From My Home to Yours
8/28/26
~ We finally got a good rain! ~
We've needed rain badly in our area for a while. It has rained all around us, even 10 miles down the road, but nothing for us ... until one day this week. The cloud shelf shown in the picture dumped quite a bit of rain on us and we were delighted! It will help our fall garden tremendously!
Speaking of fall garden, I did a bit more planting this week ... more broccoli, cabbage and collard plants that we grew from seed. I also replanted brussels sprout seeds as the first planting didn't germinate, not one of them ... probably due to the excessive heat. The newly planted seeds are already sprouting and breaking through the ground.
Take a look at our butternut squash! They are doing really well and should be ready in about another 6 weeks. When ready, these will be harvested and stored in crates in a cool, dry place out of the weather. We'll enjoy them in our meals throughout the fall and winter. My favorite way to eat butternut squash is seasoned and oven-roasted! Yum!
We harvested two 5-gallon buckets of apples from our apple tree and I started preserving them. I made unsweetened applesauce. (I threw in a couple of large pineapple pears from our pear trees so I guess technically, you would call it 'pear applesauce.') We had enough left from the canning to have with our supper meal and it was quite good!
Still to do is to make apple pie filling for the freezer. When we're ready for an apple pie, we'll thaw the filling and place it in a pie shell, bake and enjoy. We can also use the filling to make apple crisp which is quite delicious served with a dollop of ice cream on top ... just like hot apple pie!
I had an abundance of cherry tomatoes, way more than we would eat before they went bad so I made plain unseasoned sauce. (The sky is the limit as to what I can use it for since it has no seasoning.)
pictured from left to right:
harvest ...
washed, de-stemmed and placed on baking pans ...
Roasted for 1 hour (this step brings out the flavor) ...
drain off water ...
run tomatoes through food grinder ...
process the sauce in water bath canner ...
waste not, want not!
Meals we've enjoyed from our pantry thus far this week are:
meatloaf (premade and ready to cook from the freezer), roasted potatoes, pickled asparagus
pan fried gizzards (home-canned - they were so tender they almost melted in our mouths), collard greens (home-canned), navy beans (home canned)
Spaghetti, all items from our pantry.
Leftovers!!! We always cook enough so we can have a buffet style meal of leftovers!
The only items we purchased from the grocery store this week was kombucha and a package of low-carb flour tortilla wraps. I haven't done my $5 pantry challenge shopping this week yet, that will be done over the weekend. I estimate that we will have spent a total of about $25 at the grocery store this week. This is only possible because of the skill of building and maintaining a well-stocked pantry. Yes, it is a skill, a job, a side-hustle if you will. One that pays big dividends in peace of mind and healthy nourishing food for your family. It also pays big dividends when you are able to bypass the more expensive food pricing and still feed your family while waiting for the sale prices.
My sister and I embarked on another sewing project this week (we live 12 hours apart so it's all done via pictures, texts and sometimes, by video chat.). We made drawstring bags ... I made 4, all using materials I had on hand. Two (pictured) are completed and two others are almost finished. The unfinished ones are made from recycled fabric that used to be clothing ... (waste not, want not applies to fabric too!)
In closing, here's a little more pantry building wisdom I want to share with everyone ... the goal is not to have the biggest and best pantry. Sometimes I fear that some may be building a pantry for bragging rights instead of meeting their families needs. The goal is to have a well stocked pantry that meets your family's needs for the specified amount of time that is right for your family ... that you will use! I also want to remind ourselves of this ... as we journey through this life, our pantry needs are going to change. The kind of foods, the amount of food as well as the longevity of our pantry, it's all going to change. Our pantries should be one of several tools we employ to take care of our households, not an idol that consumes our lives.
That's it 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 ...
~ quietly holding the home front ~
She looketh well to the ways of her household … Proverbs 31:27
From This Heart of Mine
Mrs. Patsi on Instagram
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