First of all, I look most diligently for them the weeks that a given meat are on sale. For example, chicken is on sale for $1.68/lb at Kroger this week. And last week, ground beef was on sale for $1.49/lb.

I have found that in my local store, meat that is about to reach its “sell by date” gets marked down in the early evening hours. What this means is that if I go to the grocery store at 6:30 pm or later, I am more likely to acquire manager special meats. The “sell by date” means that the meat is still good as long as I freeze or cook it that evening or the next day (if the sell by date is the next day).

Given that the meat is already on sale, when they put it on manager special to move it out of the store before it goes bad, it is an extra stockpile price. And because it is on sale, they are carrying more of it in hopes that it will be a high demand item. If they overestimate and have extra, the better opportunity for me because I will find more on manager’s special. For this reason, I find going later in the sales cycle week brings me greater success.

For example, Kroger had ground beef on sale for $1.49/lb last week. We have 15 lbs on our February 2010 Once A Month Mom Menu. So on Sunday evening I went to the grocery store at 8:00 pm especially to see if they had any ground beef on manager’s special. (This is a little later than I normally like to go so that I don’t get beaten out by other buyers). However, I was NOT disappointed. I ended up getting all of the ground beef that I needed for $.89/lb or $13.07! How is that for a good deal?

Buying meats on manager special works for me? What do you do to find deals on your Once A Month Mom Grocery List items?

This post is linked up at Works For Me Wednesday at We are THAT Family!

**Don’t forget this months ongoing contests in celebration of the Once A Month Mom Blogiversary! There are great prizes to be won!

• Once A Month Mom & Dole Menu Contest – Don’t forget to vote in the right side margin DAILY between February 19th and 26th for your favorite of the menus – A, B, or C!
• Once A Month Mom Cook Off

Here are some of the ways I ready my meat for quick recipes:

Whole Chickens

I have about 5 chickens in my deep freezer right now. Once a week is I roast a chicken and we either eat the meat or I use it in a recipe.  Then I take the bones and place them in a slow cooker with ½ an onion, a handful of carrots, a stalk or two of celery and some garlic.  I cover it with cold water and cook it all night long on low.  In the morning before work, I strain the stock and place it in the fridge.  All week long, every time I make rice or when a recipe calls for water, I use the stock.  It is full of nutrients and takes literally 5 extra minutes since you’re already using the chicken meat!

Chuck Roast - used w/permission Flickr Creative Commons, photo by benketaro

Chuck Roasts

When boneless beef chuck roasts are on sale, I’ll buy 5 or 6 and get them ready for my sister in law’s Smoky Beef Taco recipe.  For each roast, stir together ½ cup of ketchup, 8 cloves of chopped garlic, 2 chipotle chilies in adobo (they come in cans in the Mexican section), 2 T oregano and salt & pepper to taste. Cover and bring to a boil.  Once that cools off, pour it into a freezer bag with the roast (which you should cut into four pieces) and freeze.  On cooking day, just put the whole defrosted roast in the slow cooker and cook all day or place it in a covered dish in the oven and bake at 350 degrees for 3 hours or until fork tender. Serve with warmed flour tortillas and shredded Monterrey Jack cheese & whatever other taco condiments you like.  I love corn and red onions.

Pork Loins

When boneless pork loins are on sale, I’ll also stock up on these. My good ole standard pork loin recipe is a mixture of soy sauce, pineapple juice and garlic.  Again, place in a freezer bag and then it is oven, grill or slow cooker ready! My new favorite is the Asian Peanut Butter Pork from the November menu on OAMM.  It is so rich and divine!

Chicken Breasts

When boneless chicken breasts go on sale for $1.99/lb I stock up.  Usually I’ll just freeze them, but one of our favorite yummy and easy meals are chicken quesadillas.  Place the chicken breasts in a slow cooker with whole or chopped green chilies.  For every 4 breasts used, you will need one 4 oz can of chilies.  Don’t add any extra water.  Cook them for about 8 hours on low and then shred with a fork.  8 breasts will make about 3 meals worth (for a family of four).  Portion and freeze in freezer bags.  To make the quesadillas, place shredded chicken and shredded Monterrey Jack cheese in between two flour tortillas and toast on a skillet until cheese is melted and tortillas are nicely browned.  This chicken is so juicy and flavorful.  You won’t need any other seasoning- not even salt.

Pork Shoulder - picture from The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Pork Shoulder

My favorite new recipe comes from The Pioneer Woman’s new cookbook- Spicy Pulled Pork- it is perfect for making in bulk and freezing! In a food processor, blend 1 onion, 1 T chili powder, ½ c brown sugar, 4 garlic cloves, 1 tsp oregano, 2 tsp cumin, 1-2 T salt, ground pepper to taste and 3 T olive oil, 2 T white wine vinegar. Rub this mixture all over a 5-7 lb pork shoulder, and freezer bag it!  When you are ready to cook it, place in a roasting pan with 2 c of water, cover tightly and cook at 300 degrees for 6-7 hours, turning each hour. (I’m sure you could cook in a slow cooker too). Shred and serve with lime wedges and warmed flour tortillas. Delish!

