A note about my freezer and pantry and $100 grocery challenge

Yesterday I posted about my challenge to spend only $100 in January on groceries for my family of 5. I just wanted to expand on that a bit. I'm hoping to keep my spending down in January to jumpstart our debt payoff for the year, but also to eat up some of what is in my pantry/freezer so I'll know what I'm running low on for this gardening season and to be able to defrost my small chest freezer as it's time!

1. We live in an area where I have Sam's Club, Kroger and Walmart available. I prefer not to go to Walmart as it is in an area of town further from my home, it's always super crowded and it's kind of shady. I do go to Sam's Club sometimes but do the majority of my weekly shopping at Kroger.

2. We eat meat, mainly venison (deer meat ) and fish that we catch ourselves. We also occasionally get a wild boar and make sausage from that. I do buy turkey bacon and chicken sometimes, but we don't have any at the moment and I don't see myself buying any during January and my low spend challenge.

3. We were gifted a turkey at Christmas from a man in our church, and although we typically don't buy a turkey, we may smoke it during January and enjoy turkey this month.

4. I can and freeze a lot from our garden during the year. I have a pantry full of pickles, relish, jelly etc. It's hard to make a meal though with pickles and jam/jelly even though they are nice. I can other items as well like pasta sauce, green beans, soup etc. but am running low of most of those. I'm sure I'll use those items up during the month.

5. We have blackberry and blueberry bushes and along with eating them fresh last spring/summer and canning some, I have quite a few berries frozen. I'll use that for just eating plain, muffins, smoothies popsicles etc.

6. We have chickens so will have a supply of fresh eggs all month.

Check in: How is this Homesteading thing going anyhow?

I've been blogging for a while ( not always super faithful but you know....) and I thought it would be good to see how things are coming along around the place...

Things that are going really good:
We'll start with the positive and see what good progress we have been making as a family.

1. We are living pretty simply. We have one TV in the house and only have Netflix. We watch on average less than one hour a day of TV and go many days without turning the sucker on. Since before we had kids my husband and I had a super expensive cable package and it seemed all we did was watch TV, I would say this is a definite plus in our home.

2. I've gotten really good at meal planning and keeping our groceries under control. I've been making our own bread, rolls and pizza crusts and planning accordingly for the things we need at the store. I know what I'm harvesting for the week and what I have canned or frozen so I can make a pretty good list. There are many weeks where we don't go to the store at all, and even more weeks where the only place I go is the Farmer's Market.

3. We love our chickens. The kids love 'em, my husband and I love 'em and they are keeping us stocked with eggs. They are fun, not too much trouble and we enjoy the eggs.

4. I've gotten good at canning!! That doesn't mean that I've canned all we needed for a year or anything like that, but I've gotten good at it. I know what to do and how to do it.


5. There are some things in the garden that we grow plenty of, at least for the last few years. Those items are muscadines, grapes, cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers. I've got all of those that I want.....

Things that are going okay:

There are also some things that are going good, not amazingly well, but I'm still pretty proud of.

1. Our gardens in general are doing well. Above I listed the things that we really have way too much of, enough to share, and even sell a bit. There are some other things though that we have just enough of. A little bit to share, and can even. Those items are squash, zucchinni, okra, cabbages, kale, lettuces, broccoli. corn and potatoes ( both sweet and white). We also normally ( some years are better than others) get enough pecans from our trees.

2. We ( as a family) are reading a lot and that makes me happy. Every Tuesday we head to the library for books. Even my husband is in on the action when he has time. All three of my children really enjoy reading and I of course do myself. I'm pleased with this aspect of our homesteading quest.

3. Our diets are good. You may recall that my profession is a Registered Dietitian and I am working on my PhD and even though we have always eaten pretty well, I can say that I'm pleased with the way we eat. We have lots of water bottles, we pack lunches and snacks when we travel, and I cook a lot. Are we 100% organic? No. I don't have a desire to be honestly. We aren't vegetarians or paleo or anything like that, but I am impressed with myself when I open up our pantries or the fridge or freezers. My kids aren't picky and we eat a variety of really delicious food.

