Pantry Challenge

We  decided on what we would buy from the Amish first.

Honey, maple syrup, molasses, garlic (if B has extra when she harvests late summer and I ordered mine to grow last week, they come in mid Sept in time to plant), 6 dozen eggs a month (Charlotte eats an egg a day to keep her allergies down) and in the fall it will be butternut squash, acorn squash and pumpkins.

Meat for holidays: 2 hams, 2 turkeys, 2 spare rib racks, 2 corned beef briskets, 1 pork roast, and 1 prime rib.  

What we will buy from the store each month not spending over $175 (not including the meat or Amish)

14 gallons of milk,  will make yogurt, yogurt cheese, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, sour cream (and chip dip), puddings , gravies and whey for baking. I specified that the day after shopping is Kitchen day. Don't count on me for anything else.

3 quarts of heavy cream, will make cream cheese, whipping cream, ice cream and custards.

2 quarts of half and half, will make gelato, and mix with heavy cream for custards and white sauce.

6 lbs. of butter but ONLY if it is below $3.50 a pound.

12 colored bell peppers (I can't eat green, triggers my crohn's) or 2 bags of the mini sweet peppers.

6 lbs. of carrots (Mine won't be ready until fall)

3 bunches of celery (Mine won't be ready until fall)

4 lbs. fresh mushrooms. I use can for pizza, sauces etc. 

10 lbs. of sweet potatoes. Didn't even get one to last from last year for starts. 

20 lbs. of potatoes. Probably by October that will only be baking potatoes with fingers crossed mine will produce a good harvest.

I will be baking our own bread, biscuits, pie crusts instead of Daddy's favorite from Aunt Shirley (which I found out was Pillsbury), tortillas , tortilla chips, crackers,  crackers flavored like Ritz veggie chip, potato chips, and Fritos.

I plan to add eclairs, doughnuts (we do baked doughnuts) and cream puffs. One of the kids just gave me a scone dish and some scone mixes someone gave them . Kid took them to keep them from going into the land fill. 

Since Hubby is home for bfast and lunch I will probably add English muffins and bagels. 

Might be 2 days in the kitchen LOL.

IN the gardens.

I picked more  red and golden raspberries and 4 blackberries. Hubby asked for a pie until I mentioned pancakes with raspberry topping. He thought that was a good idea.

First batch of onions curing. I use 365 onions a year. I usually can only get about half of that and they store until January if temps hold decent.

purple grapes looks to be making for the 1st time and rhubarb that is regrowing

white grapes that we thought died, we won't get a lot but glad they really didn't die.

Herbs, rows 1,2,3,4,5,and 6

Rows 7 and 8

Rows 9,10,11, and 12

I have some pots of odds and ends but Hubby is cutting winter wood close by. I don't want to deal with ear protectors in this humidity. 

Snow peas, peas , turnips and lettuce is almost done. Any "edible leaves" will be dehydrated to be ground to add to sauces etc. this winter.

I'll be looking at what I want to plant for fall and early winter harvests. 

Blessed Be

Prayers for peace

Roller coaster

yellow rose #1

                                            Yellow rose #2

Pink rose

                                                   pale red rose

 I walked out to see if there was any more June dropped apples before Hubby started mowing. Got another bushel for E to have for his pigs.

I made a batch of caramelized onion and apple chutney using 1/2 bushel of drop apples. It's on the menu for this week.

Decided against making apple pectin at this time so E's is also getting a half of bushel  that I was going to use. 

Hubby said something about I needed to finish processing the groceries for the freezers I bought yesterday. I told him I didn't need to as it was what we were eating the next couple days. He thought I had a lot of meat... it was cheese and that was dump the bag into the bin in the freezer.

Paid the propane early, got a grill propane tank filled for free savings of $41.29 , get 5￠/ gallon off by paying in  full, got another 5￠off by paying before Aug. 1st. Put the charge on my Capital One and got $8.08 back. Total savings is $119.37.

Signed Hubby up for his Plan D (premium $5.10 month and meds are less than $5 every three months) and Supplement (through AARP is $123.36). It will cut his medical costs in half.

We sat on the kitchen porch and talked about cutting the budget, what to cut (how low can you go keeps running through my head). Figured it out including doing a pantry challenge for the rest of this year with limited (actually listed) buying.

And saw Momma with her twin babies.

OOPS Momma saw us

She took off with the babies following her but stopped at the woods to see what we were doing. Then trotted over the dip to finish grazing as E saw her as he came down the road and asked if they were up this way. 

Hubby brought in the mail, wouldn't you know the house insurance went up and that was after the taxes doubled. I already looked and the escrow account (required by mortgage)  is going to be short end of August so I need to put that in and that also means the mortgage payment is going up by $265.85. Our agent sent out notices to all his house insurance customers so they would have as much time as he could give them to get the extra money up. 

I harvested red raspberries, golden raspberries, peas, snow peas, onions for storage, lettuce, spinach, mustard greens,  turnips, last of golden cherry tomatoes, red cherry tomatoes, zucchini and beets, the beet greens went into the dehydrator. 

I got my appt. for my back injections including follow up scheduled .A group of our classmates is having an informal meet up that is also on the calendar. We are thinking of changing our chiro appts to Thursday since Hubby is no longer working so we can go in the morning, would be able to take Charlotte along when she is to see vet and/or meet up with a couple friends in that area. We would only go over on Tuesdays every 3 months as that is the only day Doc will see "couples" and that is in the afternoon. 

Have a safe July 4th . 

Prayers for peace

Blessed Be