Food Storage and Junkin

It's been a busy few days here. A lot of canning going on because our garden is producing tomatoes, peppers and herbs like crazy right now. I've been making green tomato marmalade , green tomato and raspberry jelly, Ro-tel, ketchup and freezing some as well.

Next I started on the peaches we found at the farmers market. I canned those in a very light simple syrup consisting of two cups of sugar to six cups of water heated until the sugar was incorporated thoroughly. I put the fruit into boiling water for one minute then dropped it all into a bowl of ice water to release the skins. Chopped into nice thin slices and packed into the jars then poured the syrup to cover. Left a half inch had space then water bathed canned for ten minutes. Now in the middle of winter we can have garden fresh peaches.

I had to go on a hunt for more canning jars. I unfortunately did not find any at my usual resale stores so I had to buy new ones. I really hate doing that because they come wrapped in plastic. It's the lessor of two evils though. I certainly couldn't let all the fruit go to waste.

We also found some huge eggplants so I made two eggplant parmigian dishes. We enjoyed one of them right away and froze one for later. I just take some home made tomato sauce and pour it into a glass baking dish. Layer eggplant, fresh tomato slices, cheese and more sauce until your dish is full. Add Italian seasoning or fresh herbs and bake at 400 degrees until done. It usually takes about an hour but that depends on how thick or thin you slice everything.

We went trail riding at a friend's ranch and she gave me a ton of feed bags so now I have more to sew up into farm totes. Email me to order if you'd like some.

Today we were heading to Home Depot when the habitat for humanity rehab store called my name! I just had a feeling we should stop and I was correct. We found a door for the back porch and two kitchen cabinets for $110 total! Do you have those stores where you live? What's the best deal you have gotten?

We loaded those up then got to Home Depot and got another great deal. A pick up truck bed full of huge wood posts and planks for $49 dollars! They often have wood for 70% off that has a flaw. We don't care. It still works great on our homestead and saved us over $200!

You can find great deals everywhere without buying new if you spend some time looking.