4. We are watching our trash production. We use reusable items like dish clothes, napkins, even feminine items, as well as reusing what we can, recycling and donating or consigning items that no longer fit us.

5.We are composting! Not only do we have rabbit manure and grass clippings and leaves, but we compost our broccoli stems and apple cores and just all those little knick knacks from the kitchen. Our composting is coming in handy.

6. We have one bee hive and have done well with them I think. We should be ready to harvest our honey here in a few months.

Things that I'd like to work on:

1. We have plenty of pears and muscadines, but I'd like more fruit!! I always have enough blueberries, blackberries and strawberries for a few desserts a year and for us to snack on, and occasionally enough to freeze a bit or make some jam, but right now I'm getting our berries, apples and peaches from the farmer's markets or pick your own type places. I'd like to add more fruit to our homestead. 

2. I'd also like more corn and peas to add to our pantry and freezers. We eat a lot of corn, and I do put up quite a bit, but I think adding a few more rows of each would be helpful. 

3. I'd like to start making soap. I have plenty of herbs that I could dry and I bought a book off of Amazon about how to make cold press soap, but that's been it. I'd like to start experimenting with making our own soap. 

4. Last year I put up a ton of delicious pizza sauce, pasta sauce and salsa, this year I'd like to try my hand at vegetable soup. Last year I would just get a jar of stewed tomatoes and add frozen veggies and stuff to it, but those big quart jars of veggie soup I remember from my childhood are just calling my name. 

5. I'd like to try cheese making. I don't have a place to get good fresh milk right now, but I'm sure if I looked a little harder I could find someone local to get some milk from. I know you can make cheese from grocery store milk, but I would like some from a local farmer. 

If you've read this far. Bless you :). 

What are some things you are doing super well with on your homestead? What are some things you could work on?

Reflection on my canning/preserving from last year.

Last year I tried to keep a track of what all I canned and preserved. The deer and rabbit meat didn't make it on the list, but I think most of the produce did, except for the corn on the cob I froze, not sure how that didn't end up on my list. I also gathered about 10 gallons of whole pecans from our two trees, that I just keep in buckets in our shed and use as we need them. Below is a list of what put up last year

Total: 
15 pints Strawberry Jam
3 half pints Strawberry Jam
1 quart Strawberry Jam
3 quarts Frozen Strawberries
7 pints Frozen Strawberries
1 quart pickled Asparagus
1 gallon Pickled Jalapenos
30 quarts Dill Pickles
21Quarts Bread and Butter Pickles 
11 Quarts Bread And Butter Pickles ( ZESTY) 
1 pint Bread and Butter Pickles
11 pints sweet cucumber relish
4 Quarts Blueberry pie filling
4 quarts pickled okra
14 pints hot salsa
6 jars Pepper sauce
6 quarts Pizza Sauce

You can see many of my posts linked to my 2015 Canning Total page here.

Now that canning season is here again ( I just got my first batch of strawberries that need put up). I thought it would be a good time to reflect on exactly what all we ate, what we didn't etc. I encourage you all to do the same so you'll have a better idea of what you need to focus on this year.

We have only 3 of the 15 pints of jam left.. so I'll certainly put more of that up this year. Also as the kids are getting older I assume they will eat more.

We have zero frozen strawberries left in our freezer... we ran out sometime in February. I use those in making strawberry shortcakes, strawberry cake and in smoothies and homemade popsicles. I'll certainly try to freeze as many as I can get my hands on this year.

The pickled asparagus is gone, i just used the last of it in my pickle tray, but honestly I kind of forgot we had it and I just opened it up a few weeks ago. If I can get my hands on some asparagus I'll pickle some more.

I certainly want to do more pickled jalapenos. We use them on nachos, pizza, sandwiches, burgers. All kinds of good stuff.

The zesty bread and butter pickles are GONE ( I gave some away for Christmas, and the others were just yummy so we ate them).

The blueberry pie filling also was a hit and I could have used more this winter if we had them. They are great to use in pies but also cobblers.

We are down to about one quart pickled okra and about 5 quarts of regular bread and butter pickles. We also have probably 5 dill pickles left also.

