Our Shopping Trip Results This Week: Tons of Produce from Farmer’s Market and Kroger Case Lot Sale

All of this beautiful local produce came to $28.50!

We had some big shopping trips this week! As we have shared before, most all of our grocery budget goes to fresh fruits and veggies and just a little bit goes to the coupon finds we can get each week! Plus we stock up on meats a couple of times a year by buying grass-fed beef from a local farmer and finding the chicken stock-ups! So with that short list, we can eat quite a lot of fun and various meals.  But we also love to have rice and so it was the week to get stock-up deals on rice at Kroger.

With that, we wanted to share our results of our local farmer’s market trip on Saturday.  If you have not been to a farmer’s market, we HIGHLY recommend finding one close to you to visit!

What we love is that each week is very different, the prices are super affordable, and since most of the stands are small family farms selling their excess, it means that they are grown without pesticides in many cases.  Essentially meaning that without going through the time and the big expense of being certified organic, they would be organic-ish! I asked all of them that we bought from if they do use pesticides and they did not.

Also, in the colder months, we often buy a conventional or organic basket of produce from our Bountiful Baskets co-op, but we find that it isn’t that great of a value in the summer months, especially with the farmer’s markets!

Before we share what we bought, we invite you to read up on 30 Ways to Save Money on Produce.

Here’s what we got from 4 different produce stands at the farmer’s market:

2 lbs of several varieties of tomatoes at $1 each pound = $2.  This year we have decided that nearly each week of our homeschooling, we will try either a fruit or vegetable that we haven’t ever had or haven’t had in a very long time.  So one thing we will be trying this week is different tomato varieties.  I cannot remember all of the names of them (so I will be looking them up on Google when we have our taste tests) but I do know that they green and yellow ones are called “zebra tomatoes” from what the market guy told us 🙂

  Italian Plums 24 for $1.50.  We have a plum tree, but they are a different variety, so this will be a nice change!

4 Purple Bell Peppers for $1 total, 2 lemon cucumber for .25 (another taste test item this week!), 12 big, plump, and juicy sweet peaches for $4.  These peaches were amazing and they were gone in 24-hours! Peaches are one of Alex’s favorite fruits, but he had serious competition!

3 different varieties of onions – 1 lb worth for $1. An everyday staple in our home!

12 Ears of corn (the yellow and white checkered variety) for $4. 

1 giant cantaloupe for a flat $2. This this is HUGE. The picture does not do the size justice! We are hoping it is a good one!  We love to eat cantaloupe with our Weekly Dutch Puff breakfast.

2 Eggplant for .50 each and 2 Green Bell Peppers for .50 each. We haven’t ever tried a white eggplant, so it will be another interesting taste test!

10 U-Pick Peppers for $1.  I got 1 Habanero, 2 Anaheim, 2 Serrano, 2 Banana, 1 Jalapeno, and I think the red ones are either Cayenne or Chile peppers. Tonight we are having homemade salsa and spicy guacamole with our Mexican night!

2 Zucchini Squash (very large!), 2 Canary squash, 1 canary crooked neck squash and 2 of the white squash all for .50 each.  They are all quite a nice large size! .  I don’t have an official name of the white ones and the farmer’s market stand didn’t either, he just said it was another type of winter squash! But our kids immediately decided that the name should be “jellyfish squash” as it looks like a jellyfish without the tentacles. I agree – so that’s what were calling it.  It will be another new taste test in school this week!

13 mini-melons of different types (watermelon, cantaloupe, honey dew, canary melon) for 3  for $1 – but he actually gave us one more for free so it was a flat $4.  We let the kids each have 3 “personal melons” of their own to eat this week and they ate them all in 2-days! They really that that was quite cool that they could just take a spoon and eat right out of the skin.  Honestly, the cantaloupe were pretty bitter – but everything else tasted good.  I am not sure if it was the size that caused this or what! But we probably will not get the mini-cantaloupe again.

And our children scooping the seeds out of their mini-melons before eating with the picture of our absolutely beautiful garbage can – who wouldn’t want a view of that! 😉

With all of this awesome produce, you can check out this book we posted earlier this week HERE as it is even cheaper now!  It is a Guide to Root Cellaring as this book goes through how to store produce long-term even in a closet.

We also then went to our local Kroger affiliate (Smiths) to take advantage of the case lot sales and the coupon sales.

3 Cases of tomatoes for $12 each case of 24 cans = .50 each can

2 cases of beans for $13.68 each case of 24 cans = .57 each can

1 case of Libby’s whole kernal corn for $6 for 12 = .50 each can

3 20-lb bags of rice for $9.99 each bag

We actually went to Kroger twice this week as the above case-lot sale was the second trip this week for the case lot items! But even better is that Kroger and Kroger sister stores are having a Mega Event on General Mills and Kraft items to make items super cheap! You can find the shopping lists on our grocery store section HERE. Plus, you will want to check out the scenario to get a bunch of Kraft items for .44 each!

And the exciting part is that one of the most popular recipes found here on our site is for Paula Deen Frito Corn Salad.  It currently has 34,000+ pins on Pinterest.  Well, this super easy, super popular, and super delicious salad can be made for very cheap this week because EVERYTHING that this recipe calls for is on sale at Kroger and Kroger affiliate stores! With that, we made it for our church’s potluck this past Sunday – who could pass up not making it at all, but especially when it is super cheap?

Here’s an example of the ingredients needed and the prices we got this week:

• Fritos normally $2.99 for only $1.77
• Cheese on sale (vary by region)
• Mayo for a possible .44 each
• Colored Bell peppers are on sale for 4 for $5 (in-season, so probably on sale in your area)
• Green peppers we got at the farmer’s market for .50
• Red onions for $1 lb. at the farmer’s market
• Corn – well, the Kroger case lot sale for .50 each can!

So if you want to get in on making this incredible salad – you can do it for a lot less this week! Or at least get the ingredients this week and keep them for when you make it sometime in the future (besides the veggies :)).

You can see the recipe for Paula Deen Frito Corn Salad and it is now printable to make it easy to print and use!

So how’s that for starting a super healthy post and ending with a very “unhealthy” Paula Deen salad ? 😉

Well, how about we throw a bit more healthy in there and be sure not to miss our post on 30 Ways To Save on Produce, the Farmer’s Market is just one of the 30 ways!