Canned Stewed Tomatoes

These are the best stewed tomatoes I've ever tasted. (sorry grandma)  If you don't have enough tomatoes from your garden to can, the recipe can easily be scaled down for dinner tonight!

4 quarts chopped, peeled and cored tomatoes
1 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons of salt

Combine all ingredients in a large pot and cook 10 minutes. Stir to prevent sticking.

Ladle hot tomatoes into hot jars.

Process pints 15 minutes/quarts 20 minutes at 10 pounds pressure in a pressure canner.

Yields approximately 7 pints/3 quarts.
The recipe with canning instructions can be found on Cooks.com.

Stewed tomatoes can be used in so many different ways, they are a great staple to have on the shelf any time of year, but will taste wonderful this winter!

Growing My Food Storage $5 A Week

Another week of growing my food storage with just $5. I'm always thinking of ideas to make it grow faster on a tight budget. If you have an idea or tip, be sure to share it.

I've canned several jars of salsa from produce grown from our garden. Love it when the food storage grows without having to spend my $5!

Last week I purchased 6 cans of corn from Dollar General.  The price is 3 cans for $2. This is a fair price but I'm watching for a rock bottom sale at one of the grocery stores because I know I can get it even cheaper than this, but needed to get some corn in the pantry. Our favorite canned vegetables are corn, green beans and carrots.  

Some of my family's other favorites that I purchase often are:

Rice
pastas
tuna
peanut butter
Ramen Noodles
soups
cereals

This isn't all I buy, but I like to buy what we use the most of and are used to eating. I add other items but just not in large quantities such as applesauce (great for baking as well) beans, and crackers.

I need to get my storage organized and cleaned up so I can post a picture of my progress.

In the next couple of months when the weather is cooler I will be canning meats.

Have any of you been adding to your food storage?

Making Salsa with my Kitchenaid Mixer

I've been busy making salsa. Lots of salsa. I ran out last winter in February. I hope I've made enough to last, but my husband will eat salsa everyday if he can get away with it.

This is my 3rd batch. I decided not to "can" it, meaning it was not water bathed. It went straight into the refridge. Two jars I'm giving away and I know they will be consumed immediately, and my husband will wolf down the remaining in our refridge. That saves a few more jars that I've already "canned" for later this winter.

This year is the first year I've used my KitchenAid Mixer. No more scorched fingers boiling tomatoes and skinning them. I love it!

Quite the contraption once set up! But I am in love with it!

That is all the seeds, cores and skins!

I need to count and see how many jars I have canned.  Plus we have already ate four!

My favorite antique jar!

Space Saving Wall Mounted Canned Food Rotating Rack

Check out this great idea for storing canned vegetables.

A space saving wall mounted rack! How brilliant is that?

For instructions on how to make this rack, visit Amy and Toby. They have great instructions.

$5 A Week Food Storage Update

Sorry for the quality of the photo, does blogger ever deal you a fit loading pictures?

For the last few weeks I've been adding a canned ham and box of rice to my food storage.  I buy these at the Dollar General store.  The ham is $3.15 and the rice is $1.75 for a total of $4.90.

I think it's important for my family to store some meats that do not require refrigeration.  Purchased canned meats is one solution.  I also stock tuna and will be checking into pressure canning some of my own meats this fall.

Have you been adding to your food storage weekly?

Bringin Home the Bacon!

I found bacon on sale 2 for $3. I consider $1.50 rock bottom price on bacon. The very same bacon was on sale at Price Chopper last week for $3.99 for one package. THAT was sale price! I refuse to pay $4 for a pound of bacon.

I picked up two packages and cut both packages in half. Then I bagged it up, 4 half slices in each bag, and threw them in my freezer. We do not like processed bacon bits. Ewwwwww!

I now can pull a package out to season green beans, baked beans, navy beans, dips, salads, and more. I don't have the luxury of running down the block to the local grocery when I cook. I have to keep a well stocked pantry and freezer, so I try to pick things up when I see them on such a great sale even if I won't be using it for a meal that week.

The two pounds gave me a dozen packages which will last several months and makes it really cheap.



