Canning and canning and more canning!

That pretty much sums up what I have been doing! Thought I would take a few minutes and say that I have not given up on this blog! I'm am just incredibly busy right now! I've put up tomatoes, carrots, pears, onions and peppers AND my hubby found me some apples that I will start on this weekend! So, that explains why my house is a wreck, I am so exhausted and why I have been absent from here! Stick around, because I have been taking pictures and will post them along with my menues and disposables articles that I have previously promised to write about! I promise, this winter there will be meatier post here! Enjoy the last days of summer!

Recent garage sale finds

Large fabric remnants, a doorway jumper, 2 dresses, portable toilet seat and games and toys. Found all this for less than $10.
Nice finds for baby girl's birthday and Christmas this year.

Make your own dry minced onions

Many people dry their own bananas or apples, but did you know it is very easy to make your own dry minced onions or dry onion powder? I wait until I find a good sale on onions and buy lots of them. It's even cheaper when you can grow your own! I can only speak from experience with an electric food dehydrator, however I have read where you can dry things outdoors or in your oven. Do a web search and I am sure you can find instructions as to how to do this without spending money on a dryer. I have had mine for many years so it has paid for it's self many times over. This is how I do it...

First, cut the ends off your onions and peel away the dry, papery outer layers. Second, slice your onions to about 3/8" thick. Now lay them onto the dehydrator and turn it on. It takes 12-14 hours in my dryer. Yours may vary. Just follow the instructions that came with your dryer. After they are dry, they should be brittle. You do not want to store them with moisture in them, it will ruin the whole batch.

Next I put them in the blender and whir them to the desired consistency - chopped or powdered.

I store them in old glass jars or chipped canning jars - anything I can't use for canning. I also give used canning lids a second life by using them to seal these jars of dried food. That's all there is to it, it's that easy! Just use as you would normally use the store-bought kind. Only this way they are far cheaper, and if you grow the onions yourself, it is very frugal and self-sufficient!

One tip that I recommend is to place your dryer in your garage or outdoors because it will make your house really stink to dry onions.

I plan on doing this to my garlic this year. I have never done it before, but I am sure it will be the same as the onions. Have fun drying your own onions or garlic!

Not-So-Bountiful Harvest

Well, we dug up the taters from the one stack of tires and here is what we found:

Not what we had hoped for. We haven't tackled the second stack yet. Probably the same results. We think that they probably didn't get enough water. It's been real dry this summer, and with all that dirt, I guess I just didn't water them enough. I did water them every other day. I thought I was doing good. There were lots of roots, just not many taters. We are not going to give up on this method. We plan on trying again next year. We may cut the tires and run a soaker hose through them at the bottom.

The tomatoes are just as pitiful this year. Here is what I have picked to far.

These are supposed to be full sized Roma's. Not so big are they? Note they also have blossom end rot. From what I understand, that comes from a calcium deficiency and water uptake. Again, these were watered ever other day since they are in a raised bed. But it has been dry as I said. Sigh. These poor maters have had a rough year. Fungus (from when we got TOO much rain), tomato horn worms, drought conditions and I'm sure something else will occur yet! To the right of the maters, there is a well-aged over-ripe greenbean. I have let quite a few beans go to seed for saving for next year. I never did this before and I was curious to see how far along they were. Not far enough. They are still quite wet inside.

On the bright side, the carrots look well and I planted peas last week and they are sprouting. Also I have 4 good sized pumpkins. And I have 12 pints and 5 quarts of green beans canned, along with another 6 or so pints to can. So I really can't complain. Except we still need rain.

This is what showed up on my porch today!

I ordered an accessory kit for my Roma strainer, a 1-cup ladle and the catalog was thrown in for free all from Lehman's non-electric hardware store. I love this place. We went there a few years back and I fell in love with it. It is my kind of store! I would much rather shop at Lehman's than Macy's or JCPenneys! I really wanted this kit so I can process berries without all the seeds. Now I can can some blackberry jam! The ladle will help my canning go faster. I've been using a ladle that seems to only hold 1/4 cup. It took forever to fill jars.

Low-Cost Recipes

I'm starting a new topic here that will include my favorite low-cost/easy recipes. Not only will it be helpful to others, but it will help me organize my recipes and see what I make throughout the year. This way it will help me with planning my gardening and canning. That's the plan anyways!