No hot salsa is left in this house. My husband LOVES it.

There is no pepper sauce left and 1 quart pizza sauce. No pasta sauce is left either.

We have about 5 pints of cucumber relish and about 5 pints of the hot pepper relish left also.


So there you have it. This year I would like to try to put up more tomato based items if we have tomatoes available as we all seem to eat that and they are very good meal starters. Besides that, I'll put up anything we have extra of, and hope to freeze more fruit and more corn also.

As of right now we have plenty of deer meat to last us until well into Fall, which hopefully we'll at least get one or two more. We also have about 15 meat rabbits and use their meat fresh when we butcher them.

How do you all do this past year? Make too much of anything? Not enough of something?

My pickling came in handy!

If you have been reading my blog for very long at all, you have probably caught on that I'm from the SOUTH. Like super southern. Not so much geographical, but very much cultural south.

So... impromtu fish fry tonight. I love fish, especially when they are caught fresh and fried...

So I needed to get together something to take, as that is just the proper thing to do you know?

You may recall that I pickled quite a bit of goodies in 2015... so I made this beautiful little pickle tray to take.

Starting at the bottom left corner are so delicious dill pickles from our garden last year, then moving clockwise are bread and butter pickles, then pickled whole jalapenos, black olives, pickled okra , then pickled asparagus. In the center are some green olives. The green and black olives were not grown nor were they pickled by me, but I had a jar of each so in they went. 

I thought this made a nice little pickle tray and I made it from items I had on hand. 

Happy Homesteading Y'all

Puttin' up Peppers!

It's getting hot in here!

It's not quite time for my famous pepper relish yet , but we do have a ton of these hot banana peppers. I only planted 4 plants this year, but just this morning I picked a 5 gallon bucket full! I have about a third to my dad and brothers to eat and kept a few for use to snack on. I also know that we'll have more in a few days. Anyways, I prefer the sweet ones, but will eat the hot ones occasionally, but my husband, father, father in law and brothers love the hot pepper rings.

 Just for reference, these are what they look like. Just imagine a 5 gallon bucket of them! So I pickled them of course.

 I just washed and dried them really well, then prepared my jars and rings. The mixture I use is just 2 parts water 6 parts white vinegar, maybe a tablespoon pickling salt, and some garlic.

 These aren't super bright. They are kind of a dull color to start with, but they will eat just the same! So what do we eat them on? Home made pizza, sandwiches, salads, tacos, beans, by themselves, really all winter the men can find something to eat them on.

 So I also planted some little tabasco peppers and they are beginning to make. I went ahead and pickled some to use as pepper sauce, used mainly on greens and with cornbread, at least around here. I then thought to myself, I bet I could get one of those cute little jars like pepper sauce ACTUALLY comes in. And with a quick search I found some on Amazon. I had some credits from my Swagbucks, Bing and Gift Hulk, and I have Amazon prime, so I ordered them, have free two day shipping and they cost me nothing out of pocket. I'll let you know when they get here and will show you how they work.

 

I'm sure I'll have more peppers I'll be putting up as well. Don't forget to check out my 2015 canning totals here.

 

What are you all up to in your kitchen during this hot summer?

Dill and Bread and Butter Pickles

Ah cucumbers. We planted quite a few this year and so far they are doing great! This is the first large harvest we've seen, besides just a few here or there we've been eating.

 

Everyone needs some fantastic baskets for picking the garden. They sell fancy ones that are expensive but this one I think I got for maybe $1 at a yard sale. We've been using it for years.

Pickles aren't that difficult in my opinions. You can get recipes from the Ball Book of Canning, online by just googling pickle recipes and from mixes such as Mrs. Wages.  Our family likes a combination of Dill, Spicy Dill and Bread and Butter. Today's canning session produced

4 quart Dill, 3 quart bread and butter and 1 pint bread and butter.

 

I forsee me doing more batches in the future, as long as the garden keeps producing. We love sandwiches and hamburgers with dill on it, as well as just crunching on them for a snack or with a meal. I only have one child that loves the Bread and Butter as of yet, but it's my favorite and my father will appreciated a few jars as gifts as well.