 

Preparedness Challenge & Giveaway #34

Another month has come and gone. It was a busy month and the coming months will only be busier.

The Preparedness Challenge link up/blog hop is hosted by Homestead Revival every month. You will visit some great blogs, learn something new and meet some great homesteaders when you visit the others who participate. Be sure to check them out!

How I met the challenge this month:

Food Storage-for life's unexpected events whether related to long term effects from a disaster or a job loss and everything in between.
    *I added 12lbs of sugar, 30lbs of flour, 4 cans of tuna, 4 cans of cream soups, one pound of rice and this:

A Presto 16 quart Pressure Canner. After doing much research, I found this canner to meet most of my requirements, the two biggest being cost and something safe to use on my smooth glass top range.  It has a lot of good reviews. Another thing that sold me was the 5, 10, and 15 pound weights. I've never used a pressure canner (or cooker) before. All my past experience has been with a water bath canner, so I'm excited to learn a new skill in the coming weeks.

Emergency Preparedness-for times of power outages, natural disasters, etc.
    *I purchased more face masks, hand sanitizer and added 8 more 2 liter bottles of water to our stored water supply. A cheap alternative to purchasing a barrel to store water is 2 liter soda bottles. Here is instructions on how to prepare your soda bottles. Be sure to date them! Sine I filled these at the end of the month and so I dated them for next month.

Once the 6 month expiration has expired, I just move my bottles to the area where I store non-drinkable water. This would be water you can use for anything other than to drink/cook with such as flushing toilets.

Sustainable Living-in order to be more independent, both physically and financially and live as close to the land as possible given each individuals situation.
    *We purchased and planted a plum, nectarine, and peach tree; 2 red seedless grape vines, 6 strawberry plants, 8 asparagus roots as well as various annual vegetable plants (carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, etc). I also made a 6 bar batch of blender soap.

Things seem to move slow until I actually write down everything we accomplish and realize it was better than I thought.  I need to be more diligent in the area of emergency preparedness.

What do you do to prepare for emergencies?  Do you have extra flashlights, batteries, or oil lamps, etc?

Growing my food storage-$5 a week

This weeks $5 food storage purchase was 5 containers of salt, 2 boxes of quick rice and a package of 5 face masks (not pictured) from Dollar General. The salt was 5 for $2, the masks were 5 for $1 and the rice was $1.65 each. Total was $6.30 this week.

Last week I forgot to post so it's included in pic above. I bought 1 bag of sugar for $1.99 and a package of toilet paper for $2.50, a total of $4.49.

I am over my $5 a week budget by .79 for the last two weeks not including tax.

My 14 year old boy just KNOWS we are going to run out of toilet paper one of these days! He is sooooo paranoid about it. It cracks me up. I'll ask him and hubby "Is there anything we need" before I go shopping and he always says "Do we have enough toilet paper?" hahahaha He would die if I was to put a stack of telephone book pages in there. One of these days I'm going to do it to him. He needs to learn to appreciate some things more that he takes for granted.

The food storage is slowly growing once again. I'll be posting about the face masks on another day.

Did any of you add to your food storage this last week?

Building your food storage on $5 a week

The question I get asked the most is "How much of what foods should I buy & store?"

After giving some suggestions I hear "I can't afford it".  I use to have the same mindset, but with the help of friends around the www I learned that I couldn't afford NOT too.

Here is what I bought with my $5 this week:

Wednesday I purchased 8 Knorr Rices.  They were on sale for .59 each for a total of $4.72. I count this as part of my rice.

Everyone has their reasons for stockpiling/prepping, but everyone's goal is the same.  After much research here is the two tools I use and recommend.

The first one is A Management Plan for Home Food Storage  by The Utah State University Extension.  The first thing it has you to do is print off a "Food Storage Planner" chart. List your 10-20 most served meals. After you are done filling out this planner you will know exactly how many cans of tomato sauce, chili beans, corn, green beans, etc. you will need in your pantry to prepare your meals for a year.

The other tool I use is this concept taught by the LDS. I've made some substitutions/additions to this list to fit my families needs. I substituted flour for the wheat, some of the tomatoe soups with other soups.  I added rice, coffee, saltines, beans, oatmeal, ramen noodles, popcorn, pancake/baking mixes, chocolate, yeast, potatoe flakes, etc. Store what you use, Use what you store.