Weekly Menu for August 17-23, 2008:

Sunday - leftover day
Monday - Ham in crockpot, taters, carrots, pears
Tuesday - Italian Macaroni Bake
Wednesday - leftover day
Thursday - Fried Rice with chicken
Friday - Semi-homemade pizza
Saturday - out

You may notice we do alot of leftover days. In my household, there are only 2 adults and 1 child who is almost a year old. DH does eat alot and I am nursing still, so I cook for 4-6 people. This leaves enough for DH to have lunch the next day at the bare minimum. Usually we have enough for all 3 of us to have for lunch, or save for supper on a busy day. Also DH requests that I make at least 1# of meat per meal. I know that this is an expensive way to eat, but that's what he likes so I do it. He grew up on a cattle farm, so he is used to eating that way. Likewise, he does not like alot of beans and rice, so this hampers my quest for inexpensive meals. We eat alot of meat and potato meals as you will see. No we are not over-weight, no heart problems, dh does have slightly elevated cholesterol (so does his entire family - I wonder why!) and we do not go to the gym to burn off all those calories. We just work hard on the farm, in the garden, chop wood and chase our baby girl around the yard!
Hopefully I can help someone cook inexpensive meat and tater meals!

What a beauty!

A little pumpkin peeking through the oregano.

Garden Pictures

As promised, pictures of my Square Foot Gardens...The boxes...sorry about the shadows!

Bell peppers in the foreground at left, onions behind(the winds we've had has blown the tops down) and the pole beans in the back. The empty spaces had broccoli in them. These spaces will hopefully soon be full of carrots!

The tomatoes. This is a mess. I will never do maters like this again! These are all different types of paste tomatoes. I thought they were all vining type and there would be plenty of room, but I was wrong! The good thing is that there are a bunch of green tomatoes right now, some just turning orange. I planted 24 tomatoes here. Can you see why maybe they would be prone to the fungus they had earlier? Live and learn!

Side view of the pole beans. We used a fence-like thing that dh found to trellis them. It worked out ok. Next year we will use string and dowels so they can climb easier. I have gotten quite a few pickings so far despite the many Japanese beetles that infested these a month ago.

View of the carrots.

And the tater tires! As you can see, the right side is dying off. I dug around yesterday and found 3 taters. One was nicely sized, the other two not so much. I'm anxious to take these a part and see how many taters we got! I got the idea from Stephanie at Stop The Ride!

The pumpkin vine is at the base of the tires.

South side of garage lives the tater stacks, pumpkin, sunflowers and herbs. Herbs include garlic, chives, oregano and hyssop. Baby girl likes to check out what she can pull on.

My Gardens

I have always loved gardening. I've gardened my whole life in various different capacities. When I moved to my current house in the country, I was very excited about the idea of having a very large, old-fashion type of garden. I couldn't wait! Well, that year I did have a very large garden. Too large. I was overwhelmed with weeds. I couldn't keep up. My husband was very dissappointed with it's appearance and threatened to spray every bit of it dead. I was not thrilled. He did not spray it, and I never had a garden like that again. I turned to Square Foot Gardening. It has been amazing. This year we expanded. Since we are a little family now and with inflation we thought it was time. Here is the garden at beginning of season.
As you can see they are raised garden beds. The original SFG(square foot gardening) method is a 4x4 square. We modified that to a 4x8 square. I just had one of those for a couple of years. Then this year dh made 3 more. So due to space constraints, we butted them up to each other making four 4x8 raised beds. Looking at the picture, the top left has my paste maters, bottom left has carrot seed and a parsley plant. Top right has 2 bell peppers, 6 broccoli and a bunch of yellow onions. Bottom right has pole snap beans. Current picture will be coming soon.

Not only do we have these boxes, but we have a different way of planting taters. This is what we did this year.

I got the idea from Stephanie at Stop the Ride. We used truck tires, so we were able to use 6 tater seed per stack. Also because we used a bigger tire, we only went 3 high. The stack on the right is already turning brown. So we will soon harvest (hopefully... Stephanie didn't have much luck with hers). Current pics to come! (waiting on weather to clear!)

So far I have harvest green beans, broccoli, and 2 peppers. Not as much as I'd hoped thus far. The maters got a fungus that stunted their growth for awhile (we had alot of wet weather for a while), then the green beans were invaded by a ton of Japanese beetles.

So, I guess I'm not growing that 6 month food supply I have dreamed about doing. Live and learn and do better next year, right?

