It's finally time to get started canning today.... I think that canning and preparing things will soon become verry important. I plan to can some squash for winter, but along the way, I will still always manage to put some vegetables and fruit into freezer bags to place in the freezer for later use. If all goes well, I plan to make some various types of jellies and jams... because who doesn't just love some tasty home-made jelly?? It seems that sometimes I can never seem to can enough fruit or squash for the winter months. Another vegetable that seems to be a favorite around here is okra, so we plan to plant larger crop in the garden this year.
I always try to can as much tomatoes, greens, potatoes, cabbage, beans, and fruit. We love to eat a lot of fresh fruit cobblers and pies, so making sure that I have enough fruit to last us the winter is important. There's nothing more tasty than fresh home-made soup.... I have found that when I fix a large batch of soup, I will put smaller portions of soup in the freezer to help make a quick meal when you're in a pinch for time. I also try to make up some extra pancakes or waffles and place on a cookie sheet to stick in the freezer for about 45 minutes. Then I also add the pancakes or waffles to a plastic zip-lock bag. The same thing can also be done to any extra biscuits so that you will have some on hand for later on.
To help make making home-made dressing a little less time consuming, I often freeze any extra cornbread in zip loc bags. That way when I need some cornbread for my dressing recipe or for any casserole recipe, I can whip it all up in a hurry, wihtout having to make another batch. It has helped me stretch everything, as well as reduce wasting anything. I'm not a fan of wasting anything, so when I am able to find ways to help conserve and put things back for later use, I will. A lot of folks find this to be strange, but with the way things are economically and financially for our family, every thing that I can save, can, or prepare ahead of time helps out tremendously. It may not make sense to everyone, but this is a great way for anyone who wants to try something new or different in order to help stretch whatever your budget can afford.
For us, canning and putting food up from the garden for future use just makes sense and is not really hard to do, as some would have you to believe. It can be done in smaller batches or large.... just whatever you have on hand at the time works even better. If you don't have a pressure canner.. don't feel bad, you can still put up vegetables, fruit, and left overs in plastic zip-loc bags. We have never had anything go bad or become freezer burned, because we always use whatever we have put up in the freezer. We have had very few things go bad with our canned items, but the few times that something has spoiled was due to someone bumping the jars over, which broke the seal, without being spotted in time.
Since we have pets, nothing scrap wise ever goes to waste. What the dog doesn't eat, the cats will always eat the rest of. Any fruit, pasta, rice, bread, or vegetable scraps go to the chickens. Not only has this been a treat for our birds, but they enjoy their treats, which makes for some very happy birds. So even scraps are not wasted, because there is always some eagerily, happy pets waiting for meal-time to arrive. If I happen to have bones left-over from a meal, I will wash them clean and put in a crockpot so that they will cook slow enough to crush easily and they can be added to the pets' food. They find this to be very tasty and enjoy this special treat.
There are lots of ways to reduce waste and stretch things, and I will talk about more ways to do this in future posts.... so please stay tuned. As a busy wife, mother, and homeschool family, it's often hard to write as frequently as I would like to, but when I get a few minutes to sit and write I do. As school times gets closer, I'm very certain that schedules will be crazy and things will be even busier, but I do plan to write as often as I possibly can. Happy Belated 4th of July weekend!! Take care and have an awesome remainder of your weekend!! Until next post..... May God bless!!!
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