Stocking the Pantry via Deanna

I have been a fan of Our Plain and Simple Life for quite some time. Deanna does alot of stuff that I do, but does even more things that I would like to do. Recently, she posted about a Mega Shopping trip to stock her pantry for 6 months. That is something I have wanted to do for a long time, I just have a hard time knowing where to start. I think she may have gotten the ball rolling for me. She updated with this post on That shopping trip and That plan. I am anxious to read more about this! Thanks so much Deanna!!!

Sidenote: Deanna did this 6 month pantry stocking for 11 people on $1300!!!

2010 Garden Changes

Every year I keep a running list of what I want to change for the next years garden. Here is what I have compiled to far.

Need to grow more potatoes, corn and garlic
Grow less tomatoes
Try pickles again
Keep the amount of carrots about the same
Get a few more raspberry and blueberry plants started
Fill in the dead spots of the strawberry patch
No popcorn
Keep the amount of greenbeans the same
No peas needed
Do more herbs: mints, bay, cumin, echinacea
See if we can start some grapes or apples
Keep onions about the same
Do some landscaping in the front yard
Do less canning this year - I hate to do that, but with a newborn and a 2 year old in tow, I don't know how much I will be able to do this year. Thank goodness for the bumper crop of tomatoes last year!

Edited to add: We will not be doing potatoes in tires this year. They do grow well that way if they are kept well watered. We won't be doing it that way because I need to be able to handle the harvesting by myself. The tires are too large and heavy for my 5'1" petite frame to handle without injuring myself! I can't always count on my husband to be able to help me. Afterall, he works full time plus helps run his family's farm.

New Granny Miller sites

I have been a huge fan of Granny Miller. I was so saddened when she ended her blog last year. But alas! She is back!!!! She is such an inspiration for me!

http://smallholdersdaily.blogspot.com/

http://homesteadgardenandpantry.com/

http://americanhomecanning.com/

Yay for Granny!!!!

How time flies and things change!

I know, it's been a LONG time since I have been here! I truly have wanted to post again, but I had a few things tying me down. Like the post title says, things change! So here's some explaining...

First off, the main thing that has changed in my life and that was holding me back from posting is that I became pregnant again! As of today, I am 16 weeks along. The first trimester does not treat me well. I have had long bouts of morning sickness that stayed with me all day long. When you feel that nauseous for 2 1/2 months it puts a damper on any plans you may have. I have struggled just to get basic housework done, let alone any computer time! Also during that stomach-turning time, I endured several sinus infections, strep throat, a kidney infection not to mention numerous holiday gatherings. That being said, it has also been a very exhausting time for me!
The nausea is over (except when I smell meat cooking), but I am still very tired most days. What a challenging several months it has been! Enough of the complaining - the pregnancy is actually going well. I have seen my midwife twice now, and each time the baby's vitals are well as are mine. I can't complain about that!! She has figured my due date to be July 7.

Winter has been here in full force. Not much snow yet, but plenty of cold weather. Makes me glad to have some food stored away! Looks like I need to update my gardening and canning columns on the right to show what I really put up this past year! And that reminds me, Andy built some wonderful shelves in the basement for some of our food storage. Those shelves have been such a blessing already! They are large enough that I have taken stuff out of our living spaces and stored them there. The next plan is to extend the canning shelves that we already have. I can't wait to have all that storage space! We live in a smallish old farm house. Anyone who has ever lived in an older farmhouse knows that there is no storage space! The basement was under-utilized so now it will be a great benefit to our lives. I will have to post some pictures of the shelves.

The outdoor wood-burner is working great. It is keeping us warm while keeping the mess outdoors. Since we are not bringing wood into the basement to burn, we have had only one mouse in the basement so far. Prior years, we caught many more than that by now. So glad to be rid of them! The basement is far cooler that it was when the furnace was housed there, but it is still warm enough to line-dry the laundry down there. Another added benefit, is that the stored food will last much longer in the cooler basement.

This is all the time I have for right now. I need to nap! Please be patient as I try to get back into posting and updating this blog.

Frost Advisory!

I can tell the seasons are definitely changing in our neck of the woods. The trees are becoming more colorful, the tomatoes are finishing up (yay!), the days are getting shorter and the farmer's are beginning the big harvest. Top that off with our first frost advisory. The low is expected to be around 34 degrees tonight. Time to cover the tender garden plants!

We started our outdoor wood burner for the first time yesterday evening. Works great! No more indoor mess and there should be alot less dusting on my part! One cool thing about this wood burner is that it also heats our water.

Since the weather turned cooler this week, I needed to pull out our light-weight bed comforters and Audrey's footed pj's. Those pj's always look so comfy!

We also started wearing jackets this week. Looks like I better make sure our heavy coats, overalls, hats and mittens are clean and ready to wear!