 

To see my totals for canning for the 2015 season you can go here.!

 

Let me know in your comments what you have been canning so far.

 

Happy Homesteading!!!

Let's get to pickling ( peppers and asparagus that is)!

  

 What can you get for $3 and a dozen eggs?

All this apparently. I went to the Farmer's Market this morning and there was a man there with jalapenos from his hot house and this whole bunch of jalapenos was just $3. So I got those and then I traded 1 dozen eggs to a friend of mine for this beautiful asparagus. Look at it. Just lovely. We have finally planted some, but we won't be able to get a harvest from it until next year.

So after putting away some for our meals this week I still had quite a bit left and wanted to pickle some of it. My husband and I adore pickled jalapenos. We actually ran out about mid January and were quite sad. We put them on pizza, tacos, potatoes, frittatas, omelets etc. We use them on. everything. So I was glad to fill up this jar with the peppers. I hoe to put up many many more from our garden this year as well.

 And just look at those asparagus. Again, I may enter those into the fair. They are (almost) too pretty to eat. I will sauté some up tonight as well for supper. Good stuff. The jalapenos are basically just vinegar and water and some pickling salt. I added garlic and dill to the asparagus mixture. Good eatin'!

 

If ya'll have been keeping up with my 2015 caning totals you can peak at it here.

 

Happy Homesteading Y'all!

More strawberries!

Strawberries are just pretty awesome. I've already put up one batch of strawberries this season. You can read about that here. But we just  LOVE strawberries. Remember there are five of us. Me and the hubs then three young kiddos. We go through some jam. PBandJ's of course, but also on biscuits, scones, toast, etc.
I decided I should go ahead and put some more jam up. It's no fun to get to the end of the winter and be out of your favorite treat. By the way, my jam is pretty great. I just follow the Sure Jel Recipe, but it turns out quite well.
I just got two flats this time.

 We have a great strawberry farm not too far from our house.So we went this morning.

Aren't they beautiful? So sweet!

For this batch I ended up with 1 quart, 6 pints and one half pint of jam. Then two pints of frozen strawberries. We still have about half a flat left for us to eat this week. I doubt they make it but another day or so....

I thought these turned out a nice color. The picture isn't quite showing the beauty, but I think I may enter the one on the right in the fair. It turned out gorgeous.

 If you have been keeping up with my 2015 canning totals ( or if you would like) please check out my Total page here.

 

Happy Homesteading Y'all!

Canning Season Begins! My first batch of strawberries

It's that time of year again...

Strawberries.

We do grow strawberries. We don't have a lot of plants, and what we don't "share" with the birds are normally picked and eaten before they even make it inside, so I don't ever have enough to can.
We are blessed to have a great berry farm close enough to us though, and this morning I bought three flats of delicious strawberries. I think I forget how wonderful local, fresh strawberries are. So stinkin' good.

 So here is the "before" picture. I used one flat to make jam, one flat to freeze and then one flat we'll eat fresh over the next day or so. That's right, it will just take us a day or so to devour them.

 

 

The frozen ones we use for homemade popsicles this summer, as well as smoothies. I'll also use them to make a strawberry cake that we like to eat as well as share at potlucks and family events throughout this year.

The little containers I got at Walmart several years ago and they work very well for freezing items. Some of the best ones I've found and they are cheap!So totals this year for my canning:
5 pints frozen strawberries
3 quarts frozen strawberries
8 pints of strawberry jam
2 half pints of strawberry jam

Here's to a good season for us all!

Happy Homesteading Ya'll!

 

Thinking Ahead- Canning Part 2- Produce

So now that you have thought about what equipment you need for canning, it's time to start thinking about what actual "stuff" you want to can, or maybe I should say what you are capable of canning based on availability.

Think about what you grew last year:
Was it enough for your family?
Was there excess you could have canned?
Were there things you grew that your family didn't like, or didn't grow well?

Then think about if there are things you would like to change from last year's garden?
Do you want to plant more of something hoping for an excess?
Do you want to plant something you haven't planted before?

