Stir fry heaven

Tonight I made a very yummy stir fry. I went all out (labor-wise...not really cost-wise). I got some good terryaki sauce and chicken breast was on sale $1/lb! I shaved the chicken, so it would cook faster and soak up more of the sauce during cooking. I added zucchini (also on sale, 99 cents a pound), button mushrooms, julienned red peppers, sweet snap peas, water chestnuts (FREE with the terryaki sauce), and green onions. I paired the stir fry with brown rice/Bulgar wheat. SO TASTY!

I do have one word of caution to you, dear readers, PAY ATTENTION AT CHECKOUT! I had this AMAZING coupon for Kashi cereal bars, $2 off just ONE box! They happen to be on sale at the store for $2.99/box...so with my lovely coupon, they're less than a dollar! Well, as the cashier was scanning all my coupons (I'm proud to say I had a nice little stack of them), I noticed my $2 coupon wasn't showing up on the screen...but a little 20 cent off thing had popped up. I quickly pointed this out to the cashier and asked to look over all the coupons I just gave her to make sure I was getting the proper amounts off.

Okay, maybe another word of caution, PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR RECEIPT! I was just looking at mine, to bask in the savings when I noticed I'd been over-charged for my zucchini by 53 cents. It's very easy to be mischarged for produce since it seems many cashiers know nothing about that particular department. Some of them seem to be unable to tell the different between spinach and a bag of carrots. My zucchini were rung up as cucumbers, not really a terribly hard mistake to make, but I'd even been nice enough to weigh them and print out a little price sticker. All the checker had to do was scan it like she'd done with all of the other produce. Eh well, I think I'll let this one go...for now. I'll just say this, don't be afraid to fight for the price you want (though do try to be reasonable about it). About a month ago, I got 4 apples for 40 cents before because they were accidentally marked as 33 cents/lb instead of 33 cents/each. That felt good.

Anyway, remember the prices of things, so that when you get to the checkout stand, you can make sure you're charged what you originally intended to pay. All too often things that are on sale don't ring up that way, and you can be grossly overcharged, sometimes by more than a dollar an item. Some cashiers may try to make it seem like you're really putting them out if you insist on getting the correct price for something, just ignore them. They shouldn't make you feel awkward about getting a good deal.

Happy eating