Good morning, friends.
How is your pantry coming along? Have you noticed lean spots and made a plan to fill them in? Remember, we're going into holiday season so some things will come up on sale. Holiday sales usually mean baking supplies, ham, turkey, bread, eggs... things you'll use as families gather. If you can make room in your budget, now is the time to stock up on those items.
I eat a lot of ham lunch meat, but the packaged stuff is so expensive and full of stuff I'd rather not eat. Instead, I watch for Kretschmar. For lunchmeat, I get this on sale and sliced usually on a #1 or shaved. I love shaved for grilled ham/ egg/ cheese sandwiches for breakfast. An I can eat either of those settings without my dentures (which I don't wear much when I'm home - I like comfort LOL) I also look for sale on the bone-in, such as COOK's, and have it sliced about a finger's width for breakfast ham steaks.
Okay, with that in your thinking cap, I wanted to talk about Dehydrating and Canning foods for your pantry. If you've never done either one, don't be afraid to jump in. I will link you to people I deem qualified to walk you through the process of all three; water bath canning, pressure canning, and dehydrating. Freeze drying is a topic all on it's own and not as inexpensive as the others I've mentioned.
When it comes to water bath or pressure canning, you absolute best two sources are the Ball Canning Book (I'm still using the one I learned with at 12) and your County Extension or Home Economist office. If you can read and follow directions, you'll be fine. Yes, there's also Youtube but not all of them are as knowledgeable as they pretend. For canning/ pressure canning my go-to Youtubers are, Linda's Pantry and, you guessed it, Leisa at Sutton Daze.
For dehydrating I keep The Purposeful Pantry at the top of my playlist. I've learned so much from her. I also use The Ultimate Dehydrator Cookbook by Tammy Ganglogg.
As the temps (hopefully) begin to cool down, I'll be using the dehydrator a lot. Bob will be gone the first weekend in October and I plan to give the pressure canner a work out as well. I want to can potatoes and the turkey stock I have in the freezer.
That's another thing...
Have you taken a good look in your freezer? Maybe that's a discussion for next week and I'll share a video from Leisa at Sutton Daze.
In the mean time, think about what you still need to get you through the winter. Make a shopping list, watch for sales and decide what you can do TODAY... tomorrow's prices may be higher or product inaccessible.
Be safe, Be prepared, Be Blessed!
~ Kelly
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