The thing about gardening is that it is always best fresh. I mean c'mon, who doesn't revel when they take a big bite of a just ripened tomato, still warm from the heat of the sun, juices running down their chin......... but I digress.Anyways, it's best to eat things fresh from your garden, but if you have EXTRA then you can it!

You need to start planning your garden with that in mind. Can you plant an extra row of tomatoes that you can put up? Can you put in one more blackberry or blueberry bush? Adding just one or two additional things yearly and in a few years you'll have yourself more than you can handle.

Another thing to remember is that if no one eats it, it's a waste of your time, effort and money. This isn't true in survival mode of course, if something were to happen and all you had to eat was canned ( insert least favorite canned food of all time) then you would just learn to eat it. I learned my lesson the year that my daddy and I put up about 50 quarts of pear preserves when our pear tree went wild one year. We could see the pears going to waste, and you can only eat so many and make so many pear cakes, so we made preserves. They weren't much good to start with, add that to the fact that with all the other beautiful jams and jellies I made, we just didn't eat them. I have given them away, tried to think of other uses for them and finally am down to about 2 quarts.

So my point is that canning can be a lot of work and if you aren't going to eat it, then you may want to rethink it.

Some of my favorite things to can:
Strawberry Jam
Hot Pepper Relish
Muscadine Jelly
Pickles
Blueberry Jam
Pepper Jelly
Salsa
Vegetable Soup


I wanted to leave you with a link from my canning party I had last summer. I plan on many more. Check it out here ( put up 200 ears of corn and 60+  jars) Enjoy and can on!

What are you all looking forward to canning this year? Anything you will NEVER can again?


Linked up to Monday Barn Hop, Simple Living Wednesday

How to make Hot Pepper Relish

Whew... We are over -run with peppers this year. What a blessing. Not only have we been enjoying them fresh on things like pizza, tacos, in salads, and in soups, but I have been pickling them and making hot pepper relish as well.

So all of these beautiful peppers and honestly you can only eat so many, and you can only pickle so many, and we love our relish, so relish they were destined to be...

You can use all kinds and colors, if you want more of a sweet relish, then use sweeter peppers, we like hot relish so I used a lot of jalepenos and cayenne

I use white onions also, they seem to work better than the other kinds, and honestly the purple onions don't seem to work at all. I didn't measure this batch, but I'll post an official "recipe" in a bit if you want specific measurments. Cut off the tops of the peppers and put the peppers and the onions into a food processor. I use a little water to help get them all chopped nicely. You'll drain the water so don't worry about it now...

Here is my beautiful mix in a collander, draining all the water from it, this is about 4 blenders full

And here is a cloer picture , notice I keep the seeds in it. 1) it is way easier to dice them without having to take the seeds out and 2) it keeps it spicy!

This picture isn't showing a whole lot, but I put the pepper mixture into the big pot with vinegar ( again measurements below) and let them get to a rolling boil....

And then I put them into my sterilized jars.... I process them in a boiling water bath for about 15 minutes.

Close up because I think they are beautiful

We use them on bean dishes a lot, my dad loves them on hot dogs and smoked sausages.... It's very versatile and you can do a lot with it.

I adapted my recipe from That's my Home.

Hot Pepper Relish

18 red chili peppers, seeded and stemmed

18 green chili peppers, seeded and stemmed (can use bell pepper for less heat)

6-8 onions peeled (4 pounds)

1 tablespoon canning or regular salt

boiling water

2 1/2 cups cider vinegar

2 1/2 cups sugar

Put peppers and onions through food chopper, or chop in water in blender and drain. Place in 6 qt. kettle. Add salt; cover with boiling water. Let stand 10 minutes.

Drain and discard liquid. Add vinegar and sugar to vegetables. Bring to boil, simmer 20 minutes. Ladle into 7 pint jars, pressing down as you pack so liquid covers vegetables. Wipe jar rim, adjust lids. Process in boiling water bath 15 minutes. Start to count processing time when water in canner returns to boiling. Remove jars.

Note: Won first prize at New Mexico State Fair! Delicious! Sweet and hot!

