Eat Fantastic Food, Have More Fun, and Save Money

Why is my Freezer Full? Is the world coming to an end?

So a few days ago I asked my girlfriend to put away a few loaves of bread that I bought at Costco in the freezer in the garage. She came back after putting away the bread with a funny look on her and said to me “Well now I know where to come when the bomb hits”. I recently started dating her and I am not sure I

had explained to her my mild obsession with stocking up. She thought the 4 loaves of bread, 30lbs of chicken, 3 hams, 10lbs of bacon, 15 steaks, 8 pork loins, 2 whole turkeys, and 12 lbs ground turkey might be a little over kill for a single guy. Well, needless to say I was a bit embarrassed about her finding out my quirky little secret.

Ok lets face it the only thing I might like better then a glass of red wine and steak is getting a great deal on food. So when I do see a great deal I buy and buy big. Recently I saw whole chicken breasts (bone in and skin on) at a local super market for $0.99 a pound. For those of you not as thrifty as me that’s a fricking great deal. So I stocked up. Stocked up big. Luckily for me they didn’t have a limit so I bought 6 packages each with 6 breast each. Each package was about $5.50 to $6.00 per package and who doesn’t like chicken? So, I come home with my killer deal on chicken and I ask my self what in the hell am I going to do with all this chicken. Luckily this wasn’t my first bargain poultry rodeo and I had a plan. Freeze it!

I open up the packages and portion then into 2 breast for a quart size bag and 4 breasts for a gallon size freezer bag. One good idea that I’ve run across it go ahead and put a marinade in the zip lock bag at that time with the chicken before I but it in the freezer. You can use any of your favorite marinade. I like teriyaki or a lemon garlic chicken. So I just put some marinade before freezing and when I take it out to defrost in the frig by the time its defrosted its all marinated and ready to cook. You can use this trick on really any meat.

The freezer really is the key to being able to take advantage of great deals when you see them. Don’t have a chest freezer in the garage like me? You can pick one up new from about $250 or you can find one on Craigs List for about $100. Still don’t want to buy a freeze or just don’t have any room to put one? Well it might be time to clean out the freezer in your frig in the kitchen. Yes, go through it. All of those mystery things way back there or the old ham bone that you had in there for 4 years might need to be thrown away. I find that most freezers in the kitchen are plenty big enough to take advantage of a $0.99 chicken sale.

One of the other main reasons that I love the freezer is that I hate going to the store. From just driving there to finding a parking spot, to waiving through all the gapers in the aisles, to the check out lines it really is a painful experience for me. So what do I do? Avoid it and stock up on things I can freeze or store in my basement.

Oh…BTW…When the bomb does come no you can’t come to my house.

Wines…90 points for $10

Ok to be honest with you I like to drink wine. Ok to be really honest with you I love to drink wine. I am mostly a red drinker but, if the food calls for a white I am fine with that. Being a wino though isn’t cheap. I would love to be able to drop $40 or $80 a night on a few bottles of great wine but, my bank account just doesn’t seem to let me do that and there are this little things called billed that I guess I need to pay also. So, I had to ask myself can I still drink good wine on a budget? Or, do I need to switch over to Miller Lite permanently?

No! I have to still drink wine. But, how can I afford it? Never to be discouraged I came up with a challenge for myself. Only drink 90 plus point wines and never spend more then $10 a bottle. While this was my Holey Grail Quest. I started by searching online on some online wine shops. For those of you who haven’t taken a look at these online shops they are really fantastic. You can search by, varietal, region, price, country, and wine score. One of my personal favorites is www.winex.com. They have a great selection and a great search tool. Normally you can count on an additional $2 a bottle shipping and handling fee. Even with that fee their prices are normally marked down enough to compensate for the additional cost. I started creating my list from the info that I dug up on the internet and forwarded that list to my blackberry so that when I was in the wine store searching for bargain buys I wouldn’t have to really on my not so reliable memory. Also I could always add to the list if I found a new one at the store.

To be honest I was amazed by how many great wines there are out there that are 90 points and under $10. I would go to my local wine shop and buy a few to try and then if I liked them I would search for the lower price either online or at the local shop and buy a case. Needless to say its been a pretty fun experiment and the research fairly rewarding. The winner so far? Well…for my personal tastes I like the PENFOLDS 2006 KOONUNGA HILLS SHIRAZ CAB blend. I found it at Costco for $7.99 a bottle. It will go with just about anything from pizza to a steak. You really don’t have to spend more then $10 to get a truly great wine.

$0.79 Chicken

The other day I saw that whole chicken was on sale at a local market for $0.79 a pound. For those of you who aren't bargain shopper that's a great deal. So I bought 3 birds (that was the limit).  Whole roasted chicken makes a great meal and at about $0.89 per serving for four it doesn't get much cheaper then that.  Throw in some brown or wild rice and some salad you're looking at maybe a $1.50 per person. 

I think a lot of people look at a whole chicken and say to them selves what the hell do I do with that?  You really have a ton of choices when it comes to a whole chicken. Can cut it up and grill it, roast it whole, shred it up for tacos, or fried chicken. 

The point being that know when something in the store is on sale and if it's a basic item buy a bunch!