I canned the last of the tomatoes yesterday. (HUGE sigh of relief!) I will pick whatever is left today and they will be dehydrated this week. I will not try to save the tomato plants from the frost. They have blessed me beyond expectations and anyways, I don't have enough sheets/blankets/anything! to cover all 24 plants. I will try to save the greenbeans, jalapenos and raspberries. The carrots and onions can handle slight freezing so no worries there.

With the major canning done (unless I find a great deal on apples) I will concentrate on getting the remainder of my pantry stocked. This would include things like oils, seasonings, baking supplies and toiletries. Here are some great links that have helped me stock my pantry.

Food Storage Made Easy

Food Storage and Preservation

and a great yahoo group called food-storage:LDS(and friends) Food storage

All three sites are extremely helpful to those wanting to start their own food storage and explaining why alot of us believe in doing so. In my opinion, it just makes sense. I look at it as another form of insurance.

Time to go stir my simmering chili soup and curl up with some sewing and enjoy the quiet while Audrey is still napping!

Updates...

Updated the 2009 Food Preservation Tally and How Our Garden Grows 2009 in the right hand column.
Still busy harvesting and canning, so much that I ran out of canning jars and I am now using my MIL's old ones!!

Knee-Deep in Tomatoes!!

Tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes!!! We have tomatoes!

Seems we are picking about a 1/2 bushel of tomatoes every 2 days. Yesterday hubby helped me puree about 70 pounds of them. Today, it is simmering and being canned into spaghetti sauce.


So far we have done salsa, pizza sauce, tomato soup, tomato/veggie juice and now the spaghetti sauce. The plan is to make more soup, juice and sauce. Then possibly some ketchup. Any other ideas?

Weekend Canning Totals

Pizza Sauce - 40 pints

Spiced Pears - 11 quarts

Done canning until more tomatoes ripen. The cool summer has them lagging behind.

Canning Away

Suddenly, it has become my major canning season.

Yesterday, my mother-in-law came over and helped me put up 23 quarts of peaches.

Today, hubby and I have turned 1/2 bushel of tomatoes into pizza sauce. As I type, it is simmering and becoming yummy! I will let it simmer a bit longer and then the canning starts! The sauce filled an entire canning kettle, so I will most likely be canning some of it tomorrow. Can't wait to see how many pints of pizza sauce we end up with!

The next batch of ripe tomatoes will be turned into soup. I use this recipe from Stephanie at Stop The Ride!

Hope everyone is enjoying their canning season!

What I did on my summer vacation

Anyone else remember going back to school and having to write a story called "What I did on my summer vacation"? Mine was always fairly drab. We lived in a very small town (population about 900), and there was nothing exciting about it. My stories usually consisted of me telling about riding my bicycle everyday, reading a ton of books in the summer reading program, going to the fair for one afternoon and maybe going fishing at the lake in the nearby town. I always hated writing about it because it seemed so boring. We never took family vacations like so many others did. But that's ok, I am not scarred for life over it. Looking back, they were really good summer vacations. I read ALOT, I got plenty of exercise and got to fight with my sisters everyday! To top it off, my mom was home with us everyday. Sounds like a really great childhood to me!

Anywho, we took a short trip to Ohio Amish country for our summer vacation this year. We didn't go to gawk and exploit the Amish. Seems alot of people do. It has become SO touristy in some areas. I don't like that. We stayed between Sugarcreek and New Philadelphia at a place called Clara's Country Cottage. It wasn't fancy, it felt like home. It was in the middle of the countryside and very cozy.

While over there, we stopped at Lehman's. Lehman's is a non-electric hardware store. The place is HUGE! It has become quite crowded with people since I was last there about 7 years ago. That was a bit dissappointing. We managed around the crowd and picked up some needed (and wanted) items for our home. Here is a wall oil lamp we put in our living room:

We have this in our living room and do plan on using it. We also stocked up on lamp oil and wicks for this lamp and for our table oil lamps.

I have been wanting a wooden clothes drying rack to hang the smaller laundry items on, mostly for our winter drying. We line dry all of our laundry year round. During the winter, it is hung in the basement. I have already used and really like how much fits on it. This will free up alot clothesline for things.



Lehman's also carries lye for soapmaking. I searched everywhere in my area for it and cannot find it. They sell a 10# jug of it.

Next on my list was bulk food. We found a great place (non-touristy) in Baltic, Ohio. It's called Baltic Mills. Stocked up on various flours, sugars, yeast, oatmeal and spices. We also stopped in Sugarcreek at Swiss Village Bulk Foods. Some things were more expensive in Sugarcreek, but not by much. An example of the Baltic Mills prices are: hard red and white wheat flours were $0.85/lb, and whole wheat pastry flour was $0.68/lb. Picture of some of my bulk food storage:


On Saturday, we visited The Farm at Walnut Creek. It was a nice place to see exotic and domestic animals. Our daughter really loved it. Here she is feeding a goat:


That was our summer vacation! It was very relaxing since we didn't do a bunch of running around. We were gone 4 days and the above is all we did. Of course we ate some really delicious food! Mrs. Yoder's Kitchen in Mt. Hope is SO good!

