Hershey's Cocoa Deal & MYO Chocolate Sauce

Here's a great deal on Hershey's Cocoa from Amazon.    It's $16.32 for SIX 8 ounce cans ($13.82 with subscribe & save).


Make Your Own Chocolate Sauce Recipe

• 2/3 cup unsweetened cocoa
• 1 2/3 cups white sugar
• 1 1/4 cups water
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Combine cocoa, sugar and water in saucepan over medium heat.  Bring to boil.  Boil for one minute, then stir in vanilla.

When cooled, I pour my chocolate sauce into one of those squeezable mustard squirters and store it in the fridge.  Use your sauce on icecream, in milk, or however you'd use store-bought sauce.

Rebates

Heather will now be posting Rebates!  Woo-hoo!!  Get some of your hard earned money BACK.

Click "Rebates" in the menu at the top for the latest rebates.

The Best Ever Meatloaf

I apologize for not having a picture of the finished product, but it always gets eaten the moment we take it out of the oven.

The Best Ever Meatloaf


(real comment about the meatloaf!)

Meatloaf
1 pound lean hamburger
1 pound pork sausage
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
3/4 cup italian-seasoned bread crumbs
2 TBSP onion powder
1 TSP Worcestershire Sauce

Top with
1 TSP Worcestershire Sauce
1 Cup Ketchup
1/2 Cup Brown Sugar

Mix first 8 ingredients for meatloaf in a large bowl and form into a loaf in a baking pan.  Mix the Ketchup, 1 tsp Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar in a bowl and top the loaf with it.  Bake in oven @ 350 for 60 minutes.

Looking for an Angel Food Ministries Alternative? Caution

We have alternatives to Angel Food Ministries listed on our site.  These are resources we have found across the web.  We plan to list more as we become aware of them. 

Please keep in mind, we have not researched these resources.  It would be best to do some research into these non-profits or companies before purchasing food from them.

Some questions to ask would be:

How long have they been in business?
Where do they get their food from?
Who are the CEOs/Presidents of the company and what is their background?  Where are they from? 

Google the phone numbers and names - sometimes a simple Google search will bring up a wealth of information.

You can go to their county court websites and do a case search to see if they have had any legal or financial troubles.

Go to sites like www.ripoffreport.com  - search the company name and see if anything comes up.  

Do they have a website?  Check the site info - owner's name, contact info on sites like http://www.networksolutions.com and http://www.alexa.com/  Then search the info you come up with. 

Check the internet archive http://www.archive.org/web/web.php to see what the website used to look like. 

Finally, call them up and chat with them!

Angel Food Ministries closing opens up opportunities for legitimate operations to take their place, but please, buyer beware and know who you are doing business with.

Pick Your Own Farm

Have you ever been to a Pick-Your-Own Farm?  This site lists a comprehensive directory of Pick-Your-Own Farms within & outside the U.S. 

You can have fun picking your own produce, and save money over supermarket prices.  The website also has instructions for preservation, freezing & canning as well as a crop availability calendar for each month.

Some farms allow kids to pick, and some don't, so be sure to check with them ahead of time if you're planning on taking the family.

http://www.pickyourown.org/

Sam's Club

Do you remember our Anatomy of a Discount Food Box post?   We discussed getting food for the same price as you would have paid with the now-defunct Angel Food Ministries.   While there are some alternatives, like MidAmerica Foods and the SHARE program, they are not as widespread as Angel Food Ministries was.

I am a member of Sam's Club, the only warehouse club in my area.  I pay $40 a year for an Advantage Membership.  I wanted to see if I could get groceries at Sam's club for our target prices in the above mentioned article. 

Here is a sampler of Sam's Club prices:

Bar-S Franks, 5 pounds for $5.38  ($1.08/lb)


Tyson Chicken Nuggets, approx 4.2 pounds $9.98  ($2.38/lb)

Tyson Boneless Skinless Chicken Breast 10 pounds $22.98 ($2.30/lb)
Interestingly, the 6 pound bag is $12.98 ($2.16/lb)

Tyson Chicken Wings 10 pounds $16.98 ($1.70/lb)

10 Pound box of Beef Patties $23.98 ($2.40/lb)

6 Pound bag of Meatballs $13.98 ($2.33/lb)

4 Pounds of Tilapia $12.98 ($3.26/lb)

Ore-Ida Fries, 8 pounds $6.68 ($.69/lb!)

Dole frozen mixed fruit 6 pounds $9.78 ($1.63/lb)

Members Mark steamable broccoli, 4 pounds $5.98 ($1.50/lb)

Frozen Berries, 4 pounds $8.58 ($2.15/lb)

6 Pounds Dry Spaghetti Noodles $5.76 ($.96/lb)

25 Pounds Rice $12.14 (.49/lb!)


What I've found is that a warehouse club will never beat the prices of my local supermarket's loss leaders, but they can  have very good daily prices for many items.  There are some things that in my opinion are overpriced.  I can almost always get these for less at my local market with coupons (Frozen dinners, certain canned goods, cereal).