I hope some of you love it and enjoy it as much as my family does.....

Happy Homesteading.....

Linked up to Homesteading Barn Hop, Little Homestead on the Hill,  Frugal Days Sustainable Ways, The Backyard Farming Connection, Fill those Jars Friday Artful Tuesdays TALU Tuesdays Mop it Up Mondays

My first canning party!!! 64 jars + 200 ears of corn

My oh my oh my!!! If you follow my blog you may recall me talking about forming a canning club. If not, you can read about it here.

So today was our innagural meeting. We are still trying to think of a name.... Anyways today it was just me and my friend E.

We started out with pickles. Bread and butter, dill, kosher dill and spicy dill.
We did spears, coins and whole small pickles.

I got my daughters involved.

It's great to be able to teach them skills and know how. Here is my oldest helping to pack the jars before we pour the liquid on it.

Totals:
Bread and Butter: 9
Dill: 10
Kosher Dill:9
Spicy Dill:8

Then we did some jars of pickled jalepenos. These are great as we use them on EVERYTHING. Lots of mexican inspired dishes, and even on salads and in omelettes.
Jalepenos: 10

Then on to the Blueberry jam...Yum. Thats all I can say about that.
Blueberry Jam: 10

Then we did Pepper jelly. This is very thick and  almost a chutney and is great to use on cream cheese as an appetizer type dish, or on beans, or even just on plain toast. Delicious.

Look at how beautiful they are. Great for gift giving also. These puppies are spicy!!
Pepper Jelly: 8

Then if that weren't enough, we each put up 100 ears of corn. That means we shucked and silked 200 ears this morning....

Corn: 200 ears

I must say that I'm exhausted. I mean really tired. It is so worth it though. Great company and knowing that I'll have great food for my family in upcoming days.

Total for our first canning party 64 jars and 200 ears of corn. Not too shabby I would think for our first meeting:)

Until next time, Happy Homesteading!!

Linked up to The Morris Tribe, Homesteading Barn Hop,Carnival of Home Preserving,Preparedness Challenge

Cleaning out the pantry and freezer!

This weekend I got into a "nesting" mode as my husband likes to call it and went through all of our pantry and freezer space to really take inventroy of what all we have left from last year. This serves a couple of purposes: 1) is to see what we have an abundance of and use it up before our canning season starts so we will have space and 2) to see what we ran out of early so I'll know if there are things we need to can more of of.

Things that I still have an abundance of from last year:
Pantry:
- apple mint jelly
-apple butter
-pumpkin butter
-blackberry jam
-fig jelly
-strawberry jam
- pear preserves ( 25 pints of this alone)
-pepper jelly
-pepper relish
-green tomato chow chow
-pasta sauce
-tomato juice
-canned diced and whole tomatoes
-salsa ( mild)
-muscadine jelly
-pickled peppers
-dill pickles
-I still have plenty of dried herbs, including lavendar to work with
Freezer:
-corn on the cob
-bell peppers
-okra
-squash
-fish fillets
-ground deer meat and deer steaks

Things that we ran out of, or are almost out of and I should do more for next year:
Pantry:
-green beans
-vegetable soup
-bread and butter pickles
-saurkraut
-pecans
-ketchup
-cherry jelly ( I only had enough to make 3 pints and those were gone fast!)
-plum jelly ( made about 8 pints but this is my Dad's fave, so he ended up with about 5 of them)
-dried apples, pears, peaches, plums, cherries, etc. ( I was just perfecting my drying technique and didn't do a whole lot of those)

Freezer:
-frozen strawberries
-frozen blueberries
-frozen blackberries
-corn off the cob
-deer stew meat
-purple hull peas


One thing that we really enjoyed this past winter ( which seemed to be particulary cold for our area) was the vegetable soup. We really enjoyed a big bowl of that with some homeade bread, biscuits or cornbread on a cold day. All of the frozen fruit was used quickly also, in smoothies, pies, cakes, ice cream etc.

As far as the pecans go, I couldn't really have put up any more than I stored. I picked every single one up off the ground. We used them in trail mixes, cakes, pies, cookies, etc. Mainly around Christmas baking time.