Still here...

I'm still here, if anybody's watching! Just been super busy with the garden, still breastfeeding and the added responsibilities of being a faremer's wife. I have been taking photos of my gardens that I really want to post. No time to right now. The garden is doing so-so. Definately not where I had hoped it would be! More on that later!

Loving the sunshine!

The weather has been so wonderful, I can't stay indoors! Baby and I have been spending a good portion of the day outside doing preps for the garden, digging weeds, mowing, walking and just enjoying spring!
Dh moved my canning stove so I can start using it again. Yes, I have a seperate canning stove. The one in the kitchen Dh bought before we where married and is a flat glasstop - the kind your not supposed to can on. So, when we married, we brought the stove from my house and put it in the basement for me to use in canning. We plan on installing a utility sink next to it so I don't have to make so many runs up and down the steps to fill the canner and wash things. That will be a great time saver! I can't wait to start using it! I have a bunch of strawberries and rhubarb in the freezer from last year I want to turn into jam. I never got them last year with my pregnancy and being so tired! Soon the new crop will be coming in, so I need to do something with last years!
I still plan on posting more on the Disposing of Disposables segment I started. I just can't stay indoors to do ANYTHING right now! The cold air and rain are to make a comeback this weekend, so that will be a good time to get back to those articles AND cleaning my house again!
The sunshine and my baby are calling me! I can't sit still any longer!

Ready to garden

I am ready to sink my hands and feet into the garden! However, the weather is not cooperating! It has been in the low 30's at night and chilly and rainy during the day. This week is supposed to be much better. I can't wait! I'm sure with all the rain we have had recently, it will still be too wet to plant or dig. This makes me sad - I have the gardening itch soo bad right now! So in the meantime, I have made my garden plans. Here they are:

tomatoes
greenbeans
sweet corn
onions
garlic
broccoli

I'm not set as to how much of each. I'm not sure how much space dh will allow me to dig up. We currently have a raised bed that we have used for the past 2 years. I use the square foot gardening method in it. I also have an area for my herbs. Currently, there are chives, oregano, hyssop and lavender in that bed. They are all growing very nicely right now.
I would love to raise enough food to cover at least 50% of our consumption. Anybody do this or more? I plan on doing more canning and drying this year to accomplish this. Can't wait to share photos of the garden and the fruits of my labor!

Disposing of Disposables- Cleaning Supplies, part 1

Swiffer-type floor dusters

Quit buying those replacement pads!! You can make them yourself!

Once again, I have found the Walmart remnant bin helpful in replacing this disposable. Go and find yourself some fleece remnants. Yes, fleece works WONDERFUL at dusting your hard floors (and everything else, more on that in a later article!).

All I did was put the fleece on the floor and place the head of the swiffy on it. Make sure you leave a little bit of fleece around the short sides of the swiffy. Pull the fleece up and over the long sides of the swiffy and give yourself enough fabric to tuck into the slots to hold it in place. Then just cut it out. Tuck the fleece into the slots and dust your hard floors to your hearts content! The fleece works wonderful at picking up dust, hair and lint. I always use both sides of the fleece before throwing it in the washer. As far as washing, just throw it in with the appropriate colors and wash like anything else. It does help to pull of any excessive lint before washing.

This is so easy, you’ll wonder why you spent so much time and money buying those boxed disposable types!

Disposing of Disposables - Napkins

Cloth Napkins vs Paper Napkins

I have sewn or bought cloth napkins for several years now. For making my own, I have used material in the remnant bins at Walmart. Super cheap way to get cloth napkins. You can make them any size you want. I currently make them 9” x 9” square. They are also 2-ply. This picture are of my most recent napkins I have made. When I have bought napkins, they have been second-hand. Another very cheap route to go! Most any consignment/thrift stores or garage sales will have cloth napkins. Most are obviously unused.

We currently have 14 napkins and this number seems to be working well for us right now (2 adults).

Most cloth napkins are so large they can be re-used at another meal. This is how we can get by with 14. Actually, up until a month ago, we only had 8 napkins and that number served us well also.

With cloth napkins, you never run out (unless you don't do your laundry regularly!) So, no more buying from the store, no more storing them somewhere until use, no more excess garbage in the landfills! And they are softer on the face than paper!

So go out, buy some fabric and whip up a few or buy some second-hand. You will be happy that you did!

Random Ramblings..

