While I was writing this post, I realized almost all of the finds I had were Christmas-related. So, why not turn it into a Christmas prep post instead?

Almost all of the items here are things you might want to stock up on for the holidays. I also included some gift items, or hostess gifts, and recommendations on how to serve them. DON’T MISS THE CHOCOLATES DOWN BELOW!!!

Make sure to read the NON-FOOD SALE FINDS in Part 1!

FOR YOUR POTLUCKS AND PARTIES!

It’s time to stock up on meats for your Christmas party dishes! This week, the meat on promo are chicken breasts and New Zealand Beef!

The chicken breasts would be great for making potato salad, macaroni salad, shredded chicken for any dish or sandwich, lemon chicken, orange chicken, you name it.

Of course, we bought 2 packs of the chicken breasts! I like buying them because I can make 2 different meals out of the chicken breasts. The chicken breast meat I use for salads, sandwich filling, or torikatsu / breaded chicken chop (like pork chop but using chicken), or lemon chicken, orange chicken, honey butter chicken, lemon butter chicken, Indian butter chicken, or salted egg butter chicken. 

The remaining chicken bones I can use for making tinola or crockpot congee (lugaw). We used to use nice chicken meat when making tinola or lugaw, but I noticed that nobody ate the chicken. Everybody just wanted to eat the papaya (tinola) and the rice (lugaw) and while those parts of the dish were almost eaten up, we would have several chicken pieces left in the serving dish, untouched. So, I eventually started using just chicken bones for those dishes instead and everybody’s happy AND I get to save the chicken meat for another dish!

The New Zealand Beef was also on promo! Excited to use these New Zealand Ground Beef to make burgers!

New Zealand Beef Shortribs:

New Zealand Rib-Eye Steak. You can’t go wrong with steak, and for some added flair, you can do like some steak restaurants and grill your steak on the table! I already talked about how we do this at home in a previous post. It’s great fun for everybody, but I would limit it to a small party group of 4-6 people.

 

WHEN YOU’RE TOO BUSY TO COOK

The road to the holiday season is a very hectic time for most of us, here are some things that might help:

Impress your guests or family by serving some mozzarella sticks just like Friday’s! Nobody will know that you just got these out of a box unless you tell them. 

We also bought some of these bangus that were on Buy 1 Take 1. I just reheat the rellenong bangus in the Turbo Broiler and that’s one ulam down!

Phyllo or fillo pastry is so difficult to find in Manila, right? Well, it’s available at S&R and it was actually not as prohibitively expensive as I expected. If you don’t have time to make a pastry crust from scratch, see if you can substitute it with fillo instead! These are very light, thin layers of pastry that you brush with butter and bake. Utterly delicious and flaky.

 

CHEERS! A party’s not complete without drinks!

Christmas parties are always a great excuse to bust out the bubbly! J jokes that I have alcoholic tendencies… sigh.  Be that as it may, I was happy to see booze on promo! Because, what’s a celebration without some liquid cheer? Buy some for yourself or to stock up so you’ll always have a ready hostess gift for next month’s party circuit!

Oh, look, some new stuff!!!

If you need a stronger pick me up, S&R has the best price in the country for Red Bull!

There are also some very nice NON-ALCOHOLIC OPTIONS. I am curious to try this Limonade, P139.95.

This Val de France organic sparkling juice from France is only P399.95 for 3 bottles! That’s only P133 per bottle. We’re going to try this sparkling juice this year. I think this would also make a nice hostess gift. Yup, buy several packs and bring a bottle or 3 to give to your party host so you don’t arrive at the party empty-handed.

What’s fall without some apple cider? Martinelli’s is one of my faves, too. Also, it’s P549.95 for 4 bottles, that’s only P137 per bottle! Serve this to the kiddos and to your friends who don’t drink, make it special by serving it in champagne flutes so they won’t feel left out. 

And here’s the ever present Welch Sparkling Grape Juice, P169.95. I consider it a Christmas party standard at this point.  If you are looking for something organic, natural and vegan, Hollinger Bio Party is also available, and it’s only P164.95! Yeah, I saw this for P220 at another shop. S&R pa rin the best!

Here’s another healthy option – Bai Antioxidant drinks – just P99.95, several flavors available!

Here’s another organic drink – Mama Chia’s Chia Squeeze – and it’s on Buy 1 Take 1! These portable chia seed snacks are great for lunchboxes, backpacks or gym bags, especially when you’re on-the-go! It should help you stay healthy when you’re not in Christmas eating mode… or you can buy them to prepare for a January healthy eating plan. 

 

CHOCOLATE! FOR YOUR GIFTS AND MORE…

Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate! Serve it, give it as a gift, eat it… it’s all good. 

Seeing all those chocolates available at S&R right now got me all excited!!! There are so many chocolates here not normally found at regular supermarkets. And most of them are the US or European-made chocolates that taste better than the same chocolates that are manufactured in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia or Mexico.

Hahaha, I wished I lived here among all these chocolates… 

Hershey’s has already come out with their Christmas chocolates – they have the Special Dark Kisses, Bells, Cherry Cordial, the giant Kiss, the big one-pound milk chocolate bar, etc…

My weakness – anything sea salt caramel, and I can’t wait to gorge on these! 

Another weakness – liquor-filled chocolates 

I only see these available during Christmas-time, so if you like chocolate and marshmallows, splurge and try these!

S&R also has their own pre-packed Christmas loot bag! It’s only P399.95 and I think you get more than what you pay for. It’s also a nice assortment of sweets & snacks.

And here’s another Christmas staple for me – a hoard of Cadbury’s Fruit & Nut chocolate bars  Plain Dairy Milk and Black Forest variants are also available.

Another caramel treat! Cadbury Eclairs! They are P299.95.

If you liked Brookside’s Acai Berry, you might want to check this out:

And Christmas is not complete with some cocoa! If you have no idea how to make your own hot chocolate, don’t worry, there’s Swiss Miss! They have an ongoing promo where you get free churros.

Here are some cookies to leave out for Santa. You can also serve this to guests / visitors to your home. Or eat them yourself. With hot chocolate (see above). The Sheila G Brownie Brittle is addictive!

Almond Roca in thins? Yup! You better believe I got my hands on the milk chocolate one… 

Dark Peppermint Roca sounds interesting but I still can’t imagine if it’s good. I’ll probably try it next time…

If you really like someone, and if they happen to like mint chocolates (who doesn’t?), better give them a box of these famous After Eights!

For those who want to give gifts to many people but want to stay on budget (especially if you have a big office and lots of officemates), you can buy your choice of chocolates and make small, assorted chocolate gift bags. You can buy small containers like mugs and jars, and put your choice of assorted chocolates inside, and wrap with cellophane and tie with a ribbon. If budget is really tight, you can use Ziploc bags and decorate it with stickers, ribbons, etc…

And, in case you missed the Twinkies craze… find out why it’s such an iconic food item that it’s practically a character in the funny movie Zombieland.

 

MISCELLANEOUS

Saw this organic Apple Cider Vinegar on promo! Apple cider vinegar is really useful for so many things, and if you use it a lot, take this opportunity to stock up.

This post is so long already! There were still so many other nice items on promo or available at S&R but this post would be too long if I included everything! Just check out your nearest S&R Warehouse branch, you’ll definitely find the trip worthwhile!

Don’t forget to check out Part 1 (Non-Food Sale Finds!)