~ from my home to yours ... ~
I love our little home, it's perfect for us! There's warmth and love within its walls and yes, mason jars, home preserved foods, herbs, books, WIP projects, lots of snuggly quilts, a swing on the front porch and a rocking chair nearby! We call it home and we call ourselves blessed. We give God the glory for He has had and continues to have His hand in it all!

Friday, August 1, 2025

From My Home to Yours: 8/1/25

 From My Home to Yours

8/1/25

~ August is my month for a big winter pantry restocking push! 

This month, all month long, I will be joining in with Jessica at Three Rivers Homestead and participating in her #everybitcountschallenge that she does every August.  I will be intentionally focusing on doing something every day to get my pantry ready for winter and will share it all on my weekly post here.  Why the push this year ...

It's been a challenging gardening year for us. Hubby's medical event earlier this year changed everything for us and when things started settling down into a new normal and I thought I might get some gardening done, excessive heat and humidity arrived early along with drought and then rain, rain, rain. Between all of it, this gardening year has been as close to a complete failure as we've ever come. However, the pantry still needs to be restocked for winter and so I've gotten real creative in using all avenues available to me to do just that.

My rules for the challenge:  If it restocks any of my pantries in any way, no matter how small the amount, it's allowed.

Some ideas are:

freezer meals

cook ahead and freeze meal ingredients

seasoning, tea and other types of mixes

anything from our garden ... produce, herbs, flowers (yes, flowers ... rose petals fall under the category of flowers and they are used in some herbal mixtures and teas.)

herbal remedies

anything we glean, are given and or can barter 

loss leader deals from the grocery store

non-food thrift store finds for our non-food pantries

and more!

It's going to be an exciting and busy month starting with today ...

I still had some peaches that needed preserving, so I finished those up ...


I peeled, sliced, placed them on a flat parchment lined pan and added them to the freezer for flash freezing ...


flash frozen and ready for vacuum sealing ...


vacuum sealed and ready for the freezer! Two bags ... not a lot, but every bit counts!

In addition, we cooked a ham, and I made angel biscuits.  The plan was to make ham and biscuits for our main meal of the day and to share.


They were delicious!  Angel biscuits are so light and fluffy!

Here's the recipe I use to make angel biscuits ...

5 cups self-rising flour
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 - 1 cup shortening
2 1/4 teaspoons dry yeast
2 tablespoons warm water
2 cups buttermilk

Mix flour and sugar together
Cut in shortening
Dissolve yeast in warm water and add with buttermilk to dry mixture
Mix well forming into a dough ball
Roll and cut as desired
Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes or until tops are golden brown
Enjoy!

I was able to add 2 packages of vacuum sealed ham to the freezer part of my pantry after we ate our fill and shared with others.  

2 packages of peaches and 2 packages of ham ... not bad for day one of the challenge!

Next week, I'll have seven days to report about!  That just might be a long post!

In other news ...

I spent more time this week cleaning and organizing different parts of my pantry ... by the time I get finished, it'll be time to start over again!!!  Oh, how blessed I am!

I stitched up a second Bible study book sleeve after realizing that I needed two instead of one.  You can take a peek at it over on Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine.

And finally, ladies, I did a series of lessons on Jael in the Bible.  Don't know who Jael is, pop on over to my Bible study blog, From This Heart of Mine, and find out.   She was one courageous woman!  Here are the lessons, beginning with the first one ...

That's all for this week!  It's one of those weeks where I've worked and worked but the finishes are yet to be finished ... if that makes sense!

I hope you've found something in my ramblings that will help and or encourage you in the upcoming week.

Until the next time ...

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

~ using my pantry to take care of my family and bless others as well ~

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You might be interested in my other blogs ...

Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine 

From This Heart of Mine  

Friday, July 25, 2025

From My Home to Yours: 7/25/25

  From My Home to Yours

7/25/25

~   Every little bit helps!  

As I've shared before, our garden was an almost complete failure this year, however, that doesn't change the fact that our pantry still has to be restocked.  As uncertain as times are right now, keeping a well-stocked pantry is like having an insurance policy, so what's a person to do when their garden doesn't cooperate?  I don't know about anyone else who finds themselves in this situation, but we're taking on the attitude that where there's a will, there's a way and 'every little bit helps!'

Here's what that looked like this week ...


A local food chain had cherries on sale this week for $2.99/lb.  We purchased the amount you see above, plus 6 more that I ate while prepping them for flash freezing.  Once these are completely frozen, they will be bagged and added to the freezer for use in smoothies.  I like to keep a variety of frozen fruit on hand to go in smoothies and cherries are one of them.  Not a huge amount, but this amount will flavor about 30 smoothies for me over a period of time ... I'll take it!