Food Storage for $5.00 a Week
Week 1: 6 lbs. salt
Week 2: 5 cans cream of chicken soup
Week 3: 20 lbs. of sugar
Week 4: 8 cans tomato soup
Week 5: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 6: 6 lbs. macaroni
Week 7: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 8: 8 cans tuna
Week 9: 6 lbs. yeast
Week 10: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 11: 8 cans tomato soup
Week 12: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 13: 10 lbs. powdered milk
Week 14: 7 boxes macaroni and cheese
Week 15: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 16: 5 cans cream of chicken soup
Week 17: 1 bottle 500 multi-vitamins
Week 18: 10 lbs. powdered milk
Week 19: 5 cans cream mushroom soup
Week 20: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 21: 8 cans tomato soup
Week 22: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 23: 8 cans tuna
Week 24: 6 lbs. shortening
Week 25: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 26: 5 lbs. honey
Week 27: 10 lbs. powdered milk
Week 28: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 29: 5 lbs. peanut butter
Week 30: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 31: 7 boxes macaroni and cheese
Week 32: 10 lbs. powdered milk
Week 33: 1 bottle 500 aspirin
Week 34: 5 cans cream of mushroom soup
Week 35: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 36: 7 boxes macaroni and cheese
Week 37: 6 lbs. salt
Week 38: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 39: 8 cans tomato soup
Week 40: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 41: 5 cans cream chicken soup
Week 42: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 43: 1 bottle 500 multi-vitamins
Week 44: 8 cans tuna
Week 45: 50 lbs. wheat
Week 46: 6 lbs. macaroni
Week 47: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 48: 5 cans cream mushroom soup
Week 49: 5 lbs. honey
Week 50: 20 lbs. sugar
Week 51: 8 cans tomato soup
Week 52: 50 lbs. wheat
________________________________________
Some weeks you will have leftover change. Save the change each week to be used for the weeks you may exceed $5.00 (like wheat or milk).
You will end up with:
500 pounds of wheat 180 pounds of sugar
40 pounds of powdered milk 12 pounds of salt
10 pounds of honey 5 pounds peanut butter
40 cans of tomato soup 15 cans of cream of mushroom soup
15 cans of cream of chicken soup 24 cans of tuna
21 boxes of macaroni and cheese 500 aspirin
1000 multi-vitamins 6 pounds of yeast
6 pounds of shortening 12 pounds of macaroni

This should be enough to sustain two people for one year. For every two people in your family add $5.00 more and double or triple the amount of the item you are buying that week.

If you can not afford more than the $5.00 a week for the whole family at least do the $5.00, it's a start.

Remember to mark the date on each item when you buy them and use the oldest first.


I'm taking it slow, keeping myself from getting overwhelmed, and not breaking our bank while building our food storage.

I would love to hear your thoughts and suggestions. Do you have a stockpile of food? What methods do you use?

Crock Pot Apple Butter

I had some apples go mushy before we ate them all and decided to make some crock pot apple butter.

My mother's recipe had to be altered for such a small batch. Although I used my apple peeler/slicer, I forgot I didnt need to peel them darn it.
I used my little Rival Crock-ette. I started them at 10am Sunday.

1 1/2 pounds (6) red delicious apples
1 1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp cloves
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 c water

After the apples had cooked about an hour, I chopped them into smaller pieces.
Sorry these two pics are so gold.  The light in my kitchen is yuck and my camera wasn't cooperating.

After four hours of cooking with no lid on, I took my Oster stick blender and pureed it.  We like velvety smooth apple butter.

Finally, at 11:30 pm last night I dumped it into a jar and into the fridge. 

This morning I had some on toast for breakfast.  It's so thick, velvety, and yummy!

Be sure to visit Tempt My Tummy Tuesday for some great Thanksgiving food ideas!


Now I have 3 pie pumpkins and 1 medium pumpkin I need to do something with.
Anyone have any suggestions?  I've never prepared pie pumpkins.  Do I just slice them in half and scoop out the pulp?  Can I put it in a jar in fridge until next week and make pumpkin pies out of them or should I wait until next week to do it?