Sorry for being MIA. Baby got sick and then dh and I also did. We are all better now and it's time to get back to life!
I will be doing a little series on Disposing of Disposables. I will be going through what changes we have made in our lives to get rid of the excessive disposable products that are everywhere we look. Hope it can be of some help to others!
I have also recently been motivated to do more about emergency preparedness and self-sufficiency. It has long been a passion of mine, however certain life-moments kinda put it on the back burner for awhile. With the current economic situation, I find it is time to kick into high gear on this issue. Only now I have a 7-month old, and it feels a bit more overwhelming to accomplish and yet more important now than ever. Right now I am reading some books on the topic and doing some planning (between the nursing sessions and diaper changes and laundry and...!) I am hoping to have some posts on this issue and can't wait to hear what others are doing or planning!

Super Savings Saturday!

This weeks CVS finds!

I am not the best at doing "the CVS thing", but I don't do too bad in my opinion. Hopefully ,I get this right. I had a child screaming while I was checking out and my memory is a bit fuzzy as to how this all panned out.

First transaction:

3 Colgate Toothpaste - 2.99 each, used (2)$1 coupons and (1)1.50 coupon. Earned (3)2.99 ECB's. Free plus overage after ecb's!

2 Colgate Toothbrushes - 0.88 each, used (1)1.00 coupon and (1) 0.76 coupon - I don't understand this coupon on my receipt. I know I had another 1.00 coupon. Earned overage after coupons!

1 Clear Care Contact Solution - 7.99, used (1)2.00 coupon. Earned 3 ECB's.

2 Nabisco Cookie pkg (oops! not pictured) - 2/5.00. Earned 2 ECB's.

Then I used a $5/$15 CVS coupon. So I paid $12.43 for $32.39 worth of products. A savings of $19.96!

Second transaction:

1 Palmolive dish soap - 2.50 (part of a 2/$5 deal) Used a 0.40 coupon.

1 Dawn Ultra - 2.50 (part of a 2/$5 deal) Used a 0.50 coupon

1 Irish Spring 3-pk - 0.97. Used a 0.30 coupon.

Birthday card (not pictured - already given away!) - 0.99

Birthday card - 2.59

Birthday card - 3.69

CVS Vaporizer - 13.99

CVS Vapor Steam - 4.29

1 Huggies wipes - 3.49 Used a 1.00 coupon.

Then I used another 5/$15 CVS coupon. I then applied my above earned ECB's to this transaction since it was the costliest. I ended up with a total of 16.47 in CVS coupons to tack onto this. So I paid a total of 12.29 for $39.66 worth of products.

In all I spent 24.72 for $72.05 worth of product! A saving of $47.33!! This makes me happy. I am sure I could've done better, but I am still learning! And I still have a couple of ExtraCare Coupons for online and CVS brand items.

Note: the amount I list as $x.xx worth of products is the amount I would've spent without my CVS card. Get a card, it's worth it!!

What a difference in weather! I was finally able to hang diapers outside yesterday! It was a beautiful day - and guess what, today is cloudy and rainy. It's even supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow. Don't all you midwesterners just love how quickly our weather changes?

Baby has a cold and she is due for her shots. Still debating if I really want to bring her in for those tomorrow. This is the round of vacs that made her not feel good the last time. We use Dr. Sears alternative schedule to vac her. Anybody else do this also? The lady at the health dept. really gives me a hard time over this schedule. But, they only cost $8 there so that's why we go there for them.

This is what we woke up to yesterday. I guess old man winter is still trying to hang on. It did melt away fairly quickly. Today is yucky - windy, cloudy, rainy. Blah!

Little girl had her 6 month checkup today. She is off the charts for her height. Everything looks good for her development. Yay!

Today I am working on chicken. I boiled up a bunch of parts and then seperated the pieces from the stock. After that I refrigerated everything. Yesterday I skimmed the fat off the top of the stock. Then I ladled the jelled stock into containers to freeze. All together I have about 100 ounces of stock in the freezer. So today I will pull all the meat off the bones and bag it and freeze it for future meals. Sounds like alot of work, but I bought the chicken for $0.49/lb and to me that's worth it. It stretches the budget and makes for healthier stock and chicken.

Still waiting for Spring

I am eagerly awaiting for Spring to truly arrive so I can use my outdoor clothesline. There it sits, waiting for that perfect day to dry my laundry. It looks so lonely. The calendar says Spring, but the air does not. Sigh.