Frugal Friday: Preserving Food

First and foremost, if you buy things fresh and preserve them yourself (rather than buying frozen/canned food) you are already saving money. You are also giving yourself and your family healthier foods because you are not using preservatives and other additives to your canned or frozen goods.
BUT, there are so many fancy products now for preserving foods that it can feel overwhelming (and expensive) to even try! Vacuum sealers? Waterbath or pressure cooker? Food strainers? Cherry pitters? Apple peeler/corer/slicers?! How about just the canning accessory kit (on amazon.com for $15!) A lot of those specialized things are helpful (I actually have a canning kit much like that one, and I make good use of it) but they are not necessary (I helped my mom bottle food for 15 years without a rubber-coated bottle lifter thank you very much!)
Here are a few things to ease your way (and if you have other ideas, please share in the comments!)

GENERAL

• The simplest way to save money is to borrow equipment! During canning season many people who own the equipment will be using it, but sometimes you can find someone who isn't using them, or at least is willing to lend you things for a few days, or to get together with you to process your food.
  
• Check out garage sales and thrift stores...equipment (or especially jars) are often available there.
  
• Ask around! Lots of people are happy to pass on things for free. I have accumulated several dozen canning jars by making my interest known and being willing to go pick them up from whomever had them. I got two dozen jars AND a steam canning processor when a woman at church passed away and I was the only person in the area that her daughter knew would use the equipment!
  

CANNING

• Remember that low-acid foods (beans, meat, etc) must be canned in an actual pressure cooker to be safe, but otherwise you can get by with a steam canner or waterbath (or a makeshift waterbath!)
  
• If you have a big, deep pan, you can use the waterbath method of canning--you don't need the special pan. You just need a pan that is big enough to put in several jars with space between each of them, and deep enough to get water about 1 inch above the top of the jars. Place a towel in the bottom of the pan to keep the glass jars slightly off the bottom of the pan (it helps the heat circulate more evenly, and also helps prevent bonking/breaking). I use an old stained hand towel. I used a second hand towel or washcloth in the center of the pan with the corners pushed between the bottles a bit to help avoid their banging against each other.
• Fit as much as you can into each jar. Once you've filled it, put your foot up on a stool or chair rung and thump the jar against your leg to get the food to settle (put a hand over it so you don't throw food everywhere!), then fill in the top again.
• Buy canning lids separately from the rings. You only need a few rings, because you can reuse them year after year. I store mine on an old wire hanger like this The lids alone are much cheaper than the lid/ring combos. ☺
  
• Save glass mayonnaise jars if you like (they work fine for canning even though they look slightly different), and definitely save the mayo lids!! You can use those lids on opened bottled food, since once the seal is broken then the canning lid isn't much good anymore. (You can also buy plastic screw-on lids specifically made to fit on canning jars.)
• If you don't have a fancy jar-lifter, you can use a potholder or folded over washcloth or handtowel. Do be careful if you're doing this with a waterbath because wet fabric will get very hot... I use a mug to scoop out some of the water from the top of the waterbath before removing the jars.
• If you don't have a funnel, go get one. ☺ If you don't have a good funnel it will be harder to get things into the jar, but it can be done. You might want to use wide-mouth jars because (obviously) they have a wider mouth, and it's easier to get things into them.
• I recommend using all one size jar mouths. Whether you have quart jars, pint jars, or half-pint jars, you can get them with wide or regular mouths. If all your jars have the same size mouth, then you won't need to have two sets of lids/rings.
  

FREEZING

• Again with the borrowing--vacuum sealers are expensive, but the bags aren't too much, and you might be able to borrow a sealer and just buy your own bags.
  
• Old jars (plastic or glass) can be used to freeze things. If the item you're freezing has liquid content, then be sure to put the lid on loosely for the first day, then go back and tighten them after the liquid has expanded (otherwise you will have broken jars and big messes all over your freezer!)
  
