Bean & Tomato Soup, Lemon Bars, Lemon Squares

What have I made lately using dollar store ingredients?  Using a recently clipped Tuscan bean and tomato soup recipe from the LA Times, a lemon bar recipe from Veganomicon: The Ultimate Vegan Cookbook, and a lemon squares recipe from The Divvies Bakery Cookbook: No Nuts. No Eggs. No Dairy. Just Delicious!, I went on a cooking spree this weekend.

The Tuscan bean soup used celery (sometimes found @ the 99c store; this time I got it at Bestway supermarket), canned tomatoes (from 99c store), dried oregano and basil (99c store or Big Lots), beans (I substituted 99c store black beans for cannellini beans), leeks (Food4Less), carrots (Bestway, Big Saver or El Super), potatoes (El Super) and margarine (El Super). 

The lemon bars and squares used sugar and corn starch from the 99c store, lemons on sale (see previous posts), flour (on sale at many venues during the holidays, from $1-$1.50 per 5 lb. bag), margarine, tofu (99c per 15 oz.  at Fresh & Easy; 99c store also sometimes has vacuum packed Nori brand tofu), agar agar (~$1.30 at Asian supermarkets), and turmeric (~$1 a small bag at Asian supermarkets).

Need I also mention that the metal lemon bar pan was from the 99c store, too?