A Friend of on one of our kids

Woke up by Son 2 who had someone try to break in to his house. His neighbor got her security alarm going off because they went through her yard and over his fence. He was still up but had his lights off. When he flipped his lights on to check out his own security camara, they took off WITH his camara.Cops were there within minutes since neighbor has autocall on her securty for that crap. They actually put in a sheriff's sub office in that area but it's not manned all the time and the housing divison is right off of interstate 70 about by a mile. So they don't know if it's local doing it or if it's someone bouncing through.

A frind of asked  our child what I was doing with my vacation from the gardens...

Answer... canning quick main dishes

 WHAT??? WHY ????was the response.

Lots of answers to that one, because the meat was on sale, I am out of freezer room, so forth and so on 

Reality is , I am cutting down the take out so need healthy quick meals that are basically heat and serve without much to add to it. 

I saved 25 % on the grocery bill buying potatoes, onions and 1 salad mix and the rest was meat and dairy.  I have only to get one roast for Christmas Eve (Christmas day is leftovers) as who is coming is floating so we decided to get the roast and if they come, there will be enough, and if not, we will put leftovers in packages for other meals in freezer. Since we have a superbug, Covid and 2 types of flu going around,sickies are not welcome LOL which is why there is no confirmed of who is coming.

I got my Holiday meats for Thanksgiving, New Year's eve, New Year's day, Valentine's day, our anniversary, St Patrick's Day, Easter (I moved the ham from Christmas day to Easter) Memorial day and July 4th. 

I picked 25 recipes from Pressure canning for Beginners and Beyond by Angi Schneider. 

I figured up my costs, divided by how many jars(main part of the meals) and even Hubby was a bit shocked. It comes out to around $1.25 PER JAR which is a meal for us. Figuring 150 jars.I plan to use 3 a week. That gives me a year's supply. 

Hubby asked me why I had a cloth grocery sack with a empty card board box in the freezer.  I use cloth grocery bags to keep things separate, I have the bag tagged on handle using freezer tape to tell me what is in it. The bag is for the pumpkin puree I will freeze in 1 cup amounts when I can cubed pumpkin and winter squash so I know to NOT use that space.

Put homemade bread and a fruitI have frozen or canned with soups.

Put rice or pasta and fruit with the rest. Keeping in mind I already have canned or froze my fruit of my own or local. I do buy canned fruit that is not grown in this area like pineapple etc. I have plenty of flour. My yeast is in freezer plus I can make sourdough starter. 

I have a little bit of lettuce and some kale still growing in the vegepod that I covered with frost protection row cover.

We picked up 15 lbs of oats at Amish bulk store on the way to pick up the pumpkin roll Amish made us, they donate any money earned from them to Children's hospital in Columbus. St Judes has helped with Amish bills more than once.Since I am now making granola on top of the oat fruit bar I make once a month and Hubby eats oatmeal sometimes as a snack, I am not sure how long that will last us.

We are trying to eat our colors, red, green, yellow/orange, white/tan/brown and purple/blue/black daily to be healthy so I made a chart to mark off what was ate and what we need to put a little more effort into eating. The blue/purple/black is an effort for sure. 

We should be able to drop the grocery budget to $100 a month. I will move what I budgeted to savings to pay for the replacement of meat probably late summer of next year. What is left will be put on mortgage. 

 We have an Englisher that is looking to start making goat cheese. We have a couple Amish that will take an order for cheese when they go to the east side ot the state for other things. There are some stores that specialize in cheese over there. 

I am still trying to pay off mortgage early and yet bring the out go of $$ down. 

Prayers for peace

Blessed Be