• If you're going to use ziploc-style bags, get the good ones. Cheap bags break or don't seal well and you'll end up losing your food. It's worth the small extra expense up front to have quality storage containers! I like the double-seal brand-name freezer bags (like ziploc or glad). I also recommend against the 'zipper' style bags with the sliders, as they do not give an airtight seal.
• When freezing fruit--especially something like berries--wash it, then set it out on a cookie sheet or towel to dry before you bag it. You may even put it in the freezer on that cookie sheet just for an hour or so, and then bag it. This will help prevent it from freezing into a gigantic solid blob. ☺
  
• "Fruit Fresh" will help fruit maintain its color when frozen. It is available near the pectin or other canning supplies. About 1Tbs of fruit fresh is mixed with a little sugar and then sprinkled into the chopped fruit before freezing.
• Freezer jam can be frozen in any container that has a secure lid. It is preserved by being frozen, NOT by being sealed, so you do not need the rubber-sealing ring that canning jars/lids have. I save condiment jars (even baby food jars!) and use those for my freezer jams. (Pickle jars tend to have too strong an odor for jams, but plastic peanut butter jars are good.)
• For meat--except maybe ground/shredded meat--put it in a ziplock, and then add water in with it. (Over the sink!) gently squeeze it up toward the top until the water is spilling out, then seal it without letting any air get back in. This will prevent freezer burn since the meat is sealed in ice, so it's air-tight.

SHELF STABLE GOODS

• I save containers--all kinds of containers. If it has a lid that screws on, I keep it. I love glass containers, but I use plastic too--there is something to be said for size, and a LOT of things come in big plastic bottles.
• When I open a 50lb bag of flour, I pour it into smaller containers--5 gal plastic buckets if I have them, but also the 4lb (about 1gal) peanut butter jars, jumbo-size metamucel jars, and so on. I store pasta, wheat, sugar, oats, rice, and all sorts of dry goods in those big containers.
• Do be careful of labeling or else you'll do what I did and use 2 cups of salt when you wanted 2 cups of sugar!! I use a little piece of masking tape to label each one--easy to remove if I use it for something else later.

In the interest of full disclosure...and maybe a teeny bit of boasting, yes, all the preserved food pictured here is from what we've put up this year: peaches, fireweed jelly, blueberries and rhubarb, salmon, and apricot freezer marmalade. ☺

July FOs

I know I know, a whole week into the month and I'm just now posting what I sewed up in July...but I am posting it!!

For self/family:
1 fitted diaper
1 pocket diaper

For sale/others:
2 fitted diapers
3 aio diapers
(gettin that shop filled back up finally)

Frugal Friday: grocery budget tips

I spent almost nothing on groceries last month (when I say "almost nothing" maybe I should be more specific: I spent about $50 in the month to feed my family of 5. Oh, and that's Alaska prices... We've been unemployed and are now going to grad school, but in the meantime we were waiting on financial aid and chose to tough it out for a month with WIC vouchers, home storage, and as little grocery shopping as possible.) It was a rough month, but it helped me realize just how much I can do with very little.
So here is a list of ideas for ways to save on your grocery budget. If you can think of others, you know I always welcome comments!

• When something you use regularly goes on sale, stock up ~ if you never have to pay full price for things you use all the time, then you'll save a lot of money on them.
• Coupons can be helpful, but make sure to compare prices--coupons are usually just for name brand items, and sometimes $1 off the name brand is still more expensive than the store brand. Personally, I use very few coupons, but I watch sales carefully.
• Shop with a list. Stick to the list. I keep a paper on my fridge and add things to it as I notice that I'm running low--that is my shopping list. When I get to to the store, I know what I want to buy, and I don't lose time (or make impulse buys) wandering up and down aisles trying to remember what I need.
  
• Plan your menus around what is on sale.
  
• When things go on sale, get extras if it's something you can freeze or can or otherwise preserve. (Frozen turkeys bought on Thanksgiving sales will keep until Christmas or Valentines Day or even Easter! And blueberries on sale in July can be made into jam or syrup or just frozen plain and used all year long.)
  
• Bone-in meat is usually much cheaper per pound than the boneless/skinless. Of course you are paying for the bones, but if you remember to save your bones and use them to make broth, then you are ahead in the long run!
  
• Make meat part of the meal, but not the center of it. For example, serve a pasta alfredo with chicken chunks, rather than whole chicken breasts. It's easy to serve about 1/2 breast per person (or even less) when you do this. 3 bratwursts or polish sausages cut up into beans makes enough to feed our family of 5.
  
