Get It Done-Week of December 3, 2018

My plans for the week of December 3rd:

Sewing Room

• Work on Quiltville mystery when next clue is available.
• Work on a secret Christmas project.
• Work on another secret project.
• Cut more pieces for the Antique Star quilt.

Kitchen Plans

• This week is clear out the kitchen freezer week. I love a good freezer challenge week. The menu plan has been made. 
• Clean out 1 more cabinet.

Evening Plans

• I'm going to put the Antique Star quilt parts away for a while and work on the Mischief Quilt. I figure if I sew a row together 1 night, the next I can sew it onto the quilt. Cross my fingers that the next 4 rows will be added this week. Then it will be a top.

How Did I Do Last Week? 
My plans for the week of November 29th:

Sewing Room

• Put the heart quilt together. It's a compete top ready to be sandwiched and quilted.
• Work on Quiltville mystery when next clue is available. This will be a theme for a few weeks.  😊

Kitchen Plans

• Make up some turkey bone soup. I don't think there will be enough to can.  No soup but I canned 8 pints of stock and 8 jars of pinto beans for the pantry. Turkey meat went into the freezer.

Evening Plans

• Continue stitching diamonds for Antique Star quilt. Several stitching evening happened.

Project Pantry

You know I like to can, right?

The jar lifter on the left belonged to my mom.

I bought mine in the early 70s when I was a young wife, 

starting to can for my own family.

I still use it and the water bath canner I bought at the time.

Only I mostly pressure can now,

using the pressure canner that my dad gave me.

I've replaced all the important parts to in several times but 

it's still the same canner dad gave me.

I'm doing my own freezer challenge.

Get that old stock out of the freezer and into jars.

I need room for new freezer stock.

Clams! So many clams. 

Sunday I made clam chowder base.

The recipe is in The Ball Blue Book.

Potatoes, onion, bacon and clams.

Then when I open a jar, I make a rue of butter and flour,

add some heavy cream and a jar of base.

Hubby says it's really good. 

I'll never believe that. 😝

It's Stinky Clam Chowder to me.

14 1/2 pints added to the pantry.

Tuesday I make him smoked clams.

I'm not using the smoker, just some liquid smoke. 

I found the recipe here.

(Yes, I know it's not an approved recipe by the canning gurus.)

I've made them before, he says they are good.

Again, I'll never believe that.

Since I only made 8 1/2 pints of clams and I don't like to run the pc partially full,

I canned up some pinto beans in 1/2 pints. 

The perfect amount for a bean dip snack. 

14 more jars on the shelf.

I need to get out more jars.

I have fish in the freezer that needs to be canned up.

Stocking The Winter Pantry

It's hunting season for the hubby.

Opening day, Saturday, he got his buck.

 That means Monday was processing day.

 Backstrap, a few steaks and venison burger.

My Facebook friend Pat had posted a picture the other day with how she freezes her burger.

So I copied her and wow, what a game changer!

Put a gob of burger in your vacuum sealer bag,

seal it, then take a rolling pin and flatten the burger.

A light bulb moment for me!

I canned 3 pints of burger to try

plus 5 half pints of chunks and 6 1/2 pints of bone broth made with the rib bones.

Yesterday I picked up my Zaycon order of 40# of chicken.

First up was 30 1/2 pints of canned chicken chunks.

By the time that was finished, so was I.

This morning I pulled the remaining chicken out of the fridge and got busy.

These are big breasts so 3 half breast were frozen whole for baking.

Then 4 more chunked into large pieces for whatever.

7 packages each of chunks and strips that I did the same as the venison burger.

Flat packages stack so nice! 

I also cooked a nice pan full to shred to put a few bags in the freezer.

I do have some noodles cooked in the fridge so it will be chicken & noodle bake for dinner tonight.

My pantry cupboards are a mess so I did some rearranging on the jar side.

You can see my stash of beans that I did last month.

Below that is my honey and the clam chowder soup base and jars of smoked clams. 

Recipes for the soup base and smoked clams are in the Ball Blue Book.

Below that is my little bit of jams and jellies.

Next up I want to can some garbanzo beans.

I'm hoping for an elk next month.

In the meantime, there is a turkey and 3 whole chickens that need out of my freezer.

I have a few pork roasts that are a bit on the tough side.

I'll pull those out and pressure cook them.

Then I'll freeze the meat up for soups.

