, which entailed talking to a very nice man in the produce department, I found out that the fresh produce comes mainly on Monday and is put out that morning.  So for the veggies I needed to last a week I bought fresh.  But who can beat 39 cents a pound for ANY fresh food??

So my cooking friends and fellow mothers, seek out your 'sale' produce and glory in your conquests!
-Melissa