• Buy bigger packages of meat, then use them for multiple meals (I do this by pre-pulling leftovers)
• Buy staples in bulk: flour, sugar, honey, molasses, wheat, rice, cornmeal, beans, frozen veggies... they are almost always cheaper per pound if you buy them in bigger packages. Plus you're saving packaging too.
  
• Grow a garden, or at least be friends with people who do. Almost everybody has extra something at some point in the year.
• Harvest wild food, whether it's going berry picking, fishing, or hunting. Not only is it cheaper, but it's also healthier than even the best grocery store option.
• Learn to base your menus on local foods--they will be cheaper (and fresher, and healthier) than things that have to be shipped from far away. Farmer's markets are awesome, and some farmers will bargain with you on prices, and others will barter.
  
• Focus on healthy foods. Frosted-puffs-of-air-and-sugar-and-a-hint-of-wheat cereal may be on sale for $3, but for that same $3 you could buy a same sized package of cream of wheat, and I betcha you'll only need one bowl of the latter to fill you up. Beans and potatoes are about as cheap as dirt, but they really will fill you up!
  
• Cook from scratch ~ processed foods are less healthy and more expensive than cooking from scratch
• Learn recipes that are made from foods that are budget-friendly, or storage-friendly.
  
• Purchase items in the least-processed form possible. A can of beans costs $1 and gives you 1 1/2 cups of cooked beans. A pound of dry beans costs $1 and gives you about 6 cups of cooked beans. 25lbs of flour costs about $10 here, but 25lbs of wheat is $6 and (by volume) grinds into 1 1/2 times as much as the 25lbs of flour. Rolled oats cost a fraction of what "instant oatmeal" packets do.
  
• Breastfeed your babies (and toddlers!) ~ it's so much cheaper than formula or baby foods.
• Drink water ~ it's cheaper than juice or milk (let alone those crummy sugar drinks) and it's better for you.
• If your children attend public schools, take the few minutes to fill out the paperwork and see if they qualify for reduced-price or free lunch. I could pack Wolf's lunches for cheaper than the regular price, but when he qualified for reduced-price, well, I can't pack a lunch for 40cents.
  
• If something is available to you for free (such as WIC items, or garden produce or fish from your neighbor) then find a way to use it, rather than turning it down ~ I've discovered that babyfood can work in a lot of recipes.
• This blog post When You Need Food also has some great practical tips for ways to get groceries for little or nothing. Sometimes it requires humility to accept free things (for example she mentions leftovers from church activities) but if you're really scrimping, those things can be invaluable.
  

Babyfood for Dinner

Don't laugh, I'm serious.
I'm on the WIC program, and every month they give me vouchers for food, including baby food. A LOT of baby food. My kiddo will eat a little, but nowhere near the 45 jars per month that are on the vouchers! So initially I simply didn't get all the food on the vouchers...then I started thinking about it.
Baby food is the same foods we eat, just mashed up. Sometimes we mash up our food...why not use baby food in some of our foods and save myself a step? Baby food is expensive, and I wouldn't go buy it just to use it this way, but where it's being offered to me (and we're unemployed and I hate to turn down free food!), I decided I'd rather find a good way to use it. So here is a list of ways I 'snuck' baby food into our diet this last month.

• Banana bread! 1 4oz container of baby food bananas = 1 banana, and it's already mashed!
  
• Smoothies. Mashed banana, mashed peaches...if you get the plastic containers you can just stick it in the freezer all day and then dump it in the blender with a little milk and sugar and voila, smoothie! (If you have other frozen fruit/berries, then unfrozen fruit, especially banana, can add some great smooth texture.) FYI, I think pears give an odd texture to smoothies, and applesauce is ok but not great.
  
