I Love Grocery Shopping

Like many people, Saturday is my favorite day of the week. It's a day for me to spend quality time by myself, knowing that I have a full 24 hours to do so. One way I like to spend my Saturdays is grocery shopping. I love spending Friday evenings browsing the internet to find inspiration for dinner, and then venturing out around Richmond in order to find the perfect ingredients.There's a lot of great places to get groceries Richmond, but I chose the following three places as my favorites because of their ties to the local economy, food variety, and of course, price.

South of the James Farmer's Market 

The SOTJ is one of the few events worth waking up at 8am for. A busy hub of local farmers and artists alike from all over Virginia, SOTJ is great for quality cuts of meat, fresh in-season produce, and everything in between. It's fun going in with a game plan, and knowing what you want from where. Some of my go-to vendors include Free Union Grass Farm where I buy chicken, or duck if I'm feeling fancy, Cabbage Hill and Walnut Hill Farms for vegetables, and Hog Haven for some good 'ol pork. In addition to groceries, I love wandering around and seeing what other items are available to purchase. One of these include Mrs. Yoder's donuts, the warmest and softest donut around.

Fresh to Frozen

Rising from the ashes of Ukrop's dust, this salvage grocery store, based in Midlothian, Virginia, sells "ugly" produce at crazy cheap prices. Depending on when I go, I can find a 10 pound bag of potatoes for a dollar, or cabbage for 10 cents a pound. Sometimes if I'm lucky, I can come in during the middle of a sale where they give customers an extra 25 percent off. They even take overflow of groceries from other stores like Whole Foods and make their items way cheaper than what you would pay at the store. I like going here because they make food affordable to everyone, and they're helping continuing reducing food waste by taking on food that would otherwise be thrown away. 

Kroger

In terms of national grocery chains, Kroger is by far my favorite. I do love Trader Joe's and Wegmans, but Kroger will always be near and dear to my heart because you can collect points that can take off up to $1.00 off per gallon of gas. I like Kroger because they always come through when I can't find what I'm looking for at my other two stores. I usually go here to look for artisan cheeses for an alfredo or carbonara recipe, and to buy traditional groceries for my pantry.  

When it comes to buying groceries for your kitchen, where do you shop?