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!

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?

Corny Day

This morning I got up early so I could go in and sew before Ernie got up.  I knew once he was up and the paper was read, we were going to go.  He needed to go to the shop at work and I wanted to go shop at Walmart for a couple pair of jeans.  So after breakfast, off we went.

On the normal way home, he saw a sign for fresh corn, asked if I wanted some and of course I did.  We got our 80 ears of corn and decided to take a different way home.  I haven't been the "back" way for a long time.  So much has changed, lots of new fancy houses dot the old farmlands.  Saw some fabulous vegetable gardens and beautiful flower gardens. 

Once home, we got to work.  I loaded all the bags of corn into my big yellow wagon.  Then we pulled up a garbage can and a couple chairs and started husking.  Doug, Lacey and baby Estella stopped by so Gramma had to hold Stellie and Doug and Lacey took over husking.  Pretty smart on my part! Then they left.....before the real work started.  But it was nice to visit with them.  I don't see my son often enough.

So Ernie set up the outside kitchen.  The turkey fryer is filled with water and boiling to blanch the corn, the canner kettle is filled (and refilled several times) with cold water and ice.  The the corn cutting begins.  Under the green towel is where I dump the corn when the dishes were full.

When the first tub is full, I bring it in the house and start bagging it into gallon freezer bags.  When we want corn for dinner, I just break off a hunk and cook it.  Works for me and saves bags.

We ended up with 16 bags in the freezer. I figure there are at least 4 dinners in each bag for the 2 of us--each bag has 6-7 cups of corn--so 64 dinners......corn once a week or so.  We are all set!  
The chickens will get the cobs.  The deer can eat the husks. We all win.

Oh, and see those pop-cycles?  Those are blackberry smoothie pop-cycles.  The kiddos picked me some blackberries the other day and I promised to make pop-cycles with them.  They turned out delicious.  See that half eaten one???  Those are too big for little boys.  I need to make some smaller ones.

Waste Not Wednesday

A while back, Jo at Jo's Country Junction was doing link ups to Waste Not Wednesday.  I guess there wasn't enough interest to keep it going-insert sad face- but my project this morning made me think of that.

With the new hens starting to lay, it doesn't take long to get an over abundance of eggs. My egg shelf in the fridge was full.  Yesterday I was blog hopping through the Think Christmas blog hop and came across this post hat Hallbrook Designs.  Ding, ding, ding...the bells are ringing loud in my head.  It's been a while since I have made these and I need some in my freezer.  I do mine a bit different that Missie does.

This morning, I pulled out of the freezer my baggies of chopped onion, red peppers, green peppers and sweet corn.  Out of the fridge came 2 leftover Italian sausages that I chopped up real small, a couple chunks of cheese that I grated and a dozen eggs.  Into the skillet went a glob of butter, the veggies and sausage.  Heat all that up, add the eggs that have been whipped up all pretty and fluffy.  Cook gently.  Turn off the burner, stir in the cheese and cover for a few minutes so the cheese melts.

Warm up some flour tortillas.  Lay out a sheet of wax paper--how I love my box of cut wax paper, so handy for so many things.  Place the tortilla on it with some of the egg mixture.

Roll it up and wrap it up. Keep rolling and wrapping.  Missie has great pictures of how to roll them up!

Pretty soon your cookie sheet will have a pile of breakfast burritos.  Lay them out as flat as you can, put them in the freezer for a few hours.  Take them out, put them into a zip bag and put them back in the freezer. Need a quick breakfast or lunch???  Take one out, heat it up, eat it up!

1 less dozen eggs, 2 less Italtian sausages and 2 chunks of cheese out of the fridge.  My frozen chopped onion and pepper bags are a bit emptier.  I now have 9 great burritos in the freezer. Be sure to save enough for yourself to have breakfast.  Thanks Missie of Hallbrook Designs for reminding me to do this again! If you haven't read her blog, you should.  She has some fabulous stuff over there.

If you aren't cooking ahead to have great things in your freezer, why not???  Home cooked is so much better than store bought!  I love to cook extra for dinner to have enough for 1 or 2 freezer dinners.  Like last night's chicken casserole that I based off of Pioneer Woman's Chicken Spagetti.  My husband is in love with her like he loves Paula Deen.  Cute ladies with cute accents and they both can cook!  I've learned to make sure he knows I got the recipes from either of them and they are sure to be a hit.  MEN!!!