• Eggs in recipes (like muffins or pancakes or cookies) can be replaced with 1/4 c (2oz) of applesauce or mashed banana. Applesauce doesn't taste like much, but banana is pretty sweet, so I only use it in the sweeter things. (Make sure that the recipe has other leavening, such as baking powder or baking soda--sometimes eggs fill that roll. If there is not other leavening, then be sure to add about 1/2 tsp baking soda per egg you replaced.)
• Anything chocolate will hide the stronger flavor of prunes--so chocolate muffins, chocolate cookies, even brownies--add 4-5oz of pureed prunes. Yay for fiber!
• Applesauce is applesauce is applesauce. I just got a bunch of plain applesauces and stuck them in the fridge, and my older kids eat them as single-serving packages of applesauce. That was easy! (The cherry applesauce and blueberry applesauce work too of course.)
• Gravy--I usually make gravy from the drippings when I cook meat, however sometimes I make it just from homemade broth which I've frozen. The problem with using just broth is that the gravy come out a bit thin and runny...so I had the idea of adding a jar of the babyfood meat. Pureed meat has a very weird texture, and the baby doesn't like it plain...but mixed into the gravy it worked ok. I will say that it was not a great gravy--that weird texture came through a little--but over mashed potatoes it worked ok, and I felt good about having a little extra protein in the meal. ☺
  
• Veggie muffins are one of my favorite things. I put in 1 cup (7-8oz) of pureed carrots, squash, mixed vegetables, etc into a gingerbread muffin recipe, and they are nummy! (see link for recipe)

(this post has been shared on Works For Me Wednesdays, follow the link to see more ideas, or to share what has worked for you!)

Last Day...

...to win a free diaper from me over at EtsyClothDiapers. Extra entries for tweeting, blogging, following my facebook page, following my shop blog, and/or making a purchase... Winner gets a free diaper in their choice of fabrics and size. ☺

Whisper Words of Wisdom

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Today I felt the strong inclination to write about a substantial change that is taking place in my life right now. There are several reasons behind it, but none of them matter so much as the result of putting it into action. What is this change? It is simple.

I am Letting Go.

I have spoken before of being "Type A" and a "control freak" with a side dish of "OCD" or "red" personality. I am responsible. I like to organize, I like to lead, I like to run things. I am good at those things. But I also have a hard time delegating, and I tend to think and worry about things--even things I can't do anything about.
I learned this lesson the first time during one of my miscarriages. It carried me through that event as well as two more pregnancies: Be Still, and Let Go and Let God. I learned to do it for pregnancy--to trust Him and not rely on myself--but I had not applied it to the rest of my life very well.
This summer we have faced unemployment, school worries, financial difficulties, and familial stresses. Most of them I cannot change, but I have lost sleep and brain cells and possibly years off my life anyway. But I was recently advised by my doctor that my sympathetic nervous system (the "fight or flight" part of me) was overactive because I seem to have it constantly engaged. The body can only do so much at once, so my sympathetic dominance has led to a host of other problems because my parasympathetic nervous system is not able to fully function (so my circulation, digestion, libido, and sleep patterns have all been affected to various degrees). Now my worrying & controlling personality is affecting my health, so I have actual doctor's orders to calm down.

And when the broken-hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.

I have been working on being still and letting go. It's remarkable how freeing it is. It's not that I've stopped being responsible, but I'm learning to be more serene. As St Francis said, "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Yesterday I spent some time reading through the blog of a friend of mine who seems to be on a parallel path in her life right now. The specifics are different of course, but she has written some very thought-provoking things about giving up need, and learning to surrender and trust. She even came up with a mantra that makes "TRUST" into a powerful acronym. Thank you Marci for taking the time to write all that out; I needed and appreciated it.

T.R.U.S.T.
Totally Relying Upon Spiritual Timing

There are some things in life we can choose, but when it comes down to it, there are a lot of other people out there choosing things, and a lot of unchosen things that simply happen...and none of it is under our control. Nor should it be. As Gandalf said, those things are "not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us." [link]

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.

What it's like to live in Alaska--part 4

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Things people always ask about
Part 3: To love, or not to love
Part 4: Local Foods


"I would love to know about the gardening in Alaska, local food production, any farmers markets type things going that you have experienced."

I admit that after living 25 years in the lower 48, my first thought was "my gosh they won't have anything up here except fish," but actually that is not true at all.