I've been harvesting our onions and as you can see the harvest is not that great, but it is better than nothing.  (I still have a few more to get out of the ground.)  As soon as these are completely cured, I'll chop and freeze them for cooking in various dishes throughout the fall and winter.  Again, a small amount, but it's still something!


We needed to restock our pantry with canned and frozen peaches this year, but at the going price of $90/bushel in our area we said 'no, way!'

Then we remembered a farm we purchased peaches from several years ago that's close to a couple of hours away and hubby gave them a call.  It was errand day for us anyway and when we learned that they were selling grade #2 peaches (pictured above) for $32/bushel we incorporated a trip to the farm in our errands.  Yes, it was out of our way but even with adding miles to our errands, we still came out much better financially then we would have if we had purchased them locally.  The peaches we purchased were picked that day, so they were fresh from the tree.  You can find me this weekend canning and freezing peaches with a thankful heart!


We found black berries at the same farm as the peaches.  These were labeled 'jam berries' and were just $15 for the box.  We brought them home where I washed them, spread them out on parchment lined flat pans and started the process of flash freezing them.


We saved out enough blackberries to make a blackberry cobbler!  It was delicious!  I used the basic cobbler recipe of ...
1 cup milk
1 cup self-rising flour
1 cup sugar
dash of vanilla

mix all together

melt 1 stick of butter in a baking dish

For blackberries, since they are not very sweet, I sprinkle sugar over them, stirring to mix well with the berries, and then let them sit while the butter is melting and the 'dough' is being mixed.

Once the butter is melted, I covered the bottom of the dish with blackberries, poured the dough over them and then added the rest of the blackberries on top of the dough.

I didn't measure the amount of blackberries I used, I just used what was left over from filling the pans for flash freezing.  If I were to estimate, it would be between 3 - 4 cups.

I baked it at 400 degrees for 40 minutes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A notification from our power company was shared with us this week, that beginning in November of this year, the rate for power usage is going to double during peak usage hours.  The peak usage hours were listed as from 6 - 9 a.m. daily from October 16th - April 15th and from 2 - 6 p.m. from April 16 - October 15.  I'm thinking and pondering and praying about what we can do and how we can structure our schedules to avoid as much usage during those peak hours as possible.

One thing we've decided to do is put sun blocking window film on the windows that get direct sunlight during the hottest part of the day.  We already have thermal curtains for those windows, and they do make a big difference, but we're looking for anything that will help even more.  The thought of our power bill doubling is not something I want to think about in any way!

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Yesterday and today, our high temperatures were in the low 90's, a sharp contrast from the 100-degree days we had earlier in the week.  But alas, the 100-degree days are returning today and are predicted to last for several more days in a row.  In fact, we are supposed to go over 100 degrees for a couple of the days.   Anticipating the return of the heat, we've spent the last two days outside getting the yardwork done (mowing, weeding, etc) and working on getting the container garden and raised beds ready for fall planting in addition to running errands.  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some things we found marked down and or on clearance this week include:
ground beef  
(I made a meatloaf for a meal later in the week.)

and

stir fry beef 
(I made a double batch of stir fry; we had it for one meal this week and have enough for another later in the week.)

That's two meals that I was able to make ahead with sale priced food this week.  For the marked down meats we find on clearance, we either cook them the same day or freeze them for future use.  This time we turned them into meals for later in the week.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I was cleaning out one of the refrigerator freezers we have and found a package of sausage patties that had ice crystals forming inside the wrapping.  I didn't want to lose them to freezer burn, so I immediately cooked them up and refroze them as ready to eat.  Staying on top of what's in the freezer is important as freezer burned food is wasted food.

That's all for this week!

I hope you've found something in my ramblings that will help and or encourage you in the upcoming week.

Until the next time ...

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You might be interested in my other blogs ...

Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine 

From This Heart of Mine  

Friday, July 18, 2025

From My Home to Yours: 7/18/25

 From My Home to Yours

7/18/25

~ taking inventory and getting ready for a big pantry building push, my gift trunk and how does your garden grow? 

It seems that I've been working on inventorying and cleaning my pantry for months, and while that is literally true, there have also been a lot of unplanned interruptions that I've had to deal with.  At any rate, I mean to keep working on it until I get it done.  In August, I'll be taking special care to focus on restocking and building up my pantry for the winter so from now until then, you'll find me somewhere buried in my pantry, cleaning shelves, reorganizing and making lists of what I need to add and or replace.

I've been asked several times by various people how our garden was doing this year?  Is it a good one, are you busy 'puttin up and preserving?'  The honest answer is between my husband's major health event in the spring (during planting season) and the drought and then all the rain we've had following the drought; my garden is in a sad state ... what there is of it!  The above pictured cucumber plants (loaded with blooms and baby cucumbers) give me hope that all is not lost.  

