Frugal Fridays: Safeway Delivered for $35. Plus ways to use all that orange food.

I caught wind of this deal from FrugalLivingNW and I switched it up a bit for a wholefoods/healthy version, but it’s a steal of a deal no matter what.  Consider this your opportunity to stock up on all things orange!

If you’ve never done Safeway Delivery, now’s the time!  Just head to Safeway‘s online store.  Here’s what I bought, all of which are super deals:

• Garnet/Beauregard yams $.49/lb. (20 lbs.) (on the “clean 15” list of items you do not need to buy organic)
• 5lb. box Satsuma Mandarins $3.99 (2) (no need to buy organic, unless you eat the peel!)
• 2 lb. brick Tillamook medium cheddar $3.99 (6)
• 5lb. bag of Organic carrots ($4.39) (2)

Total $50.50 (order must be $50 or more), then enter promo code CJSAVINGS and it’ll take $15 off your order.   These are already fabulous prices on these items, for an additional 30% off ( $35.50 total, plus free delivery to your doorstep!!) is great. I scheduled mine to deliver on Wednesday so we’ll have fresh yams, carrots and mandarins for Thanksgiving day.   Yes, 6 blocks of cheese is a lot. But this is a great price on Tillamook cheese, which my family loves, and the “best by” date is August 2011 so we’ll have plenty of time to enjoy it. And yes, that is a lot yams and carrots, so here are some of the ways we use them.  This is a healthy bunch of delicious orange foods! Just what we need for cold and flu season!

Ways with Yams

• Roasted Yams are possibly the perfect food. SOOO delicious I have to only make a few at a time or I’ll eat them all. My kids love ’em too because they’re so sweet. But you have to cook them right:
  • Peel, rinse, and slice lengthwise.  Place on piece of foil, 1-2 on each piece of foil. Drizzle with olive oil and sprinkle with salt and fresh ground pepper. Wrap up into little foil packets.  Bake at 350 degrees for at least an hour.  They’re even better if after an hour you just turn off the oven and let them sit in there and soak for a bit.  It takes a long time to really bring out the sweetness and the olive oil and natural sugar from the yams carmelizes.  I eat them straight from the foil packets, or cut for the kids or mashed, or mixed into chili (yams taste delicious in mexican food).
• Puree. Yams are perfect for sneaking veggies into other food.  You can peel, boil, then puree with a potato masher right in the water.  Add to melted cheese for a delicious nacho dip, add to toasted cheese sandwiches or quesadillas for the kids, add to macaroni and cheese to veggie power, add to pancakes for a delicious change.  Pretty much anything with cheese in it can benefit from yams.
• Yam, parmesan & toasted pine-nut pasta. This recipe is SO good and easy.
  • Make 4 roasted yams (above)
  • Boil 1 lb. whole wheat pasta
  • Drizzle Olive oil in pan and add pine nuts, sauteeing until toasted (pine nuts are optional, it’s still super tasty without), then remove and add garlic, chopped onion or leeks, and either fresh oregano or sage (either is great, or if you don’t have fresh just use whatever italian herbs you have on hand).  Cook until soft, add pine nuts back, and mix that and yams all with the pasta, then add 1 cup grated parmesan cheese over the top and mix together. Yum!

Ways with Carrots

• Roasted Carrots. Follow exact same process as with yams.  Also delicious! Heidi devours these.
• Carrots sticks. (obvious) Peel ’em, slice ’em up, and have a big tupperware of them (in water) in the fridge. If they’re there, you’ll eat them!
• Puree. Follow exact same process as with yams. Great mix-in for chili, pancakes, soup (you can hide a LOT of carrot puree in most soups, it blends right in and you don’t even know it’s there) and, our personal favorite, applesauce. I put carrot puree in all our homemade applesauce and you can’t even see it.
• I pretty much just put carrots in any meal I make, unless it’s ridiculous.  They’re so healthy and so cheap, why not? Here’s to orange food!  Enjoy!

Know any other yam and carrot uses? Please share…  Here’s to delicious orange food!