Yes, we have fish. We have LOTS of fish. Halibut, salmon (all types), cod, sablefish, herring, etc etc. We also have lots of other seafood: multiple types of crab, multiple types of clam, mussels, scallops, and shrimp. Plus some folks like to eat the salmon roe (eggs) and milt (sperm--yes, they eat the fish sperm, apparently traditionally it's a delicacy. Eww!). I eat fish, I don't eat the other sea stuff. I think it's vile. But it's popular.

We also have moose, deer, elk, caribou, bighorned sheep, mountain goats, black bear, buffalo, and assorted birds, all of which are good eating. (It's also legal to hunt grizzley bears, wolves, and wolverines, but that's more about fur than meat...and in spite of it being pretty sustainable up here, I don't believe in wasting parts of the animal, so we only hunt for meat.)

So there is that whole side of local food...but I think Aimee was curious more about the plants and things.

On the wild side, we have berries everywhere. Blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, lowbush cranberries (not the bog type), thimbleberries, salmonberries, huckleberries, elderberries, and crowberries all grow wild, and most can be found without too much effort. There are also some edible flowers--fireweed jelly (which is made with a combination of fireweed and clover) is a popular Alaskan product--something tourists buy alongside their antler jewelry and smoked salmon. I confess I really want to make it at least once, but I hear it's a royal hassle, so I suspect I won't do it regularly.

In regard to cultivated foods, it's easy to think that we can't grow much because we have a short growing season. This is true, we usually can't plant outside until May or June, and start having frosts in September, BUT in those few short months, we do have more than 20 hours of sunlight per day...so it really depends on the plant. Some plants need a certain number of days to grow, others only need a certain amount of light...obviously the latter sort do great here.
Many people have berry patches, since those grow so well here naturally. Rhubarb is also very very common--it grows easily and quickly and everybody who has a patch always seems to be willing to give it away.
All the root vegetables--potatoes, onions, garlic, rutabegas, carrots, parsnips, beets, turnips, and radishes thrive, and since most of them can take the frost (and some can even keep through snow and hard freezes), it's safe to keep them in the ground into the autumn.
Broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, lettuce, cabbage, and swiss chard all do well here too. Most gardeners will start the plants indoors, or plant them as seedlings rather than seeds, so they can get a head start on the short season.
If you want tomatoes or peppers, you'd better build a greenhouse or fit them inside your house (I have tomatoes in pots taking over my kitchen, but they are producing well!)

(this logo is available on clothing;
I want to get matching shirts for all the boys)

I have actually been working on adapting our eating habits to reflect the foods that are available locally. Yes, at least at present, we are still buying some avacados and bananas, but I'm learning to use more rhubarb and berries and fewer peaches. There are lots of things that are grown here in greenhouses, so we buy alaska grown as often as possible.

What it's like to live in Alaska--part 3

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: Things people always ask about
Part 3: To love, or not to love
Part 4: Local Foods

"What do you like most about Alaska?"
The wildness, the closeness to nature, the freedom of living on the frontier...
I also love the 'come as you are' acceptance of people. The freedom to walk to my own beat because everyone else is walking to theirs.
And if you're not into that, one thing that everyone agrees is a perk here is the PFDs--permanent fund dividends. It's the oil money and once you are a permanent resident (have been here more than a calendar year) then each year you can file for a PFD for each family member (so we get 5 this year) and they tend to be over $1000. Last year it was $1305, the couple of years before that were closer to $1600...it varies year to year because it's based on invested oil money and how much was earned in the year divided by how many people are getting it... Anyway, we are currently using ours to pay off debt, but in a couple of years we'll start socking it away to pay for missions for our 3 sons. ☺

