Extreme Preserving/Stocking Up

From the country...

Bulk food we purchase through a buying group. Bulk flour, coconut milk, tomatoes (we didn't get ours put away this year) rice, rice milk(for Lucas), oats, and a ridiculously big bag of bay leaves

The pantry all tidy...

jars of preserves,

herbs, beans, etc. in brown paper bags

Has anyone watched the show, Extreme Couponing? If you haven't here is a brief/slightly biased take on the show. People collect an gazillion coupons, go to their grocery stores and buy hoards of food and pay say $8.76 for a bill of say $600 smackers. While on one hand I think they are genius, men and women spending hours with their scissors, saving their families thousands of dollars a year. On the other hand, I look at their heaping carts (often multiple carts) and see a mountain of highly processed foods in a box.

So, over here we practice a little bit of extreme preserving/stocking up. Instead of a heaping cart of food we have a heaping freezer of frozen fruits/ vegetables, a pantry that makes a farm Momma smile, and a basement with crates of storage vegetables. I know that this lifestyle is not for everyone, I just wanted to weigh in here on how we live. While the women on the show gleams about her room of canned goods and toilet paper, I am equally as thrilled with my little pantry fully stocked. It reminds me of the hours of work and fills me with a sense of accomplishment and the best part is it will feed our growing family over the winter months.

I love my pantry. It has the sturdiest shelves. Shelves that are relied on around here year after year, to keep our food safe and sound. I love that someone many, many years ago painstakingly built these shelves in this little tiny space, for their food to be stored away. I wonder if that family beamed over the harvest placed on the shelves before them, they way that I beam about ours. 

My Cup, er, Freezer Runneth Over...

From the City...

Currently in my freezer, I have:

9 bags of pureed peaches

7 bags of tomato sauce

3 bags of applesauce

2 giant bags of blueberries

2 giant bags of corn 

2 bags of basil 

and a whack of fresh pork from Mark

I visited the market near our place and bought, 1/2 bushel of tomatoes, a basket of onions, garlic and basil and rainbow swiss chard.  All of this cost me a total of $18 which is good for me but not so great for farmers.  I blanched the tomatoes, processed the basil, chard and onions and garlic and then went ahead and made a ton of tomato sauce.  I left the seeds in because I didn't have the patience to mill them out plus the italian recipe that I was following said to leave them in so that is exactly what I did.

I then ladle in ziplock bags increments of about 3 to 4 cups.  Roughly enough for a dinner and a lunch the next day or a medium sized lasagna. I then lay them flat on a baking sheet so they freeze nice and thin making them defrost faster and take up less space in my freezer.  Stacked for picture sack.  

Labeled.  

I'm heading back to the market again this weekend cause it looks like I'm gonna need to sauce some more.  Seven bags just isn't enough for our little family.

Putting Up

Yellow Dilly Beans,

Dill Pickles,

and some bread and butta pickles in the making...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From the country...

Our little farm house kitchen has been steamy lately (and not in the hot n' steamy kinda way...), puffs of steam have been billowing out of the open windows as our large canner toots away.  Lots of brow sweat and meals on the porch (because the house is way too humid!) equals tasty treats in the dead of winter... and the satisfaction of saying you made it yourself.

New Batch!

From the country...

This is the first batch of preserved goodness made this year! Actually, come to think of it this is the second, geez I am on the ball. I have made a yummy strawberry rhubarb jam and this here marmalade. I also made some bumbleberry jam before X mas. The berry jams were made with fruit harvested in the summer and frozen in the freezer. In the marmalade, I used Seville oranges with one red grapefruit and 2 lemons (my Gran swears by the Seville orange...). It made an even more tangy version of the batch we made last year. A nice puckery marm good with cheese or roast duck..or just out of the jar! For the recipe click here.