Rachael ~
With food prices rising with the gas prices, so many families are really having a tough time keeping up financially. I really think that the old tradition of “putting up” foods in season has been almost lost. If you purchase vegetables in season and freeze, or can them, you can save a ton of money over the course of the year. I also have a local butcher that I can use, go in with a couple of friends, and buy a whole pig, or steer. Huge saving! This is a great option for me because I know how to properly freeze and I also can. Maybe it’s time we relearn this art - or learn it for the first time!
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This is also a great option for people who are trying to go a bit “greener” with their food. There is nothing closer to a whole food then buying it right at the farm. I live in an area where there are alot of Amish farms and they traditionally don’t use alot of pestisides or chemicals. I put up corn last weekend - 10 doz and I got lucky, they were doing 15 ear dozens - for about $35. This is farm grown, pesticide free, Pennsylvania sweet corn. I’ll have corn for the next year plus ( I still have a couple of bags from last year).
Anyway - just a thought.
Julie
08.26.08 @ 5:41 pm
I totally agree with you. I also have been storing for a few years. We have a home grown garden that we store the vegtables out of it. Also I store with specials at the grocery stores items that are on sale. Meat, stock items that I use to cook with all the time. I look for deals and use coupons for that.
08.26.08 @ 6:20 pm
How inspiring!!! Thats a wonderful way to save money! The world would be a much better place if everyone listened to you. Thank you sooo much for writing this.
08.26.08 @ 8:28 pm
I also can and grow my own tomatoes I do applesause,relish,applebutter,strawberry Freezer jam ect.but I would like to know if anybody cans garlic we grow elephant garlic and I would like to can it like they sell in the store thanks
Beth
08.27.08 @ 5:30 pm
I so agree!! I am developing my food skills..cooking, growing and am working on storing. I think it would be awesome to learn more about this dying art form
08.28.08 @ 9:31 am
I would love to learn how to do this! Can anyone tell me how to get started?
08.29.08 @ 2:05 pm
I was raised with my mother doing can thing, tomatoes, salsa, beans, green beans, corn, stew, etc,. I also do it I use the old hot water bath method. In this time of extreme prices and it will only get worse before it gets better. Once should pick there parents and grand parents brains and learn how to really live of the land. I love growing our veggies and herbs and such it is fun to be one with Mother Earth.
08.30.08 @ 8:03 pm
How do you “put up” the corn on the cob?
This is the season for great corn, and it would be nice if I could store it for use at Thanksgiving, or later.
Henry Scheck
09.02.08 @ 6:44 pm
Even though I have done canning & freezing in the past, by far the easiest, longest lasting, & best tasting is using a food sealer!! I have had one for years - i use it for veggies, and meat - from the butcher or my husbands outing in the woods or lake.
09.02.08 @ 9:21 pm
hi Rachael, I watched your show today about smoking. I was a smoker ( and my parents siblings and in-laws) until the day I bought and finally finished the “easy way to quit smoking” by Alan Karr. I watched this lady today and I couldn’t believe how much we had in common. i have three kids, I am a model with Ford new york. hello…looks are a reson to quit. I am so proud of myself. i quit jan. 15th 2007 and now live in las vegas ( hubby works for david burke fyi) there are smokers everywhere. i go for dinner and drinks and it is the last thing on my mine to ever put that in my mouth again. i would love to share my success with that woman via email or in person. please respond to this email. i have never odne this before and I think it is so important. I dvred this show to show my kids it tonight( atfer dinner) lol Best Roseanne
09.03.08 @ 1:37 pm
Elisa-
There are a few ways you can get started. There is a book that I use a lot and has become my bible for canning, freezing and dehydrating food. It is called Ball(the canning jar brand) blue book of preserving. It is published by Jarden, and there is a website inside the book, it is http://www.homecanning.com. You should start there. I can from my garden and orchard that I have. I have actually made all of my 2 kids babyfood from our garden too. It has saved me so much money,and it is all organic. We actually don’t have a lot of space, but we just plant everything close together. I do freezer jam, and am loving to do all the homemaking skills that my mom and my grandma always used to do.