About Becky:

Becky is a minivan driving Kindergarten teacher and a mom of two beautiful kids. She started blogging a few years ago and has loved it ever since.  She’s a wanna-be photographer, famous chef and crafty diva. Emphasis is on wanna-be. She likes to garden, read and watch tv. She’s a total Twilight Mom and a Nerdfighter too. She’ll be at Blissdom this year, and hopes to meet lots of you.  You can find her at www.thevioletfig.blogspot .com and on Twitter @TheVioletFig.

**Don’t forget to enter the Merry Monday’s Bob Evans giveaway going on now through Friday, December 11th.

I am going to try out some new recipes this week for Carter. Here is what I am thinking so far.  After browsing the baby food isle I definitely want to try a puree with ham (maybe with pineapple, peach and apple), a chicken with sweet potato and apple (since all of these are on sale this week at Kroger), and possibly another beef dish with veggies (peas, green beans, carrots).

If you have any suggestions or have a recipe that has worked for you, I would LOVE to hear from you.

I will post a new menu by this weekend!!

1.5    c.  carrots
0.5    c.  sliced leeks white part only
5    oz.  chicken breast cut into chunks
1    lb.   potatoes peeled and chopped
1    c.   peeled and chopped parsnips
as much as needed  boiling water

Directions:
1. Place chicken in pot and cover with water. Boil until cooked through. About 20 minutes.
2. Add the potatoes, parsnips, carrots and leeks. Continue boiling for another 15 minutes, or until everything is tender and cooked through. Blend to a puree, adding water until desired consistency.

print recipe

Directions:

Place onions, celery and chicken in a small stock pot. Add water to just cover ingredients. Boil on medium heat for about 30 minutes covered. Strained desired amount of celery and onion out (depending on your child’s taste preferences). I took about half out of both the celery and onion. Add carrots and green beans to boiling water. Continue boiling until veggies are soft – about 30 more minutes.

Strain ingredients and keep the water you used to boil, to thin the puree to desired consistency. Puree ingredients adding water until desired consistency.

Yields: about 39 oz.

print recipe

.8 lb. lean cubed beef

1/2 of a yellow onion chopped in large pieces

4 celery stalks

5 carrots (diced)

2 parsnips (diced)

1 c. peas

2 potatoes (about a pound and diced)

1 c. low salt Chicken broth

Directions:

Place onions, celery and beef in a small stock pot. Add water to just cover ingredients. Boil on medium heat for about 30 minutes covered. Strained desired amount of celery and onion out (depending on your child’s taste preferences). I took about half out of both the celery and onion. Add carrots, parsnips, peas and potatoes to boiling water. Continue boiling until veggies are soft – about 30 more minutes.

Strain ingredients and keep the water you used to boil, to thin the puree to desired consistency. Puree ingredients along with 1 cup of chicken broth.

Add the leftover water to puree to desired consistency. I actually had to add more water than I used to boil to thin it.

Yields: about 56 oz.

Print recipe

1. I will be introducing my son to some simple meat purees.
2. I feel it is important to introduce as many different tastes as possible. With this said, I will have a few veggie purees that have more than one ingredient.  The recipes I chose have more bitter veggies in them (broccoli and spinach mixed with sweeter ones such as sweet potato and carrot), and since I worry about the ratio and my son’s pickiness I thought making them from a recipe would be my best bet.  With fruits, I typically mix equal parts of different fruits since most fruits go well together, but freeze them individually. So this will add a few extra steps but I feel it will be worth it to give my son unique tastes that have been tried out prior to me.

As you will see in my menu I have 3 categories.  With my first son, I always strived to give him one meal a day, typically dinner, that had protein in it.  I must admit, there isn’t any science to back this up, just mother’s intuition.  The other two meals, I kept simple with fruit or veggies. So I will do the same with my second son. So I have planned for 30+dinners with some form of protein, 30+ veggie, and 30+ fruits meals. I am actually trying to plan a little bit more than 30 for each since the recipes may yield slightly different amounts based on unique sizes of produce.

So here is what I will be making this month:

Dinners

• Tasty Ground Meat with Rutabaga & Tomato
• Baby Beef Stew
• First Chicken Casserole
• Chicken with Sweet Potato and Apple

Veggies

• Sweet Potato, Carrot and Broccoli
• Rutabaga, Carrot and Peas
• Spinach, Potato, Parsnip and Leek

The above 3 makes approximately 16 servings.

• A variety of single veggies from the 4 – 6 month menu.  Most likely carrots, peas, green beans and butternut squash (if I can find it), and possibly corn.

Fruits

The beauty of fruit is that most fruits mix well with each other. So I will be making the following fruits individually and mix them day by day.

• apples
• bananas
• blueberries
• pears
• peaches
• avocado

All of these mix well with each other, so one day I might pull out a cube of bananas, a cube of peaches and a cube of blueberries and mix together.

Here is a link to my Google Documents Spreadsheet that has all the recipes that I will be using for the March Menu. Please note that each recipe is on a different sheet and the tabs for those sheets are on the bottom of the spreadsheet.

I will post the grocery list in the next few days with total combined quantities.