Some of you mentioned a while back that your ALDI had hams for $5.00 off. Well, I stopped by the Villa Park ALDI on Roosevelt today (for cheap strawberries and $1.88 milk!) and finally saw the wonderful $5.00 off sign there. So if you’re in the area or want to see if your store is clearancing them out as well, Appleton Farms spiral sliced hams are $1.49/lb, then $5.00 off each at the register.

I got two, one for $6.83 and one for $6.10. These expire soon — one was 2/15 and one was 2/23 — but ham freezes nicely. That made these hams about $.86 a pound, and they’re really good!

This is new! Zaycon Foods has upcoming Illinois pickups for Carve Master Boneless Smoked Ham and Sausage Links.

Again, if you’re not familiar with Zaycon Foods,

• They sell fresh meat products by the case.
• Head to local pickup locations at a specified date and time to pick up your order.
• They schedule events across the country; and were last in IL with chicken only this past fall.
• Here’s my review last year of their chicken, if you’re curious and want to see some pix!
• They’ve never had a ham/sausage event here, so can’t speak to that yet.

Ham and sausage product info from their site

Ham — $3.29/lb, $72.38 for 22 lbs

• Made from fresh outside muscle only
• Precooked and slow smoked with real apple wood
• Approved as LEAN by the USDA
• Completely boneless for easier carving
• Freshness guaranteed for up to 100 days
• Each 22lb order contains two individually vacuum sealed hams per case

Pork sausage links — $2.69/lb, 20 lbs for $53.80

• Rated #1 by Cooks Illustrated January 2012
• The best trim (loin, ham, belly)
• Fresh – “Today’s trim is today’s sausage.”
• 100% natural spice blend
• Each order contains two 10lb cases of 1oz links — not precooked!

Pickup locations and getting together

They have a lot of pickup locations this time, so hopefully there is a date and time that will work for you. Head over to Zaycon to place your order now. And please feel free to chat and get together in comments about splitting orders, if these are too large for your family.

Illinois locations include:

Bolingbrook
Champaign
Danville
Decatur
Elk Grove Village
Gurnee
Joliet
Naperville
Normal
Peoria
Springfield

All pickups are in late February. See the Zaycon site for specific locations and times.

This was in reader deals, but let’s pull it out by itself. Most Jewel stores appear not yet to have Hormel Cure 81 half hams — I went to Villa Park and Lombard today with no luck, and Steve F. commented that only 2 out of the 5 Jewels he visited had it in stock. However, I’d suspect more stores will start to stock these as we get closer to the holidays, and we have a couple of weeks here.

1. Hormel Cure 81 half hams are $3.99/lb. Look for the smallest hams you can find, running around $12-$14 each. Buy two.
2. Use the BOGO store coupon from the booklet in today’s Chicago Tribune; also available in-store.
3. Use two $3.00/1 manufacturer coupons from the Winter Feast booklet currently out in stores — the one with the roast on the front.
4. Get two half hams for about $6-$8 after stacked coupons!

… lol. I threw the chicken I bought yesterday into the crockpot, but that was going to be done too late for dinner. So, decided to cobble together a ham/potato soup out of leftovers. It turned out pretty good, but I think it is missing something to make it better. Here’s what I did:

diced 3 small onions, browned in butter with a bunch of garlic.
diced up my last 4 Idaho potatoes, added to pot, added water to cover, brought to a boil, then cooked til potatoes were tender.
Added 2 3/4 cups milk (end of a container).
Added about 2 cups diced ham (from one of those cheap Jewel holiday hams).
Added a little over 1 cup shredded cheddar (what was left in the bag).
Added salt, pepper, parsley, basil, and crushed red pepper to taste.

Now — I think if I make it again, I’d either add a little flour or mash up some extra potato and add to thicken it up. But it also seems like it needs a little something else. Kale? (I have spinach, but don’t think that would stand up…) Help me out, here.

town comments on an even better deal, if you’re a beer drinker:

This gets even better. In Jewel there was a tearpad with a $10 rebate back on 12 pack of bud brands of beer with any turkey or ham purchase (over $10). The beer was only $8.99. So combining that with the Turkey/Ham offer also get a 12pack of beer. Who can argue free beer and make an additional $1.01? Sweet deal.

Read Jill Cataldo’s forum for more. Ginny notes that the $10.00 rebate is on Bud but that there’s a coupon for $5.00 off Miller wyb a ham. So, stop on over by the beer and look for rebate forms and coupons if you’re planning on buying the ham/turkey!