Making Pepper Vinegar

I picked the last of my peppers for the year. Then I had to decide what to do with them. I've so many in my freezer already. The year was a great growing year for me. The best ever actually.

I decided to make Pepper Vinegar to go with the jalapeno relish and cucumber sweet relish I made. I will put together a couple of gift baskets with one of each of the three, include some gourmet crackers and a bag of tortilla chips for two people in my family that like spicy goodies.

The vinegar was SIMPLE to make.

Wash your peppers, cut the tops off, cut them if need be so they will fit into your chosen bottle, and pour boiling vinegar into bottle. Let them sit in a dark cool place for at least two weeks to ripen and flavor vinegar.

The vinegar can be used to flavor soups, chilis, cooked greens such as spinach & collard greens, beans, gumbos, jambalayas and so much more!

If you would like a little more details on how to put your vinegar together, visit The Domestic Engineer. Even if you don't make the vinegar, her site is a great site, be sure to check it out!

Preserving Apples- Freezing Apple Pie Filling

We have a granny smith apple tree in our backyard. In years past, there hasnt been many apples. This year was a different story, it was loaded with apples. Apples that weren't very pretty to look at, but had an amazing taste!



When you grow your food all natural, using no herbicides or pesticides, they LOOK different than what you buy in the store. They also TASTE different! The look is not so appealing, the taste is sooooo much better and fresher! Just look at these sad looking apples before being peeled. Then look at them peeled. Yummmo!

I decided I needed to preserve them into pie filling. I found a great freezer recipe in one of my aunt's church fundraiser cookbooks.

We needed to prepare a lot of apples.

I was lucky and kiddo was home and bored. Being the creative young man he is, it took him 5 minutes to rig up this apple picker and we had a 3 gallon bucket full of apples in less than 15 minutes!

I set our kitchen up in stations. I have two Apple And Potato Peeler/corer/slicers, with different bases. I love these things!



I picked mine up at garage sales for a couple bucks. You can get one FREE using your Amazon gift cards earned from Swagbucks!



You can read some other people's reviews on CSNstores.com. They love it too!

We set the suction cup based peeler on the glass top stove. Kiddo was in charge of running the apple peeler, I did the "detailing" of the apples. The little machine makes fast work of a bucket of apples and they all come out the same thickness! It took us about 40 minutes to prep the apples.



24 cups thinly sliced apples
4 tablespoons lemon juice ( used some lemon juice mixed with sprite to keep em white!)
5 cups sugar (I used 2 cups brown and 3 cups white)
1 cup cornstarch
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
8 cups water

Directions:
1. In a large bowl, toss apples with lemon juice and set aside. Pour water into a Dutch oven over medium heat. Combine sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, salt and nutmeg. Add to water, stir well, and bring to a boil. Boil for 2 minutes, stirring constantly.
2. Add apples and return to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer until apples are tender, about 6 to 8 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes.
3. Ladle 4 1/2 cups into freezer ziploc bags. Cool at room temperature no longer than 1 1/2 hours.
4. Seal bags and freeze. Can be stored in freezer for up to 12 months.

After cooking down, I had enough to fill 4 ziploc bags for four pies! The apples were free, so I have the cost of the added ingredients which I figure is maybe $2.

I can't wait for one of those cold grey evenings with snow flying for one of these pies to spice up my home and warm my family!

Did any of you preserve any apples this year?

The Beauty of Peppers

Look at all those beautiful colors.



Growing peppers is my favorite thing to grow next to tomatoes. At the begininng of the season they are all green, as the season ages, so does the peppers' color.

It really upsets me when I have a bad year for peppers like year before last and the year before that. We use a lot of peppers when cooking in the fall and winter. I'm so happy they did so well this year.



To preserve my peppers I wash them, lay them out on a towel on the counter so they can air dry. Then I bag them in ziplock freezer bags. They are easy to pull from the bag in the quantity we need.

Is anyone else's garden still giving? I'm thinking about planting some fall crops. Are any of you going to be planting anything soon?