09.04.08 @ 9:53 am
Have been canning certain things for years - The Ball Canning Book is a great place to start. Also canning is fun to do it with a friend and share the end product.
09.04.08 @ 11:03 am
I too have a garden, i can /freeze/dehydrate everything that comes out of the garden for winter use. the easiest and best tasting frozen corn is as follows:
1. shuck and cut the tip off the corn then use a new toothbrush or vegetable brush ( no water) and remove all the silks from the corn.
2.rub each cob with a lint free cloth and remove all leftover silks.
3. place ears in foodsaver bag and seal this will be preserved for a year or longer. i have just finished using the corn i froze last year. it tastes like fresh corn.
09.04.08 @ 11:05 am
just finished spaghetti sauce from garden veggies this is soo easy and great tasting. if you want the recipe let me know… happy preserving… Ava
09.05.08 @ 10:13 am
I have a dehydrator that expands up to 30 trays and I have made beef jerky, dehydrated apples, carrots, green beans, potatoes, sage, onions and all kinds of vegetables and fruit. If you find seedless grapes on sale, make raisins. The best book I found on dehydrating was called How to Dry Foods by Deanna DeLong. This book gives you pictures and tells you what does not dehydrate well and what does. It also tells how to tell when it is done. It also rates the different dehydrators because the best ones are those with adjustable temperatures. It is also nice to have one where the trays do not have to be rotated.
09.05.08 @ 10:24 am
The best thing I have found for preserving food is a Dehydrator and Freezer. The best book on dehydrating that I have found is called How to Dry Foods by Deanna DeLong. It tells you which foods dehydrate best and which ones do not. It also rates the various dehydrators as the best ones are expandable, have a temperature control, and you do not have to rotate the trays. I have dehydrated beans, corn, potatoes, carrots, jerky,onions (from onions you can make onion powder and onion salt), garlic (just like onions you can make garlic powder and garlic salt), grapes(from grapes you get raisins), bannanas, pears, pineapple and countless other things. It is so easy to make soup you can just grab a couple handfulls of this and that and put it in your broth while cooking the veggies will rehydrate and in a short time you will have soup that took you only about ten minutes to throw together.
This would be a good idea for a show.
09.05.08 @ 5:01 pm
I’M NOT REALLY SURE HOW TO PROPERLY FREEZE AND I ALWAYS GET FREEZER BURNS WITH BOTH UN COOKED AND COOKED FOODS PLEASE ADVISE?
09.09.08 @ 1:51 pm
I so agree with you. I have been doing a lot of frezzing meals (half of what I cook that night) in order to prevent leftovers from going to waste if not eaten (saves a lot of money and time). I have been trying to freeze produce as well since summer is coming to an end. I even freeze ripe bananas to save for later when I have time to bake banana bread.
Smart ideas!
~Autumn aka “Thoughtful Mom”
http://momsmakingadifferenceeachday.blogspot.com/
09.11.08 @ 11:09 am
Hi! here in quebec, canada the cost oof food is sky high cause a lot of our food is import.Me and 6 of my friends we get together every two weeks, we look at the grocery specials and we decide a menu, we all chip in and we all spend a day together cooking! we save a lot of money and time and plus we have so much fun (little bottles of wine and chat).
we do stews, cabbage rolls, spaghetti sauces, soups, chicken or ham or beef pies,quiche… whatever is cheap that week we buy and make delicious meals with it!
09.11.08 @ 11:10 am
and we usually do enough meals for a week!
09.11.08 @ 9:00 pm
I have been storing for years. I make my own bread (tastes better) and when I cook I make
tv dinners for the nights be choose not to cook. I put vegetables out of the garden in the freezer and make my own jams. I have granddaughters that work with me and are learning the old skills. At 14 she can crochet, knit and sew on her sewing machine.
She makes bread with me. I watch her and just coach her and she does it all.
Maybe someday we can be on Rachaels show and show what she does. I crocheted them teddy bears and they crochet clothes for them. I say they because I have two 14 year old granddaughters and a 17 year old. The one that is here to cook most often has been cooking and baking with me for at least 4 years.