My herbs are doing well also!  Pictured are 3 that I harvested from my garden drying naturally!  From left to right are (1) chocolate mint (2) holy basil/tulsi and (3) spearmint.  There's not a lot of each (I had to harvest carefully as the humidity is so bad here right now that it's causing mold to form on some of the herb leaves.  We don't want to dry molded herbs!), but I was able to get these bunches hung inside on our hearth wall where they will dry safely away from the heat and humidity outside.


It's sunflower season and they're in full bloom ... aren't they beautiful!  Image being able to walk out your door and see a field full ... yes, I am blessed!


I had the unexpected occasion this week to need two little girl gifts, so I went to my gift trunk and pulled out two crochet ruffled blankets made of super soft Bernat blanket yarn.  I rolled them and made them look like a bouquet of flowers, then wrapped the bottom half in tissue paper and tied it with ribbon.  When I presented the 'bouquet of flowers' to each little girl they smiled really big and immediately started feeling the softness with their fingers.  It made my heart sing, I have one more of those blankets left in my gift trunk, you can bet I'll be getting busy crocheting some more!  (The size of these blankets makes them perfect for cuddle blankets or 18-inch doll size blankets.)  Perfect for little girls and their imaginations!


Hubby's been in the kitchen cooking again!  Last week he made potato cakes and this week he made this ginormous from scratch banana pudding.  We've been involved with a group of youth from our church and one other out of state congregation this week doing service projects.   Each day we fed them (some 25 - 30 teenagers and adults).  While the main meal was brought in from various local restaurants, our congregation provided deserts.  We signed up for Wednesday and hubby made this banana pudding.  Yes, it was as good as it looks!


We did a huge bacon cook up!  It's tomato and bacon sandwich time and you know what that means ... bring on the bacon!


I'm working on designing and stitching up this bag using discarded jeans for a specific purpose/project.  This is my first try and overall, I'm pleased with its size and dimensions, but there is still some tweaking I want to do before I do a tutorial on it.  The tutorial will be posted over on my sewing blog, Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine when I finish it.


These draw string bags were also from my gift trunk!  I filled both of them with activities to keep little hands occupied, called them 'busy bags' and gifted them this week as well.  My gift trunk has really paid off this week!

That's all for this week!

I hope you've found something in my ramblings that will help and or encourage you in the upcoming week.

Until the next time ...

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You might be interested in my other blogs ...

Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine 

From This Heart of Mine  

Friday, July 11, 2025

From My Home to Yours: 7/11/25

From My Home to Yours

7/11/25

~ Thank you and let's talk about stretching and saving our resources ~ 


(Can you find the bee in this picture? He's busy pollinating a cucumber blossom!)

First off, thank you to everyone who reached out to me, sent messages and or prayed for me, locally and far away.  I had a somewhat serious respiratory issue that pretty much shut me down.  As soon as I had a diagnosis, I began reaching out to those who are in my personal prayer warrior group asking for their prayers.  Then, I made a short brief announcement in last week's post letting my readers know I was under the weather and wouldn't be posting.  Many of you prayed for me without knowing the details.  Thank you! What comfort is derived from knowing that faithful Christians are going to God with petitions on your behalf.  Locally, I had the care of my doctor, a friend who is a nurse and my dear sweet husband.  I also took suggestions from a dear friend in another state that is trained in the use of alternative medical care that gave me helpful information as well.  Even though my husband is dealing with his own health issues, which continue to improve every day, he dropped everything and took over ... completely took over.  He cooked me nutritious meals and saw to anything I needed that I shouldn't or couldn't do for myself.  I made sure I praised and thanked him.  Our husbands need our praise, thanks and acts of gratitude ... they thrive on it.  It's the way God made them.  I challenge you to try it and see what kind of results you get.  Keep in mind though, that if he's not used to getting this type of encouragement from you or if it's been a while since you've slowed down enough to recognize and show appreciation for the things he does, it may take a few days for him to acknowledge and recognize your efforts.  Don't give up though, it's one of many pieces that help build and maintain a healthy marriage.  (I understand that not all marriages are in good places right now and even in some cases are beyond repair.  What I've said here is in no way meant to make you feel inferior or suggest that you haven't or aren't trying.  Please understand my heart on this.)

During my 'down time' when I felt like it, I read and did some light sewing.  I'm just not one to sit and do nothing, even when sick ... if I'm able at all, I'm going to be doing something!

I read this month's issue of the Homestead Kitchen magazine over a period of days.  This month's issue is all about cucumbers and the many ways they can be preserved and or used in various dishes and beverages.  I plan to use several of the recipes myself.


I worked on this sewing project a little at a time, you can see my notes on each piece.  Normally this would be a project I could finish in about a couple of hours, but since I was pacing myself, I broke it down into steps ... with notes ... so I would know what to do next without wasting time going back over the instructions.  You can see the finished project HERE.  