I'd also like to put up more green beans this year, they aren't that hard and we enjoy them a lot.

I want to encourage you all to take an inventory of your pantry and freezers and really take a look at what you need and want for this next year and plan accordingly. If you put up 100 pints of pepper jelly, and still have 98 left, perhaps you skip that this year :). Of course the point is to enjoy it fresh as much as possible, and beleive me, during the summer we eat most of our meals all completly from the garden, but we of course have excess and it's so soothing knowing that in the dead of winter that apple butter , soup or other veggies will warm your spirit!

What about you guys? Any funny stories of over zealous canning? What do you always run out of?

Muscadine Jelly

So I tarried through the heat and we picked about 3-4 gallons of muscadines. It was hot, but it was late in the evening so we at least didn't have the direct sunlight. The girls helped me make some jelly ( well they ate muscadines and watched) and at the end of the evening we had 6 pints of muscadine jelly. I had a little left over so I made biscuits and we ate it right then. Here are pictures of 5 of them. Such a pretty color I think.

So......... For my August Quest my goal was to make 20 pints of goodies for the winter. My tally is:

Blackberry jam: 3.5 pints
Muscadine jelly: 6 pints
so I still need to preserve more 1o.5 pints before months end..... wish me luck!

Update on my August Quest

Well I have been busy and have even been out of town for a few days this month, but today when I got home from work the girls and I started on my August Quest.

A few months back we picked some blackberries but I got busy and just froze them instead. So today, we got out the blackberries and made 3 and a half pints of blackberry jam. It's actually pretty delicious. So...... I have 3 and half pints canned for my August Quest. I'm not sure what I'll do next. I do have pictures of my blackberry jam, I'll have to post it later as it is getting late, and I need to get the kiddos to bed.

August Quest!

Well , it is the first day of August and it's time for a new Homesteading Quest. This month is going to be relatively easy and generic ( it's my first one!).

For August my goal is to preserve 20+ pints of " stuff".
An obvious choice is jelly and jam as we have grapes and muscadines coming off right now and we don't know what to do with them all. I would also like to do another batch of jalepeno jelly, maybe some pepper relish, and perhaps some more tomato based stuff like pasta sauce, stewed tomatoes or salsa.

Preserving food is such a great way to be come more self suffecient. It's wonderful to look into your pantry mid January and see a wonderful array of items that you preserved at it's peak back in the summer.

So , I'll keep you updated and we'll see what happens!

Homesteading Quest Explanation

So, what exactly is this new venture I am undertaking?

Well I like to read other people's blogs about homesteading, gardening, natural living etc. and I wanted to do one of my own. I did want something a bit different though, so I thought of the idea of setting goals or "quests" and then blog about how they go. I'm thinking maybe monthly to start with, and of course all of my quests will have something to do with homesteading, simple living, gardening, cooking etc.

I want an online journal that I can keep to detail my journey into more self sufficient living and address the ups and downs of what that entails. I already have a few "quests" in mind so I will list a few that I have been thinking about:
- make apple butter
-make pear butter
-blackberry jam
-homeade chocolate pretzels ( I saw these last Christmas and not only were they adorable, but the girls both loved them)
- a month of only homeade bread
- a month of completely living from the pantry
- trying a set amount of Taste of Home Recipes in one month
-making candied pecans ( we always have a bounty of pecans and I need to start doing more with them than just cracking them and eating them aimlessly)
-growing my own sprouts in the kitchen

I have some other things I would like to challenge myself with monthly also so I think that this blog will really help me on my quest to learn new skills and try new things.

Right now it is crazy hot and much of our summer produce has already came off and been eaten or preserved. I'll start with my quests in August.

In June and July ( so far) I have put up
-12 pints mint apple jelly ( from frozen apple juice from last year)
- 60+ pints of salsa
-16 pints strawberry jam
-50 ears of corn ( frozen on the cob)
-8 oz dried dill

I'll write tomorrow to introduce a few of my animals and myself a bit more and one day I'll even upload pictures of our pets. Until then...........

Homesteading Quest........