Save money on gourmet items; latest giveaway results

For Nourishing Gourmet’s weekly Pennywise Platter (which you should read for more money-saving food tips ~~ here is this week’s post), I thought I would share one of my favorite frugal secrets — The Grocery Outlet. If you are located in the western United States, you may just have this discount food store near you.

Shopping at The Grocery Outlet is a shopper’s scavenger hunt with seasonal overstocks and the scratch-and-dent equivalent in the food market. You will find aisles of canned goods, cleaning supplies, and even whisky. The key to healthy shopping at The Grocery Outlet is knowing the sections of the store that contain the possibilities for gold.

When I go to the Grocery Outlet, I skip most sections of the store but never miss the dairy and meat case. I have purchased New Zealand butter that was the darkest yellow I have seen. The price rivaled any sale butter in a grocery store (about $2.50/pound) but it had the benefits of grass fed butter. Granted, it was shipped across the sea, but I purchase it nonetheless. I have found deals on gourmet cheeses as well.

Near the refrigerated dairy items I always look at the packaged meat items. You can usually find a gourmet sausage and could well find just about anything else. I skip the bologna.

The other primary area I scope is the canned meat section. I find Alaskan pink salmon fairly regularly for $1 for a 15-ounce can, a high Omega 3 depression-fighting fish. They often have sardines, another fish high in beneficial fats.

My mother makes a bee-line to the $1 wine that she uses for cooking. On occasion, she finds a wine she actually likes to drink. My husband makes a bee-line to the gourmet ice cream in the freezer section, though I have to warn that sometimes the ice cream has been partially melted previously and has that not-so-satisfying “crunchy” texture. The prices are great, though, and make it worth risking crunchy ice cream and cooking wine.

Find a location near you: Grocery Outlet store finder.

Happy hunting!

Giveaway results

Doing a twice-weekly giveaway is a solid part-time job as I enter names in the kitchen colander each time. Today I looked at sites that have apparently linked here since there is some traffic coming from that direction. I found new blogs I had not yet discovered and some oldies-but-goodies. In addition to a list of bloggers who entered the giveaway who I have listed here before, I checked out these sites:

Traditional lifestyle blog Under the Maple Canopy.

One Bite at a Time written by hippy chef lactivist Kay.

Cooking Traditional Foods message board and Kerry Ann’s famous menu mailer

Stephanie from Keeper of the Home who is expecting a baby in four short weeks. Good luck Stephanie!

Lindsay from Passionate Homemaking who just wrote a review of the Nutrimill grain mill (I’m grain-free right now so I think I notice these sorts of posts even more).

Diane at her Peaceful Acres blog has a new sweater to go with the supplements she won in the last giveaway.

Today Katherine at Postpartum Progress also posted “The List” on her blog. If you read my blog, you know all about the “Future Baby Agreement,” aka “The List.” Katherine has a list of resources for postpartum depression on her website that you should read if you are a new mom, about to be a new mom, or care for new moms.

And back to the giveaway. In our on-going test of probability and statistics, we are interested in whether you have any chance at all in winning this contest if you have left only a comment. So far three people have won with their comment entries and Diane, who earned additional points by posting all over the Internet about this blog, has won as well. I think we are learning that you have to enter to win (because so far no one has won without entering), that commenters are likely to win only because there are so many of you, but Diane has taught us that there is a pay-off to earning extra bonus points in this contest. Look for Leesie (SeasLife on Twitter) to follow in Diane’s path.

That said, our winner of the desiccated liver product (on this page at Beverly International called “Ultra 40″) is won by leaving a comment on this blog:

XXXX is the winner. She commented about two weeks ago. She should contact me in the next week to claim her prize. Follow Diane’s lead and leave your U.S. address (or U.S. address of a friend if you are international) in a comment on this blog. When I publish the comment, I will remove your address.

Diane left quite a speech after her victory if you have not seen it.

I will announce another winner this Friday of the Omega 3 + magnesium + B complex brain-building package but then I will be without access to my colander, so I will probably draw two names when I get back. I am headed to Seattle for the AVMA and its day-long symposium on raw milk. Raw milk as a food issue is so ridiculously inflamed by both sides that it sure is hard to know what to expect from this meeting. I do expect to eat a lot of great seafood, however, and take in many sights of beauty.

If you are just joining this contest, enter to win by leaving a comment anywhere on this blog. I will ship to any U.S. address. Increase your chances by doing the following (the Diane and Leesie method):

• Friend me or follow me on Facebook(here) or Twitter(here): 1 point each

• Stumble this entry, one of the food science pages, or anything that has caught your fancy.: 1 point.

• In Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, or LinkedIn provide a link to some of the content here (see the recent food science post for a lot of ideas): 1 point

• Provide a link to this contest from your blog: 2 points (but gosh, this just increases your competition, LOL)

• Blog about some of the content on this website (see the recent food science post for a lot of ideas or check FoodGraphs.net): 3 points

Have a great week everyone!

Technorati Tags: butter, Grocery Outlet, ice cream, Nourishing Gourmet, Pennywise Platter, postpartum depression, pregnancy, Rebuild from Depression, salmon, sausage, seafood