Going to Lehmans!

For those of you interested in homesteading and preparedness, you probably know what Lehmans is. For those of you who don't know, Lehmans is a non-electric hardware located in Ohio Amish country.

And we are going there!

This will be our second time there, but it has been years since our first visit. The plan is to get some oil lamp parts, soap making supplies(I can't find lye around here), laundry drying racks and possibly a few other small items. And of course we will look at the woodstove displays!

While in the area we will also be spending some time in the Amish bulk food stores stocking up on winter neccesities. Once again, we don't have any stores around here similar to what they have there.

Then maybe something that will interest our daughter, like some animals.

So we will be gone for a few days to relax and enjoy doing nothing. Then it will be time to come home and start putting up the sweet corn and tomatoes!!

The month of June

Looks like another month went by and I did not blog. Sorry for those who actually follow this! It's been quite busy around here to say the least! So for those of you who have been wondering what I've been getting into, here you go.


I have been enjoying spending time with my daughter, I love being a stay at home mom! She will be 2 in early September, time flies! In this picture, she is trying to help me with my baking. She loves to put on her apron and "help" like the big girl she knows she is!


I have made 2 batches of homemade laundry detergent. I haven't made this in years. We really like how well it works and it beats the outrageous price of commercial detergent! I plan on doing a seperate post on how to make this.


Found a wonderful multi-grain bread recipe in Backwoods Home Magazine (my fave mag!). I have tried for several years to find a recipe that hubby and I both like. This is finally it! I should do a sperate post on this also!


This is a Little Tykes play gym I bought for $5 at a garage sale. Had some wear, but that's to be expected! This has really helped me be able to work in the garden and keep my daughter occupied! I keep a list of household and individual needs throughout the year and scour garage sales for them. This year I am really crossing things off my list. I love garage sales!


We are working (slowly) on the landscaping around our house. I have lived here for 6 years, and hubby lived here for 3 years before that, and we never did anything with the yard except mow it! We decided it was high time to eradicate the weeds that took over the former flower beds. This is a planter I put together to help pretty up the porch. I can't stand the prices of pre-made planters, so I buy what I like and throw it together in a dollar store container. The milk can was saved from the metal scrap pile at my in-laws farm.


The strawberries didn't do too bad this year. Certainly not the banner year we had 2 years ago. However, I can't complain as I picked about 2 gallons from our small patch. They were so good fresh, but I froze quite a bit also.


Pea pickin has come and gone! This was my first year growing peas. I was very surprised at the size of these! I grew Early Frosty Peas. They had on average 6-8 peas per pod. There were quite a few with 10 in them! And none of these were tiny peas either. I will definately grow this variety again! I ended up freezing about 6 quart bagfulls.


Raspberries...yummy!!! I bought 2 raspberry plants (or do you call them bushes?) this year. They nursery said they were 2 years old already. I have been picking a steady small handful every couple days for the past couple weeks. They are so good! We are eating them as we pick them. I think my little girl has ate 90% of them!


Then came the greenbeans! The last couple days of June brought me about a 1/2 bushel of beans. I canned them up into 6 quarts and 1 pint.

Then the end of June came and we received some devestating news. I have had a miscarriage. I was only 8 weeks along. This is my second one, the first being before we had our daughter. Words cannot describe how it feels to lose baby. I pray that those around me never have to experience it.

So all in all, I have mostly worked in the garden weeding, picking and putting up the wonderful goodness God has provided us this year. Throw in some garage sales and lots of outdoor play time with my daughter, and it was a pretty good month!

Grocery shopping

In the past couple months, I have reduced my shopping trips. I was going once a week. I hate shopping, so I decided it was high time to quit going so often. I grow food and cook from scratch,so this was the next most logical step to take towards my quest for food self-reliance. So I figured out to shop only once every two weeks. That went real easy. So easy in fact, I probably could have gone 3 weeks on my last grocery trip if I had planned a couple of items better. So I had my shopping trip to Kroger today. I planned on enough to last 3 weeks. In reality, it should last an entire month. I will need to make a trip to town later this week, and there I will pick up my remaining 3 week supplies at Aldi. (My local Kroger and Aldi are not in the same town, and I really wish they were!)
My biggest challenge so far has been having enough dairy products. We currently use about 4 gallons of milk a week and use lots of cheese. So in order to have a months supply of milk, I have been freezing it. Kroger has had some fabulous deals on milk lately and I have been getting it for $1.76-2.00/gallon. That is dirt cheap around here!
Milk in the freezer.

