Whew!

Happy Canada Day!

Today I bought a flat of strawberries, 12 big quarts, yum! So nice and fresh. Then I spent more than two hours tonight cutting them up and hulling them (I actually only cut up 7 quarts as I was getting so tired that I ended up just hulling the rest for the time being). I forgot how much work it was to prep the berries but then I've never had more than a few quarts before (although I used to help mom, I think. She may remember differently ;) ).

I got my canning stuff out and I am going to get up bright and early to make jam! That's not my stuff at the top. My pot is big and white, enamel coated steel, but I would prefer stainless steel. I guess it all works the same and there's no point in whining about getting a new one. I had one but didn't have a cover. Oh well!

I am going to keep a running total this month on what we spend on food. I think it will be helpful in deciding what we should budget and to see what we're buying. Plus if people see what we buy, I may be a little more careful, lol! I will keep the running total in the sidebar if I can figure out how to do it.

July 1st: $30.53 for strawberries and a slushie.

Freezer Fun!

I'm going to write about this here since I sometimes wonder if people are getting tired of reading about food storage in my main blog, lol!

We got a second freezer last night! I can never again complain that we have nothing to eat, lol! It may just take some time and preparation, but I plan to really take advantage of our new situation.

I spent some time sorting the freezer out this morning and boy, were there some treasures! A gallon of organic milk! (yay! Our favorite. It's one of the few things I can really tell the difference between conventional and organic) Raspberries, yum! Chicken strips. Our poor turkeys stuck on the bottom. Tons of ham, chicken, bacon, hamburger I forgot about, hot dogs galore, tons of veggies and on and on.

I am dividing the different types of food into bags. I have a bag of single type frozen veggies, a bag of mixes (like California, winter, peas & carrots, ect..), a bag of hot dogs, chicken, ham and so on. I tried boxes and baskets, which were hard for me to get a hold of and shopping bags break. So I'm using some of our reusable shopping bags since they have handles, can hold a lot and are flexible.

Even if I don't buy anything for a while, we'll be good. I was thinking of buying a side of beef (actually a quarter), but I think it will just be too expensive. It would be about $900 for 300 lbs of hanging weight, which works out to under 200lbs of meat. First of all, that's a lot of meat! Second, that's a lot of money and a lot per pound. I'll keep buying the store stuff and try not to think about where it came from, lol! When Emin's has another side of pork sale, I think I will take advantage of that. $99 for a side of pork is much more doable and a greater value. Plus Mark likes pork products a lot better, I think.

So I'll probably be busy sorting for a while. I also want to keep a list on the freezer of what we have and keep track of what we use. That way we will no longer have any lost food.

I also plan on making lots of freezer meals. That way when I don't feel like cooking, I can just pop something out of the freezer and we have something good quick! I just need to find a day where I feel like cooking large quantities of food ;)