Friday, May 29, 2020

In the pantry

 Okay... the pantry is mostly stocked except for what comes in from the garden that I process.

My thoughts are to only buy dairy, celery, carrots(if they don't grow and I need fresh as I am pretty stocked with dried), bell peppers and maybe once a month fresh mushrooms and lettuce. Flour and sugar as needed from Sam's club as the limits are just too low in regular stores. 

Non food... I need paper towels (bounty select a size) and toilet cleaner. I can do without both if needed as I do use rags most the time and have some regular size paper towels I can cut in half and will clean toilets with baking soda.

I haven't got enough apple cider vinegar so I will have to be frugal on what I use it for. 

I haven't found canned spinach. I am not canning my own spinach as I am not growing that amount (18 lbs for 7 pints).AND I am not taking up freezer room for spinach.  If it becomes more available I will get it. I usually eat spinach once a week. I have enough to have a can every 2 months. I will eat fresh if I can get it to grow and I have some planted. Will plant another crop of it when I do the 3rd round of lettuce and radishes.

I haven't found pears in juice... right now we can have 1 can every 6 wks. M said she is out completely. A lot of the fruit trees around here got hit with the freeze that took the blooms.

I still need 3 dozen cans of mushrooms... I use a can a week... if I don't find them we will be going without.I will not grow mushrooms nor buy them to can. If I have money we can have some fresh once a month to stretch out the canned mushrooms. Hubby prefers fresh on his steak anyways.

I have 1 lb of frozen peas and 1 lbs of frozen peas and carrots. My peas are up but not far enough along to see if they are going to make. I will plant peas again this fall along with a double crop of green beans. We use 12 lbs of peas and 12 lbs of peas and carrots a year. I don't care for snow peas but Hubby likes them raw and in stir fries so I am growing some of them also.They will be frozen if he doesn't eat all of them raw LOL.

I am lower of canned corned beef and corned beef hash than I like but will make do. Maybe every 3 wks right now, I prefer once a week as one on one week and the other on the next.I have Spam and Treet (canned meat) that I can used to fill out that area.

As celebration of having the pantry close enough to being filled. I ordered calzones from our local pizza place. 

N who I get my tomatoes from said his crop is sluggish and not sure how much he will have at the end of the season . I help him clean his green house in exchange for free tomatoes.He just wanted to give me a heads up.He was over to get asparagus as his didn't produce anyways.He is who we bought the house from.

I have planted several varieties of dried beans and will plant more. 

I am cooking down the tomato juice from last year to make tomato sauce. I won't season this as I am looking at using it for pizza, enchiladas and pasta. I will can it in different jar sizes.

I plan to cook down what is left of the grape juice to make jelly IF the grapes produce enough to make juice other wise we will just go without the jelly and use the juice.

The goal is to have every single shelf full. I do have 1 freezer not full... it's being used to make ice for E and M... They are paying us $4- $6 a week for ice and a dessert of M's choice every other week. She is also baking us a loaf of bread each week until I can knead bread again. (2 to 4 more weeks) The ice will be needed until next Jan/Feb. I do have 26 lbs of butter in it. 

back to work for me... one handed that is.