The chicken and turkey will be vacuumed sealed for future meals.

I'm doing my own Freezer Challenge this week. 

It's time to clean the kitchen freezer again.

I know there is an abundance of bananas and reruns (leftovers) to use up.

Banana bread will be baked today.

That should earn me a few more Good Wife points. 

I've discovered a couple of really good you tubers that have me excited to get my pantry in order. 

It all started with a simple little video I found about what I canned that I love and didn't love.

Check them out.

Lisa at Sutton Daze

I just started watching her Pantry Preparedness from August 2016.

Amanda at Moore2Life

Plus several more. 

Oh the plans I have on my list!

Pantry/Freezer Challenge-The Results

Oh my, the aroma in my house yesterday and overnight was amazing. It smelled like garden fresh tomatoes. Which is exactly what the tomatoes that I showed yesterday were when they went into my freezer.

My original plan was to make one crockpot full of tomato sauce and one of pizza sauce and to can them. I guess I didn't think my plan through enough because there is a ratio of tomatoes to lemon juice for canning tomato sauce and I didn't follow a recipe for that.  So, better to be safe than sorry, to the freezer these go! From the bulk food section of Winco, I had bought a pizza seasoning mix so I started dumping it in until it tasted good.

I ended up with 18 of these half pint Ball containers for the freezer. The perfect amount for one pizza on my home made crust. But first I'm going to go grab 1 of them out and make some pepperoni rolls and use it for dipping sauce. Mmmmm.

Pantry/Freezer Challenge

I am on a mission to empty out 1 old chest freezer.

It needs to be gone and replaced with a new upright.

I like having 2 freezers because you know I hate to shop.

I want my freezers and my pantry full.

Just in case.

Today's mission is to get all of the frozen whole tomatoes into the crockpot.

Did you know if you freeze them whole? 

They take up a lot of real estate.

When you thaw them, the skins come right off.

This will be really good tomato sauce.

Probably tomorrow.

It takes a long time in the crockpot.

Lesson learned...don't freeze any more tomatoes.

I figured what the heck and pulled out all the cut up tomatoes too.

The second crockpot will be full of those.

I think I will make this pizza sauce.

I'm not sure how much sauce I'll get out of all these.

I'd rather have it in jars than in the freezer.

I'll look up the pressure cooking time to see if it's the same as for canning dry beans.

Can't run the pressure cooker half full.

Too be continued.

Freezer Challenge

This is what my refrigerator/freezer looks like. I love that beast!  But the freezer needs some attention. Stuff gets tossed in and forgotten. It's time to empty it out and give it a good scrubbing. This week I am giving myself the challenge of staying out of the big freezers and only using what is in this freezer to fix dinner.

A couple weeks ago, Judy L had a Prepping Challenge where you only used what was in your home for food and drinks.  I did pretty good except that one day when Ernie stopped and brought dinner home with him and then I left for retreat. I would have been fine all week with what I had in the house. Now let's see how I do with this one.

I almost didn't take a picture but what the heck......this is what it looks like. Before the picture there were 3 packages of beef stew meat, 2 bags with some chopped onions and a bag of green tomato sauce. All of it went into the crock pot (enough to turn into a few freezer meals for the big freezer). Enough for dinner will be turned into BBQ steakettes. (Just cooked meat simmered in BBQ sauce. I used to make this for my kids and there were never leftovers! And the stew meat got used up without making stew.) There was also a container of Pioneer Woman's Sour Cream Noodles (just the noodles and sauce without the ground meat) that needs used.

I'm wondering if one night we will empty out that Margarita bucket and the other booze bottles that are in there. wink, wink--I don't think so! I will take that bucket out and empty the contents into a smaller jar. There will be breakfast for dinner one night using sausage patties and the hasbrowns. There is some cooked chicken that will be thawed and reheated one night, fruits for smoothies, 2 bags of egg shells for the tomatoes if they ever get planted, and probably some stuff that needs tossed to the chickens.  The bag of chopped broccoli and the ham bits will be used in ham, cheese and broccoli fritatta.  Maybe I'll use the bag of red spaghetti sauce with some of the stew meat and make a spaghetti pie from that.

The ice bags are constantly being used lately.......did you know if you put rock salt in with your ice and water that it won't freeze hard and will form to your knee???

So there you have it.......the challenge to myself has been issued. Want to join me?