At this point, it makes monetary(and health) sense to be producing our own dairy. However, I have a toddler and my dh is away from home often. We want to have more children (God willing) and I need to keep in mind that pregnancy and breastfeeding and diapering, etc, etc all take alot of time when I have to do alot of it by myself. So I have to pick and choose until I have children old enough to help me more. I would really love to be able to raise all of our animals products and entirely quit going to the grocery! Did I ever mention I hate shopping?

Note: I wanted to add a note just to clarify my shopping habits. We NEVER just keep a week or two worth of food at our house. I feel that would be irresponsible of me. I always have canned foods and meat in my pantry and freezer. If I don't go to the grocery one week, we won't starve. When I talk about grocery shopping, I'm talking about things like dairy products, fresh fruit and veggies (when we aren't growing them), toilet paper, soaps, juice, crackers, cereal, etc. It also includes restocking the pantry/freezer as needed. These would include(but not exclusively) beef, chicken, pork, canned fruit/veggies, flour, yeast, sugar, etc. My ultimate grocery goal is to be able to shop for 6 months at a time, or even better, one year!

Making Fruit Leather

I've been making fruit leather again. This time its apple-strawberry. I puree a gallon bag of my home-grown strawberries (thawed from the freezer) and add a little (home canned)applesauce to help thicken it a bit. I then add about a 1/4 cup of sugar. Not absolutely neccesary, but it does help reduce the tartness. Pour onto the trays and dry!
I only have one fruit leather tray that came with the dehydrator. So what I did to be able to make more than one at a time is use wax paper cut to fit the trays. Works really well! I tried using plastic wrap, but didn't really like it. With the wax paper, it's easier to wash it and re-use. I'm all for reusing and eliminating waste and cutting costs! Plus, the wax paper I have is the wax bags from boxes of cereal. I always save those bags, they are so handy! I can't tell you the last time I bought wax paper! On that note, I also haven't bought foil, plastic wrap or plastic baggies in several years. I always wash and air dry what I use and reuse, reuse, reuse! Sounds like a good start to another installment of Disposing of Disposables!

Make Your Own...

Onion Soup Mix

2c powdered milk
3/4c cornstarch
1/4c beef boullion crystals/powder
2T dried onion flakes
1 tsp dried basil leaves, crushed

Stores up to 1 year in a bag/jar.

To use: 1/3c of mix per recipe. Blend with water for soup or sour cream for dips.

Correction to Seasoned Salt recipe

I made an error on the Seasoned Salt Recipe. Please add the following:

1/4 tsp turmeric

Sorry for any inconveniences this may have caused!

I have changed the recipe post but wanted to note it here in case anyone is following this blog and has made it already!

Make your own...

SEASONED SALT

2tbsp salt
2tsp sugar
1/2tsp paprika
1/4tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp turmeric

Combine in a small bowl and mix well. Pour into an empty spice bottle. Make about 1/4 cup.

Make your own...

SWEETENED CONDENSED MILK

1/2c hot water
3/4c sugar
3/4c powdered milk

Blend together in a blender (or mix well by hand). Store in frig or freezer. Makes 1 can.

Make your own...

EVAPORATED MILK

1-1/2c warm water
1c powdered milk
1tbsp butter

Mix milk and water together in a small saucepan. Add butter. Heat and stir at medium until the butter is melted. Use right away, or cool and then refrigerate. Equals one store-bought can.

Stocking the pantry from the garden 2008

Canning, I love it and I hate it. I love the independence it gives my family. I love looking at the beautiful colored jars in my basement, just waiting to be ate. I love that I don't have to buy everything at the grocery as long as I can some foods. I hate the long hours standing and making my feet, legs and back hurt. I hate the time not spent with my daughter because she is too young to help me. I hate how tiring it can be. Thank goodness I don't do the harvest-type of canning year-round! All in all, I really do love to can my foods. Like I said, I love the independence it gives us! In 2008, I did more canning than I have ever done before. I had alot given to us, and we made our garden larger. Some other foods I froze, dried or kept in a dark cool place.
Here is what I did:

Canning-
11 qts green beans
42 qts tomato sauce
11 pts carrots
7 qt mater soup
5 pt apple butter
31 qt apple sauce
7 qt pear sauce

Dried-
28 apples
lots of parsley, oregano and lavender
all onions (189)
1 pt maters
1 head sunflower seeds

Froze-
4gal strawberries
12 bell peppers
1gal blackberries

Keeping fresh-
15# carrots
5 pumpkins
5# taters

Key to my abbreviations: qt=quart, pt=pint, gal=gallon, mater=tomato, tater=potato

Notes:
I did not personally grow the apples, pears or blackberries. The apples and pears were given to me. I bought the blackberries from a local farmer.
The peppers did very poorly this year, hence only 12. Then they ended up getting pitched because they had such a horrible taste to them. Don't know what happened there.