If you missed the earlier posts: In Sunday’s Tribune in the front section, there was a $9.00 off holiday ham Jewel store coupon. This is also found in Thursday’s Jewel ad, if you get yours in the mail before Th. Combine with the blue in-store coupon found by the turkey or ham: Get a free Jennie-O turkey breast when you buy a Cook’s spiral cut ham. (This expires 12/16, so you’ll need to do this through Wed. only.) If you want the beer, too, look for the rebate forms and you’ll end up with free beer to go with your free turkey and cheap ham — Now that’s a holiday!

Hey! For those of you who didn’t get a Sunday Trib with the $9.00 off ham coupon for Jewel, there is also one in Thursday’s ad! I just got mine in the mail, and the coupon is good 12/13-12/26. So if you get yours in the mail today or tomorrow or can pick one up in store, you can use it through Wed. with the buy Cook’s spiral ham, get free Jennie-O turkey breast in-store coupon. Sue points out in comments that it’s good to hand the ham coupon over first, because it requires additional $20 purchase. The turkey should about get you there, but if you hand the turkey coupon over first, the register won’t show over $20 anymore.

Megan points out that there’s a $9.00 off holiday ham coupon (requires $20 purchase) on p11 of the front section of Sunday’s Chicago Tribune. Also look in-store — people on Couponers Wanted — especially Mrs. Piggy, who posted it first (thanks!) — are finding a buy a Cook’s spiral ham, get a free frozen Jennie-O turkey breast coupon near the Jennie-O. (Thanks, Michelle, for the clarification!) If you can find that in your store, this is a great deal with both coupons. I forgot to check at my Jewel today, but will be giving a look next trip.

If you still are working on your Easter ham and looking for something to do with the ham bone, here’s a crockpot soup recipe for you. We got one of those ham deals least week — I just couldn’t see tossing that bone, and couldn’t find a good recipe for anything but baked beans (which my family is not so fond of). So I made up a recipe with stuff I happened to have in the house, and here’s what I did:

In a large crockpot, combine:

1. Ham bone (with some good chunks of meat still left on it)
2. 5-6 smallish potatoes, cubed
3. 8oz fresh mushrooms, sliced
4. one bag valley fresh steamers green beans
5. one can corn, drained
6. one medium chopped onion
7. one can cream of chicken soup
8. Enough water to cover the bone
9. a little bit of salt, generous shakes of black pepper, a few shakes of red pepper flakes

Cooked on low for 10 hours, then pulled out the bones, shredded the rest of the meat off and put it back in. Refrigerate for a few hours, skim off the fat, reheat, and eat. If I were to make this again, I’d leave out the salt (I forgot how salty ham is!) and maybe add a couple more veggies, but it turned out pretty darn well — we’ve been eating it for a couple of days now .

So, I thought I’d share, because I never winged a crockpot recipe before — but this was easy, cheap, and good!

I figure: The ham bone we had anyway, the canned soup was $.50, green beans $.40, mushrooms $1.50, onion $.20, potatoes $.25, corn $.50 — so call it an even $3.50 with the seasonings. This made a lot of soup — I’m going to say 8-10 servings, easy.

The buy $25 of participating Kraft, get $8 off ham has apparently been extended through 4/15, so I thought I’d repost the details in here in case you didn’t get to take advantage of it last week! Combine this with the $7/ham in-ad coupon and the mail-in Unilever rebate.

• Save $8.00 on your Easter ham through 4/15 when you buy $25 of participating Kraft products. Unfortunately Seattle’s Best is no longer on sale/on Avenu, and some of the other prices may have changed — most of the items are no longer listed in this week’s ad.
• Other products included in the buy $25, get $8.00 off ham deal: Philadelphia cream cheese or Cool Whip. Oscar Mayer bacon. Nabisco snack crackers ( BOGO Wheat Thins Artisan Cheese Crackers, 3/15 SS; $1.00/Triscuit or Wheat Thins 3/15 SS, $1.00/2 peelies on some boxes). Jell-O gelatin or pudding (save $1.00 on Jell-O wyb 3 boxes AND 1/2 gallon+ of milk, print at smartsource.com). Stove Top Stuffing. Kraft chunk/shredded cheese. Kraft dressing (use $1.50 from 3/30). Breakstone Sour cream, ($.55 3/30). Maxwell House coffee. Kraft mayo/Miracle whip. Kraft BBQ sauce. DiGiorno pizza. Claussen pickles. A1 sauce ($1.00/beef wyb A1 tearpads at Ultra). Planters nuts.

In today’s paper, there’s a Unilever insert with a rebate form to get up to a $20 mail-in rebate on your holiday ham or turkey when you buy $40 of participating Unilever products (4/1-4/30) + ham or turkey. Multiple shopping trips/receipts OK, but you must have the original rebate form from the paper. Here’s the info on the rebate & participating products — this will combine VERY nicely with all the ham deals at Jewel this week, as well as the Unilever coupons in today’s paper.

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