First I decided that we were never going to eat all the tangerines, so why not can them. We pay and arm and leg for those silly little cans in the stores, why not use these? It worked! I do wish I had found pint jars, but they will keep nicely in the fridge this summer and be a great little snack for nibbling.
Next it was time to check the project the boys helped with last week. I have been babying the upside down buckets so carefully but one tomato plant broke off, now the other one looks like it is just dying from root rot. Have to think about this one and fix it before the boys see how Nanny blew it for them! Like carefully dig up and replant them, on the sly. While carefully assasinating plants, I decided to start thinking out of the box for the other blog.
It was time to pick the last of the fruit off the trees before it froze, again. Did you know that you can make a huge pile of lemon zest in 1/2 hour while eating lunch? Multi tasking, a woman's life. Then go get oranges to do the same the next day.
While entertaining your granddaughters by trying all the samples in Costco, fall in love with those gorgeous limes and think, "Well, why not? You love to cook with limes, right?"
So lunch tomorrow will be while the rest of the sale chicken is pressuring on the stove in jars, making lime zest and squeezing the juice out of the buggers! It has to be yummy stuff. I don't know if you can even find lime zest but I will have saved $12 - $14 on just the orange and lemon zest alone. The juice doesn't have the bitter peel taste in it and makes the best lemonade, so the lime should be the same. I feel some kitchen inspiration coming on!
The chicken is the first that I have home canned in years and I held my breath while doing it. It looks better than I remembered it looking when I was pregnant with Rob. It will be so handy and my mind is at ease after deciding to do this with sale meat. Every time I put more food in the freezer, I have had something digging at the back of my mind, "This is going to be a mess and waste if something happens to the power". I had already started buying new lids, which seemed to help ease my mind somewhat, but this really has. Experience has taught Jon & I to not ignore those little feelings when they stay put for very long. It has never been what we have expected, but is still obvious when we have been blessed for obeying the promptings. We have been so grateful for the gospel and the wonderful understanding we have that enables us to recognize when we are being led by a loving Heavenly Father for the good of our family. The peace of mind is priceless!
The funny thing is that when I was counting and figuring to do a batch of 18 jars, I didn't look to see that the packages were pretty thick, there were two layers so I have another 18 jars left to can up. That will make 36 quarts for about $50! Compare that to those little cans in the store!
3 comments:
i wish i lived closer so you could teach me how to do all of this food storage stuff! keep up the good work.
I'm impressed! I really need to be doing this...I've had those promptings for many years now. I have done some but I'm thinking hubby is starting to feel those promptings too. With him on board maybe he'll let me do more! One can hope. Let me know how the tomatoes do.
wow, you are a busy woman!!! Maybe I need to take some canning pointers from you!! Hopefully you took some time for yourself!
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