"What do you like least?"
Traveling is expensive--it's $500 round trip to fly to Seattle, and more to anywhere else... Driving is about 2500 miles to the northern border of the lower 48, and if you push you can do it in about a week. Gas in northern canada is really expensive (think $6+/gal) so driving is cheaper than flying if you have a family, but it has expenses of its own... We decided that we will go down and see family every other year, and that's just how it goes. So that's a hard thing--not seeing family. We call and email and such a lot, but we don't get to see them very often because it is just so cost prohibitive both in time and money.
Traveling in-state isn't cheap either--if you're in Juneau, a flight to Anchorage is about the same price (and same distance) as a flight to Seattle. It's 8 hours of driving from Anchorage to Fairbanks, and that's only halfway up the state (although not a whole lot of people bother to go north of Fairbanks unless they work there).
The other thing frustrated me in the bush (though not so much here), and that was that it took forever to get things or to get things done. For example, we ordered internet...that was fine, but they had to mail out the satellite dish, then we had to find someone to install it...it took two months to get it up and running. And when we had technical trouble we'd better hope it wasn't fishing season or the one guy in town who did that stuff wouldn't be able to come fix it for over a month... We'd order something online and they'll assure us that we'll have it "in two days" and "delivered right to our door." Sure we will. It will be over a week and I'll have to go get it from the seaplane office or post office. Never order perishable anything!! Even when my mom mails me a package, the postal worker there will tell her "it should be there in 5 to 7 days" and I get it two and a half weeks later. Just realize that things take longer to get here, and then you can be pleasantly surprised if they don't, but you won't be frustrated when they do!

Letting Up on Birthday Letdowns.

As I think back over my birthdays for the last couple of decades, it seems that most of them were letdowns in some way. It may have been pouring rain (in spite of a midsummer birthday...what's with that?!) It may have been that something I'd hoped to receive was not among my gifts, or that special plans didn't go as anticipated. At my first ever with-friends birthday part (when I was 5) I vividly recall being sent to time out in the middle of my own party. I have no recollection of why I was sent, but I do know it ruined the day. The year I turned 16 I desperately hoped for a date on my birthday (since it was a Friday after all)...I didn't get my first date for another year and a half. During my last pregnancy I threw my back out twice, each time causing me to spend most of a day in bed feeling miserable--and one of them was on my birthday. My husband tells me that one year (between his divorce and our engagement) nobody remembered his birthday--including himself--until he was getting ready for bed. His day had been fine by other standards, but it had not been special in any way.

I've realized that we have enormous--and probably ridiculous--expectations about birthdays. It's probably started in childhood--cakes, parties, special dinners. We build up ideas about birthdays being different from other days. But the truth is that a birthday is a day, like any other day. We cannot control the weather, the road conditions, the local bacteria or viruses, our employment status, or even whether anyone else notices what day it is. Bad stuff happens sometimes, we just seem to notice it extra on our birthdays because somehow we have developed the idea that birthdays are supposed to be perfect. (Actually, we do it with a lot of days--I can think of a number of Christmases that let me down too.)

After last year's extraordinarily awful birthday, I concluded that I was going to treat birthdays like any other day. Sure, we'll make a cake, and have some presents...but I'm not going to try to build it up into some super special day. This year has had lots of potential for being another letdown birthday: we're unemployed, it's raining, and the baby kept me up half the night... but you know what? I feel fine. A little sleep-deprived, but generally fine. I didn't build it up, so it can't let me down.
I hope that I can help my children understand this while they are still young, so that they don't have to go through years of letdowns before they figure it out. I'm not swearing off birthdays or celebrations by any means, but I'm swearing off trying to make them too much different from other days. A birthday is a day wherein we celebrate, but it's not a 'special day' per se. There is no grand cosmic scheme in place to ensure that everything goes perfectly just because it's someone's birthday. Every day is someone's birthday, after all, and bad stuff has to happen sometime, right? So I'm learning to be zen about it. ☺

Me in Two Words

Earlier this week I posted on Facebook asking my friends how they would describe me in just 1-2 words.
I found the responses interesting, and thought I would share them here. (For those of you not on facebook, or who missed the query there, I would love to hear your responses as well.)

Crunchy wench
Oooo... I like that to, I don't think I can top it!
um...don't take offense to this but: Molly-Homemaker [my response] no worries, i don't find that offensive at all. Given that it's the career I've always wanted, and the part of my life that I care about the most, that's a compliment. ☺ and I can't imagine being offended by the molly bit either--why would someone be offended at being called an upstanding example of what they profess to believe. ☺
Braver than me. Oops that was 3 words! I would NEVER do this, people would slaughter me!
nurturing, capable
Earth Mother
Happy & outgoing!
B-awesome [aww, thanks Honey!] oh, and crunchy
Exotic soul!! :) Na, mama bear, or mama moose! :)
Loving Mother