Friday, April 6, 2018

You Had me at Half Price

I went out gathering the elements for dinner last night and decided I would shop Aldi.  My goal was to see what was there in either meat, poultry or fish, and then build a meal around it.  It was a surprise to find Icelandic  Halibut with a half-off sticker.  These days I try to shop every couple of days so I can avoid the weekend crowds.  My goal is to buy fresh and what we need.  Actually, my goal is to buy cheap -- so if I find anything like this marked half price, I know what I am going to build the meal around!


 The three pound bag of potatoes was $2.49 and the bag of  baby carrots cost a buck.  Bagged baby carrots are what I consider a convenience food and they are an easy side.  Since they are already peeled and cut, all you need to do is toss them in oil, spices and something a little sweet.  They were baked with the potatoes -- which I cut in half and let sit in salted water for about an hour.


I like to pan-fry halibut. It seems to keep it moist.  The light breading was made from a combination of my beer bread and crushed up Asian salad topping -- crunchy Chinese noodles and almonds.  Since the halibut was only five bucks (it's normally ten bucks a pound), our portions were approximately six dollars each. We did not use all of the potatoes and a third of the carrots weren't eaten either.  The leftover carrots went to Teddy as her bedtime snack.  A few leftover bits of taters will be mixed with a breakfast scramble tomorrow.

The best way that I know of to create a frugal meal, is either to use something left from a bigger/previous meal, or find the main portion marked down.  A half price package of fish, poultry or meat is just what I need!

14 comments:

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    1. I bought them on the 5th and the sell-by date was the sixth. I read articles on line that you shouldn't buy marked down fish, but this was vacuum sealed. It was still fine!

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  2. I love finding mark downs in the meat section!

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    1. I have to discipline myself not to buy too much and then forget about it in the freezer! I could have bought four more packages but was good an just grabbed the one.

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    1. It really isn't common to find fish deal like this and I only got it because it was seal-wrapped. It was a good find!

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  4. I am appalled at the printed advice to decide what you want for dinner and buy it and nothing else. I saw this poster at the county agent office, objected, and saw it had been removed. I eat the meat that is on sale or free.

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    1. I think you can get good deals if you buy in smaller quantities but also with a mind that you will get to use some of it for later. I don't know anywhere her you can get marked down meat for free, so I am always looking for the yellow "Use Today or Freeze" deals.

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  5. Halibut...the fish worth its weight in gold lol. This time of year it is just the start of halibut season here(local) so I scour the supermarket fish section for end bits. They sell them at a tenth of a price and they are super great for small portions that can be deep fried. I don't love it but hubby does and it is a real treat when I find it at a decent price

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    1. There are so many benefits to eating halibut, that I have been known to pay full price for it -- but that means we don't eat it as often. I remember when monk fish used to be cheap and I ate it a lot -- not it's stupidly expensive!

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  6. We have friends from Iceland and the son is a chef. He brought us Icelandic cod that was to die for. He instructed us to broil it (carefully) and it was magnificent. I have not tried the halibut though. There's how you get the free meat - haha!

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    1. I love fresh cod! The best fish fry I ever had was in Seattle, with fresh cod flown in from Alaska that day. Does he ever make cod tongue? It's a Newfoundland "delicacy" that our Newfie friends make for us. Love it!

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    2. I haven't heard anything about it...interesting.

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  7. Sounds yummy, but I feel for you that pay so much for potatoes, that we refer to as spuds in Idaho.

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