Getting ready for Back To School: Preparing Breakfasts

Buying frozen pancakes seems silly to me. I make my own and freeze them. It's really simple.

Cook your pancakes like you normally would. Lay your cooked pancakes out on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper in a single layer to cool.

Once the pancakes are totally cool, I stack them with a piece of wax paper in between each, then place them in a plastic bag. I've used saved cereal bags, bread wrappers as well as ziplock freezer bags.

Then in the mornings before school, I can quickly pull out as many as I need and microwave them for a healthy quick breakfast for my son.

Here is a picture of mine ready to be bagged and thrown in freezer.



When I make pancakes for all of us on the weekends, I invariably have left over batter. I go ahead and cook it into pancakes, let them cool, wrap, bag 'em and then throw in freezer. This way I am replenishing my supply all the time and I don't have to have a big Pancake Making Day very often!

You can make your own syrup also! Check out my previous post HERE.

What tips do you have to make breakfast before school quick and easy? Please share them with all of us!

My garden is still growing.....

Sunday, while the kiddos were doing their scavenger hunt, I canned more Hot pepper relish. 6 pints, 4 half pints, 1 quart, and 1 quart 3/4 full.



After the kids were done with the scavenger hunt, Grandpa took them with their bags out to the garden to help pick more veggies. They came in with two dozen more jalapenos, several gypsy peppers, half dozen tomatoes, one bag full of cucumbers and one bag half full of okra. The second bag of okra there was picked Saturday as well as the cantaloupe.





All this still needs my attention. ughhhhh Boy when the garden decides to grow, it decides to grow, doesn't it?

I'm out of pint jars and lids. I've never canned this much before in one year. I usually freeze everything. I need to check with my mother to see what jars, if any, she has for me.

My totals for canning so far are:

Pickles: 7 quarts, 1 pint
Salsa: 1 quart, 14 pints, 7 half pints
Relish: 2 quarts, 8 pints, 14 half pints, 2 jelly size

What peppers I havn't used in the salsa and relish I have froze. I have two 1 gallon bags of jalapenos and 1 quart bag of serranos.

My tomatoes are slowing down. These are the only thing I DON'T want to slow down!

I have to get the okra washed and froze today. We've been picking okra all along. What we havn't ate, we have given away because I just had too much all at once.

All the cucumbers that were picked yesterday, hubby wants done in more pickles.

{sigh} and I really need to get out to the garden right now.

But I have to run to the bank and take my youngest son to the doctor. Today is my sis' birthday, I need to call her and I still havn't gotten my Sunday papers.

Am I allowed to say, "I'm tired"!

My Friday

I've been busy all this week getting kiddos ready for school. Finishing up the school supply shopping. I also did a little clothing shopping. My boys have never really been big on getting a bunch of new clothes before school starts. They usually want to shop in October. So I just bought kiddo three new shirts and three new shorts. He will wear shorts probably up to and possibly into November. We will shop for jeans then. So I now have him ready and I bought my two granddaughters their school supplies. It was easy, and I got most of it from the CVS and Walgreen sales. The rest I picked up dirt cheap from Wal-Mart.

Tuesday I went to Hyvee and picked up a few things. I wanted the Backpack and lunch box deal. The Hyvee I went to had neither. They gave me rain checks and told me to check back today. When I called they still didn't have them. So I started calling around. Found both at the Lees Summit store.

I went and picked them up along with several Friday 13th sale items. Prices after using my coupons: Skippy Peanut Butter $.49, Miracle Whip $1.38, Sunbelt Granola bars $.67, Pepsi $.69, Kraft Salad Dressing $.88, Prego Spag Sauce $.49.

Then I came home and did this:



Yep, 7 more pints of salsa. I finally was done at 8pm. See that white film on my lids. I'm guessing it is due to our hard water. Maybe a calcium deposit? Can anyone tell me what I can do to keep it from doing this? Can I add something to my water in my canner? I never had this problem where I used to live.

I still needed to do more relish, so guess what I'll be doing here in about 7 hours, once I finally go to bed? You guessed it! Canning relish. I also need to get out to the garden.... I'm sure there is more waiting.

Hope you have a great weekend!