My cupboards are full and buying on sale and using coupons is the only way to fly.
09.12.08 @ 7:59 am
Check out http://www.preservefood.com/
09.15.08 @ 2:15 pm
Mother Earth News magazine has been singing the praises of drying, canning and freezing food for decades as a way to save money and waste less. They have a bunch of great articles online at http://www.MotherEarthNews.com; just click on “Real Food” in the links section at the top of the page.
09.23.08 @ 10:08 pm
I would love to can some of these GREAT veggies in season. Can you recommend a way to learn, or books?
09.27.08 @ 2:59 pm
I agree, I am just starting to learn how to can. I started with tomatoes and just started to can applesauce and apple butter. It is a learning process that takes time but it is well worth it in the long run.
09.29.08 @ 12:40 pm
This sounds great, but I am wondering how to make this work practically.
Money wise, it is a huge savings, but pace yourself or you will need to put out a lot at once.
The thing I think is missing is having older women teaching younger women how to do this. Where is a clear place to learn without sifting through hundreds of thousands of google hits?
Find your gold star at goldstarmoms.blogspot.com
10.09.08 @ 1:55 pm
I was raised in IN during the 80’s and 90’s. During that time our family nearly doubled from a family of 5 to a family of 8. I can remember my mom during that time had a weekly grocery budget of about $100.
We went to berry farms during the summer and picked strawberries and blueberries. We then canned and froze them for the winter. We also had a large garden that provided much of our tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash.
Local fruits specifically apples and peaches were bought by the bushel at local farm markets.
For items that were unavailable in local markets or impractical to grow in our situation she bought in bulk when they went on sale. I remember her buying bananas by the 100’s when they would go on sale for $.25/lb or chicken quarters that were $.39/lb. She would then freeze them for future use.
She also used coupons for much of her grocery shopping. The key is to evaluate if the coupon makes the item less expensive than the generic. If not it’s not worth the savings for the coupon.
The biggest key is to know what the normal price is for items at several stores and therefore know when something is a steal.
10.14.08 @ 11:10 am
This is helpful. Every year our family butchers beef and pork. It saves so much in the long run!!
10.14.08 @ 11:35 am
hi rachael im a very big fan of your show i watch you every morning. I think you have the best personality on tv and you always have a great attitude. I dont cook but i know if i keep watching your show that i will learn really quick…
10.20.08 @ 6:04 pm
WOW!! I agree, it is a lost art. I would love to learn more about this. Thank you for bringing it up.
10.23.08 @ 12:12 pm
I grew up going to my grandparents farm. My grandmother canned everthing. As she did not have electricity so no refrigerator or freezer handy.
Grandpa grew everything, we had every kind of veggie and bean, butchered every fall a hog and a callf for meat, he had a huge smoke house and I would give anything today for a side of bacon and one of his hams. From the small orchard we made grape, apple, pear, fig jam, jelley and marmalades. We pickled cauliflower, cucumbers, onions, peaches and lots of other stuff.
To this day I will not eat jellies from the store, make my own. My favorite is crabapple jelly.
If you are having trouble with freezer burn on your meats, you probable have a frost free freezer. You can only keep meats for about three months safely with a frost free freezer. It does help though to use vacuum seal bags as it does keep foods fresher when you use them.
I have 2 bibles of canning and preserving.
Homw Preserves Made Easy by Vera Gewalter and Dorothy Parker andThe Complete Book of Home Preserves by Ann Seranne.
I am sixty now and raised five kids, four very big boys who inhaled food. First words when I got home from work was when you cookin’ and how long ’til dinner? Thier friends hit my frig as they came in to find leftovers to fix themselves a snack in the microwave.
Don’t be scared to try, I made a batch of gooseberries to do jelly. It never did set, i canned it anyway and we had gooseberry syrup for pancakes and waffles. so even the screw ups are edible!
Being a single mom I had to make every dollar stretch, even thought about ruffles on the bottom of the boys jeans but they were not very accepting of the idea!
Rachal I love your show and cook at least one of your recipes every week. Love your Taco soup, yummy, yummy, yummy!