This week’s question is one we can all relate to:
My
biggest struggle is time. I work full time and have difficulty finding or
making the time to can and preserve, etc. I live on a small lot in a
development, so have no real room for a garden. I currently have 3 4x4 raised
beds. It’s just my husband and we do look after my mom.
There have been seasons in my life when I worked full time
and had to make time for canning and preserving. Let me tell you from
personal experience that I found it difficult at times. Here are some things I did that helped …
I would work in stages, for example if I had tomatoes that
needed canning, I would harvest them one evening and get them washed and cleaned
up. The next evening, I would either
freeze them whole in bags for future canning or I would slip the peelings and
put them in the refrigerator overnight.
The next evening, I would cook the tomatoes down and set them back in the
refrigerator when the pot cooled down (I would set pot and all in the
refrigerator) and the next evening I would process the tomatoes.
Another thing I would do, and this was the method I used
most, was to do the prep work for whatever needed preserving in the evenings
and then have a big processing day on Saturday or sometimes on Friday night.
I also enlisted the help of everyone in the family, sometimes the help was filled with groans and complaints (which were dealt with). I was firm on the issue though, we all ate the food and so we all had to help preserve the food.
How would you answer this question?
patsi
Sharing 42 years' experience of frugal living and pantry building (if you include my frugal childhood, well that would add a few more years to my experience!)
A Working Pantry
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Your stockpile doesn't have to rely on canning and preserving at all. I live on an almost totally shaded property so we can go only grow a tiny amount and not enough to put any by for later. We can only what we find at great prices but mostly rely on the good old grocery store at our house and we do fine. I wish it was different but it's not so we do most of our stockpiling by shopping the sales.
ReplyDeleteLana, yes, that is so true! In fact, we're going to discuss that in depth later as that was one of the questions I received! There are many ways to stock a pantry. We enjoy gardening and look forward to continuing gardening and preserving into our senior years, however if our health or other circumstances don't allow it, we plan to still have a well stocked pantry.
DeleteWhen I worked full time I did as you did Patsy. I worked in shifts, a little each evening and had the big canning on weekends. A lot of it is prep work of one kind or another.
ReplyDeleteJudy, you're right, a lot of preserving food is prep work!
DeleteI do a lot of freezing of produce during the summer. I watch for low prices or deals on in-season produce, then buy enough to last our family through winter when they are at rock bottom prices. For most veggies, you need to blanch the produce before freezing on cookie sheets (freezing tip - line the cookie sheets with silicone baking sheets, waxed paper or parchment paper to make it easier to get the frozen food off the baking trays). Once frozen, tranfer to labeled baggies when you get a moment. Since it only takes 2-3 minutes to blanch each batch, it goes very quickly! Fruit is often only a matter of washing and cutting (peaches take a little longer as I blanch them to remove the skins, but you could peel the skins with a knife). It takes longer for me, because we currently have 4 adults, a hungry teen and a teen friend who frequently eats at our house. I have to buy a lot more food than a 2-3 person household.
ReplyDeleteAnother way to preserve food is to do it at the same time as making dinner. When corn on the cob is in season, I buy a dozen corn each week. We have it with 1 dinner during that week and cook all 12 cobs. After dinner, we cut the kernels off the leftover cobs and freeze them to use in winter. You could easily do a batch or too of blanching veggies while cooking dinner as well. After all, you are already standing over the stove doing the cooking! To make it easier, take an evening to do the cutting/prepwork with the veggies you plan to preserve that week, if they require it (like green beans, carrots, etc). Most veggies can be kept cut up in a container of water in the fridge until you are ready to blanch them.
If you prefer to can your produce, or want to make things to can (like tomato sauce, salsa or jam), you can easily use the frozen produce to make it at a later date. Summer is so very hot and not a good time to heat up the house. I find it a lot easier to can things in the fall or winter, when you don't mind the extra warmth! Since the produce is already preserved, you can do a canning sesson whenever you can carve out some time from your busy schedule!
Rhonda, those are some excellent ideas!!! Thank you!
DeleteDear Patsi,
ReplyDeleteI always split up my canning. With a busy toddler and all of my other chores, things have to be done a bit at a time. I can never just get lost in a project for as long as I want/need. I do exactly as you suggested and do all of my prep one day and then can it the next (usually during nap time). I also make sure that on canning day, I have easy meals planned (crock pot, freezer meals, leftovers, etc.) so I'm not in the kitchen all day long. This system has worked really well for me. I do garden and grow food but a lot of what I can is, at this point at least, purchased at the grocery store on sale.
Love, Kelsey