Today was a good day. I canned 29 half pint jars of peas and with what is already on the shelf, I should have enough to last at least one year. I seem to use peas a lot. I put them in tuna-macaroni salads and eat them as a vegetable with a meal. My favorite is creamed peas on toast for a quick meal. My mother would make creamed peas or asparagus on toast every once in a while and I still like it. Reminds me of home.
I didn't have as much butter in the freezer as I thought, so I decided to build up my supply before canning. I only have 6 lbs., so will wait until I have 15 or 20. Butter here is spendy, so I only order 4 lbs. at a time in my grocery order. I can wait.
Now that the weather has cooled down some I am back in 'fill the shelves' mode. I looked to see what I needed before filling out my grocery order for Monday. Here's the plan:
4 bags of hashbrowns to dehydrate
4 lbs. of frozen green beans to dehydrate
12 lbs. of hamburger - with the three lbs. in the freezer I will have 15 lbs.
fresh vegetables: cabbage, carrots, celery, green peppers and onions.
It takes about one lb. of hamburger to fill a pint jar. I also ordered taco seasoning. I think I will make taco filling and can it. I tried that once before and it was a success. I just this past week used my last jar of taco meat and I love tacos, so that seems like a good use for the hamburger. I will can at least two more cases of plain hamburger later.
The fresh vegetables will be shredded, mixed together and dehydrated. A couple handfuls of the dried vegetable mix adds flavor to soups or casseroles.
My groceries aren't delivered until Thursday. In the meantime there are several bags of apple slices in the freezer. I am not a tall person. I can not reach the bottom of my chest freezer without practically standing on my head. Oldest Son has taken pity on me and said he will come over after work on Sunday and drag the apples out of the bottom of the freezer for me. They will go into my big roaster to cook down for applesauce.
So that's the plan. Now, I realize that often when we plan, God laughs. And I believe that when God finished creating this wonderful world we live in, he said, "OK, Murphy. You're in charge."
So we shall see how the plan works out. :)
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Murphy isn't who is in charge of this mess, but he's as easy to blame as anyone ... so go with that. :)
ReplyDeleteAh, Rev. Paul...When I look around me and see all the chaos, I just have to toss in a bit of silliness to counteract some of it. :)
DeletePlans are good! ;-)
ReplyDeleteYes they are, Gorges...Whether they come to fruition is another story altogether. :)
DeleteI did an inventory of my food storage today and found a couple small holes. Started another batch of homemade raisins and was able to get 20 packs of various bell peppers sliced thin, sealed and frozen. Filled shelves are a beautiful sight and a blessing in hard times.
ReplyDeleteRed
Red...I wish all I had in my food storage was a couple of small holes. I have a couple of big, gaping holes that I am working on, but all in all, it looks pretty good. The goal is at least two years worth of food. I have at least that now for myself, but in a crisis situation, I expect to have kids and grands lined up at my door because I am the one with the food. :)
DeleteThe peppers sound wonderful. I got some beauties last year at the Farmer's Market that I dehydrated and then ground into powder. Worked well for flavoring.
You are right about shelves full of food being a beautiful sight. There was a time many moons ago when I wasn't sure how I was going to feed my kids. That will not ever happen again if I can help it.
Great plans Vicki. I have never canned butter and so would appreciate hearing how you do that and then use it after it has been canned. So, if someday you find you have nothing else to blog about.......canning butter would make me happy.
ReplyDeleteSue...I used to can butter by processing it, but have since changed to using the method described in the following video.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jri8f63_we4
The lady in the video cans probably more than I do and knows what she is doing and describes the method better than I can. I have had no problems at all using her method, which is the same as others I have seen. The shaking of the jars while they cool is to keep the milk solids from settling to the bottom of the jar, but even if they do, a good stir will mix them in. The butter may be a bit grainy from heating, but that doesn't bother me. I use the butter the same as I do straight from the store. I look at it as being just one more food to have on hand should we not be able to purchase it in times of catastrophe.
My mother used lard in things like pie crust and because that's what I grew up with, I am planning to can some lard for the same reason as canning butter. I like to use bacon grease to fry some things like potatoes, so I may experiment with that as well. If they work, or if they don't, I will post about the experiments but likely not until sometime over the winter.
Vicki, thank you for the YT info. Don't know why I didn't think to check there. Since my hubby passed YT has become my "GoTo" place for information. It has helped me greatly when I go to the hardware store to ask for parts on small repairs around the house. I had never really given any consideration to the importance of storing 'fats' in my prepping supplies. YT is a great resource of info on prepping in many forms....especially canning. I have spent much time today going through all that is available.
DeleteSue...There are many videos on YT showing how to can butter and many ways to do it. The link I gave you is from "Deep South Homestead" channel. I can't tell you how to do it, but I did show you how I can butter. So far it has worked for me and is an easy method. YT is my 'go to' place to find out how to do most anything, but I am also careful for there are as many folks putting out information when they don't really know what they are talking about as there are folks who are really knowledgeable. I trust the link I gave you. I find myself preserving things like butter and a variety of meats when I realized that stores don't have storerooms full of food any more. Instead they have delivery trucks about every three days. Doesn't take long to empty the shelves before or during a disaster. I figure if I don't have it on hand before, I likely won't be able to get what I need.
DeleteI have canned all sorts of stuff like cheddar cheese sauce and nacho cheese sauce (comes in 10 cans at the grocery), cream cheese, celery, etc. Variety - a person would get really tired of eating beans and rice in an SHTF situation.