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