End of August goals

It's the darkest corner of the pantry in the basement and the food we use the most.

It takes over 500 lbs of tomatoes (prefer Roma or paste tomatoes) to furnish a year's worth of tomato products for the two of us.

I now understand why my mother was so "short tempered" at this time of the year with green beans, (don't need anything this yr) corn (done and in freezer) and tomatoes coming in at the same time. I remember 1000 qrt jars and 500 pint jars in the cellar and cleaning it every spring when we planted the garden. Even with me being little (under  6 ) I was helping pick the food and prep it for the canner. I'm not sure she got any much sleep since she only had one water bath canner...FYI it takes 40 min to can tomato sauce in qrts and there is 7 to a canner.
1500 jars of veggies ( no fruit) lasted from Oct(Nov if the weather held and Dad could limp the crop into it) to March. When March came the cellar was pretty empty and Mom was looking for wild greens to put veggies on the table. We didn't go buy veggies at the store. We didn't grow lettuce but the neighbor did and she bartered the lettuce for potatoes that Grandpa grew that we would give her in the fall.

Filling these shelves with the home canned goods of tomato products is my goal this week.

.Final count should be the following:
 top left :enchilada sauce 26 pints (have 32) There is some RoTel and a couple cans of diced tomato with jalapeno sitting on top of it.

Top right: pizza sauce 26 -1/2 pints( have 29)

Second shelf...bought pasta sauce (we ran out of home made and hit the clearance rack with coupons for a good score even though I end up add mustard to counter the sugar in it .) #10 cans of tomato sauce (got on sale in case tomatoes don't do well or can't get them at auction) and a few of homemade pasta sauce that I did early this yr by reusing what I had, like whole tomatoes which I only do when I am tired and needing to get the tomatoes finished before they go bad.

Third shelf is some whole tomatoes that I will reprocess to make either BBQ sauce (12 pints as I use 1 a month) or pasta sauce (52 quarts needed besides what is there) I'll put diced tomatoes (need 104 but doubt if I will get that much unless I score Roma tomatoes at auction again) and the BBQ sauce on this shelf

Bottom shelf is empty...it will have the 52 qrts of pasta sauce.

IF and only if I can have enough of everything I might can chili sauce other wise the #10 cans will go to chili.WHICH I need to can also.

I am also cleaning all the shelves and inventorying what we have in this pantry.Moved some things around the other day and found stuff I didn't know we had and some things I didn't know we needed. I don't know which upset me more. I am half way through the pantry, even with just being down for back injections (still recovering and trying to not do so much and mess myself up) There is 31 shelves and I am down to 10 left to clean,organize and inventory. I plan to do 2 each day this coming week.

I plan to finish the rest of the tomatoes. We still have another good month of tomatoes coming in so I should get closer to the amt I need for the yr for the diced tomatoes.

I had 150 lbs of onions I have been sorting. I have 90 lbs left to go through so I figure 20 lbs a day this coming week to finish.Some need cured again due to having to be "peeled" because the skins got damp which will rot the onions while hanging( tied in panty hose and hung) in storage, better to lose a couple layers now than the whole onion later.I will dehydrate any that are going to go bad soon but most look good at this point. It's early for storage onions but that's how it is this year. I figure maybe by Dec/Jan I will have to be looking for other onions if I don't dehydrate any.

I'm restricted in the gardens (doc knows me so well ) that I can only be out in them with Hubby so I won't get side tracked and try to clean up the gardens in one or two days. We figure maybe 15 min a couple times a day until we see how the back hold, actually it's my neck that is causing the slow down as it's still swollen from the injections (not infection) and causing issues with looking down or up for any length of time.

I have cayenne peppers, mints and herbs to dehydrate and some eggs for noodles that I make at TDay. Eggs are still below 90¢ a dozen here.

What are your goals this week?