Frugal Friday - Food Preservation

I haven't done a Frugal Friday post in a while and thought it was time. I love being able to preserve foods to make them last and also to find ways to use up the little bits of leftovers.

I had the bright idea on Monday to go through my chest freezer and pull out the Thanksgiving turkey carcass and bag of veggie scraps and make broth. 

That idea turned into a chain reaction of kitchen activity that made for a very busy few days. 

I saw a bag of plums in there which I had bought when they were on sale, but because they were very ripe and I didn't have time to deal with them, I put them in the freezer. They were taking up quite a bit of room so I made 12 half-pints of plum jam with them. 

The turkey carcass was spread over 2 gallon freezer bags and the scraps were also in 2 gallon bags and that cleared out another large space in the freezer. That was turned into 7 quarts of broth.

While rummaging through the freezer, I discovered a bag and a half of blackberries that I had picked from our previous yard. It was time to use them up so they were transformed into 8 half-pints of blackberry jam.

I also spent some time cleaning and while I was in the corner where I store some of my root veggies I could smell potatoes that were beginning to go bad. I found the culprits at the bottom of the 10 lb. bag and the rest were beginning to sprout roots. So I tossed the bad ones, washed the others really well and made some gnocchi for the freezer. I ended up with two large cookie sheets full.

While pulling things from the freezer, I pulled out pork chops, a whole chicken and two packages of ground beef. So far this week we've had chili (using up the last jar of pinto beans I had on my shelf, a jar of diced tomatoes I canned this summer, the last bag of corn and the last of my brown rice), creamy pork chops with gnocchi and peas and roast chicken with mashed potatoes (from my potato stash) with a side of green beans. The ground beef is being used up today.

Because I hadn't gone grocery shopping in a while and my son didn't really have any snack-type things, I also made a batch of chocolate chip cookies.

While looking through my cupboards for ingredients for the cookies, I discovered a lb. of dried black beans. I ended up soaking and then canning 6 quarts of them. Because my pressure canner can hold up to 7 quarts and beans take a very long time to process I did a jar of pinto beans as well.

I have a bag of frozen eggs in my freezer that I had preserved a while ago when egg prices started going up. I had cracked and scrambled an egg in silicone muffin tins and scrambled it with an 1/8 tsp. of salt. Then you freeze them in the tins, pop them out and store them in a freezer bag. I'm thankful I did that because egg prices are ridiculous here now ($5 per dozen). I thawed out some of the eggs and used them in both the gnocchi and cookies.

It's been a busy week as I added all that onto my already busy schedule, but I'm thankful for ways to use up what I already have on hand. I'm also thankful for pressure canning which allows me to preserve shelf-stable foods.

I was able to use up almost everything in my refrigerator before I went grocery shopping on Wednesday afternoon. My freezer is noticeably roomier as well. There are still things in there that I want to use up, but that will be another week! :-)

I have a long line of women in my family who knew how to can and preserve food. I'm thankful that I have learned how to do that as well because while it is time-consuming, it does save in the long run.