The "Cheap" Part: GREAT Shopping Trip Today! #lowcarb

Ooooh, yeah baby! Meat has been SO expensive, I've been unable to find beef (except ground) for under $4.00/lb locally in several weeks, and it is my favorite meat. I'm tired of pork and chicken, but pork as been over $2.00/lb, and chicken over a buck. Just last year, I got all of my chicken (we eat dark meat) for less than $1/lb...got all of our pork for < $1.50/lb, and beef for <$2.00/lb. In fact, those were my limits. I had no trouble finding meats that fit those prices, either on sale, or with "last day" red stickers on them. But this year with the sharp increase in food prices, no way!

Lately whenever I find beef for <$4.00/lb (other than ground), I buy it. I've raised my pork limit to $2/lb, but still <$1.00/lb for chicken with the except of the b/s breasts that I buy a couple of times a year. But beef is still my favorite, and I prefer to eat that several times a week than anything else. We also like our fish about twice a week...

(I'm speaking of our main meals above. Bacon is a staple for breakfast several times a week, or ham, and eggs just about every day. But for our main meal, we sometimes eat in the afternoon and sometimes before Pete leaves for work at night.)

Now, back to the subject at hand. Today I set aside $100 to buy enough meat for a month. We're down to our last few pounds of meat, and it's all "recipe meat" - meat that I use in other dishes, such as ground beef and sausage, or side pork, plus a single small steak and some all-beef patties...oh, and a couple of meals' worth of tilapia...

We went to my favorite place, Steve's Meats in Harrison. And we bought over 46# of meat, for $113 - about $2.24/lb overall! AND over half of it (27#) was BEEF! Totally exciting :). I got both brisket, a whole one which they cut into big chunks for me, and a bunch of chuck roasts (on sale for $2.99/lb). We slice the chuck roasts across to make them into 2 "steaks" which I broil or fry, and they are SO tender and flavorful, and so unlike the supermarket meat that we often pick up on sale. Very fresh. In total, I got
14.67# beef brisket
12# chuck roast
5# bacon (they have the BEST bacon!)
3# ham
11.75# pork chops - big fat ones!

We also stopped at our local produce market, Bart's, and got a bunch of produce from the "last day" cart (6 zucchinis, a couple pounds of grapes for my grandson and the parrots, a head of lettuce we'll use up tomorrow), and a massive fresh honeydew melon and some rutabagas. Oh, and a jar of yellow peppers for Pete, he likes them on his sandwiches. I'm still working my way through the frozen veggies I'd accumulated through the winter, still have about 20# of those in my freezer...but spent $16 today at Bart's.

So I'm totally excited about our meat haul today, and I wanted to share :).