I also worked on, again, a little at a time, a new 'teaching the Bible/Bible study ' Bible bag for me.  The one I was using was way past needing to be replaced!  You can see what I did, what I used and the things I carry in it HERE.

One other thing I did while recuperating was to watch several videos from Whippoorwill Holler.  She and her husband remind me a lot of me and my hubby, so I relate to much of what she shares.

Before we get to the topic of stretching and saving, I want to give another shout out to my husband.  A local food chain grocery store was having a sale on fresh corn (4 ears for $1).  We usually watch for this sale as it's a yearly thing and restock our corn products in the freezer part of our pantry.  Alas, this year I was unable to do it and had resigned myself to it just not happening.  I didn't say anything to my husband as his plate is pretty full right now, however, he came to me and told me that he was going to go and purchase a box of corn and process it for the freezer.  He did and I sat and watched him from my recliner pick up each and every ear and prepare it for the freezer.  My heart swelled with thanksgiving ... he didn't have to do this, but he did.  We are a team with many of the same goals, and he willingly stepped up to the plate to accomplish this goal of ours without my asking ... or help.  

Now, let's talk about stretching and saving our resources.  We've been more mindful of this over the last couple of months since we set ourselves a really BIG financial goal to reach.  Speaking of which, were we able to make two vehicle payments in June, like we did in May ... sadly, no, we were not, but by the middle of this month, we should be ready to make it happen ... that fourth payment, that is.   Sometimes there are setbacks, and it takes a little longer to meet steps in a plan, but we don't give up.  We keep on keeping on taking one baby step at a time until we reach our goal whether it's a monthly goal, weekly goal or even a daily goal.   Depending on how you want to look at it ... the bottom line is that in 2 1/2 months, we will have been able to make 4 vehicle payments.   This did not happen by chance, it took effort ... lots of effort!  We must be aware that when we aim for big things, it will cost us something.  There are no free rides, effort must be put into what we want to achieve.

In spite of my being sick, we continued to keep our expense tracker up-to-date.  It's the little things that will help us meet our financial goal and knowing where our money is going is a pretty BIG little thing!

Over the course of the life of my blogging I've written several posts on stretching what we have and I'm finding that reviewing them is acting as a reminder of the many ways we can stretch and save.  Here are links to some of those posts ... 










I hope you find something in the above writings that will encourage you in your frugal journey.  If there is anything that you would like me to elaborate on, please let me know.

Some meals we had this week that my hubby and later in the week myself, cooked from our kitchen ...  

omelets (my husband makes delicious omelets)

fried chicken gizzards, corn on the cob, & mashed potatoes with gravy

steak, baked potatoes, & corn on the cob

air-fried hamburgers (I cooked these) and chips

hot dogs, chips and pie 
(We don't typically eat many of these type meals, but if the need arises, we don't hesitate to pull out the easy convenient meals.)  Our pantry is not a purist pantry, nor do we eat a clean all pure diet.  We eat what we grow, glean, forage, swap or what we can find at the store at a price we can afford.  We limit the sweets and complex carbs most of the time, but not all the time.

beef stir fry served over rice (I cooked this dish)

And finally in closing, I'd like to share something that I've started doing with our laundry that has made it easier for me.  In the evening before bedtime, I put the detergent in the washer, load the laundry and close the lid.  The next morning shortly after I get up, I hit the start button and get the load started.  It washes while I'm doing my morning routine and then the pieces that need to go into the dryer go in and the dryer gets turned on ... the pieces that need to hang to dry are put on hangers and hung on a movable shower bar that goes across our bathroom shower.  By the time my morning routine is finished, and breakfast is over, the laundry is done and dealt with, and my day is ready for the next thing.  Since there are just the two of us, I don't need to do a load of laundry every morning, more like 3 - 4 mornings. I only do one load of laundry per morning no matter how much laundry there is to do.  It sure has helped simplify keeping the laundry done.

That's all for this week!

As you can see, I don't have a lot to share as I've been resting and taking it easy ... a lot, but I didn't want to let another week go by without sharing with you.

I hope you've found something in my ramblings that will help and or encourage you in the upcoming week.

Until the next time ...

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You might be interested in my other blogs ...

Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine 

From This Heart of Mine   

Friday, July 4, 2025

From My Home to Yours: 7/4/25

 From My Home to Yours

7/4/25

No post this week, I'm a bit 'under the weather!'

Update 7/7:  Thank you to all who have reached out to me and or left comments on my absence.  I had a re-check at the doctor's office today and things are improving.  I'm to check back in with the doctor on Wednesday and if all continues to go well, things should be back to somewhat of 'a normal' by the end of the week.

I'll meet you back here next Friday ... we'll have lots to talk about!

mrs. patsi @ A Working Pantry

She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27 

You might be interested in my other blogs ...

Grandma's Got a Sewing Machine 

From This Heart of Mine