Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: August 16 ~ 22, 2020

ReneeT

Veteran Member
Anybody doing any prepping today? Only prepping I'm doing is prepping to go to bed so I can get up and go back in to work tonight. I do have my eye on the local grocery store's sign advertising various roasts on sale, though; may have to stop in tomorrow morning on my way home from work to pick up a few...

Off to bed, see y'all tonight :lol:
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
No prepping today. I'm getting ready for a huge run on preps tomorrow, though. I plan to make it my biggest run, yet. I also have items I need to get ordered tomorrow as well.

I'll be going to Walgreen's, Sam's, Food Giant, Bed Bath & Beyond, Army Surplus store, and Dollar General. Will be ordering from Amazon and Cabela's. I'm waiting on recent orders, too. Hopefully, everything will get here soon.
 

psychgirl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I might pick up some canned goods at Kroger today but not much else planned. And toilet paper if they have any, because they were totally out Friday!

I also bought 4 chuck roasts for the freezer Friday night at Kroger. They have a really good sale right now. Can’t remember the price this minute, though lol.
I “”should” get more of them, we’ll see.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
No prepping today. I'm getting ready for a huge run on preps tomorrow, though. I plan to make it my biggest run, yet. I also have items I need to get ordered tomorrow as well.

I'll be going to Walgreen's, Sam's, Food Giant, Bed Bath & Beyond, Army Surplus store, and Dollar General. Will be ordering from Amazon and Cabela's. I'm waiting on recent orders, too. Hopefully, everything will get here soon.
Made me tired just to read all the places you are going tomorrow. In this heat two places is about all I can handle. In my neck of the woods there aren't stores like BB&B, surplus stores, or Sams. Have to go to Shreveport for that and I haven't been there for months.

Although I may be seeing a trip there to the liquor store there because I can not find my favorite liquour (sp) which is B&B. If the world goes to hell I want some to kill the pain. One sip and it warms you all the way down, love it, but haven't had any in many years.

God is good, all the time

Judy
 

aviax2

Veteran Member
Sweet dreams Renee!

Dafodil- Wishing you a speedy recovery.

Sheree- It sounds like you’re going to have a hard working day. May everything go as smooth as butter and you find everything on your lists.

psych girl- Do you can? Some of those roasts would be great canned and ready for a quick meal.

Judy- I hope you find what you’re looking for.

DH made a quick trip to WM yesterday afternoon for milk and bread and I had him pick up a few cans of kraut and some of the really small cans of evaporated milk. I have some of the regular size cans but sometimes a small one is all that you need.

I had 9 pints of chicken chunks yesterday so with the few I canned earlier in the week I’ve added 14 pints to the pantry. Still have 2 more backs of bone-in chicken breast plus about 6 whole chickens in the freezer that I want to can up before starting on any beef. I so wish I had the energy and stamina where I could get more done in the same amount of time that I once could but it is what it is.

Wishing everyone a happy and productive week.
 

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Worked hard at a neighbor's place yesterday. Very good exercise and community building. Both prep items.
Don't plan much today. Might fiddle around in the shop. Slight chance of very much needed rain.
 

briches

Veteran Member
Cleaned out the coop this morning (we have five chickens) and making my lists of what to focus on next.

I don’t can. I have no idea how and am wondering if it’s too late to learn and if I’d even be able to get the supplies I’d need. We’ve worked on filling the freezer we purchased earlier this summer but don’t have a back up for that. I’m wondering if I should focus on that or building even more pantry items. I’ll pray about it - and see if which path becomes more likely. Advice appreciated. I do have a insta pot (given to me - I’ve never used), but I know that won’t work with meats

Work has started back for me (teaching) and so my time is definitely shorter than summer.
I’m trying to stay ahead of the curve!

Slow and steady.
 

aviax2

Veteran Member
briches- Get that Instant pot out and give it a whirl for cooking. I love mine. But no, they aren’t for pressure canning. We have several freezers and we had a 3 day power outage back in the spring. DH managed to keep them charged with our generator we bought back in 1994 during another outage. I at least want to get one of our freezers emptied plus have shelf stable meats handy. I would recommend you look into canning.
 
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SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Made me tired just to read all the places you are going tomorrow. In this heat two places is about all I can handle. In my neck of the woods there aren't stores like BB&B, surplus stores, or Sams. Have to go to Shreveport for that and I haven't been there for months.

Although I may be seeing a trip there to the liquor store there because I can not find my favorite liquour (sp) which is B&B. If the world goes to hell I want some to kill the pain. One sip and it warms you all the way down, love it, but haven't had any in many years.

God is good, all the time

Judy

Judy, you reminded me that we also need to stop at our liquor store and pick up another case of wine tomorrow, too. Gosh, how could I have forgotten that! LOL......
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
The only canning I do is water bath canning. I'm scared to death of a pressure canner, and have had 2 really bad experiences with them. I know people here have told me they are safe, but I still won't use one. I have two full chest freezers and a generator with plenty of gas to power them. I have lots of shelf stable meats of all sorts in the pantry, too. If everything else fails, we have the design and materials to build our own smokehouse.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
The only canning I do is water bath canning. I'm scared to death of a pressure canner, and have had 2 really bad experiences with them. I know people here have told me they are safe, but I still won't use one. I have two full chest freezers and a generator with plenty of gas to power them. I have lots of shelf stable meats of all sorts in the pantry, too. If everything else fails, we have the design and materials to build our own smokehouse.
I may prod DH about building a smokehouse, good idea. I've tried pressure canning, besides being exhausting, it didn't come out well for various reasons. Therefore I'm not too keen on the idea.

God is good all the time,

Judy
 

briches

Veteran Member
Hubby has started smoking cheese. He does it with his regular propane grill and a smoke tube/wood pellets.

I’m not sure how long it will preserve it yet, but the taste is absolutely amazing!!
 

connie

Veteran Member
Plan a trip to city to Costco this week. Will treat it as last trip til who knows when. Our Covid cases still climbing so we are staying home except for rare trip to local grocery early in day. Stay safe everyone.
 

moldy

Veteran Member
So much to do this week.... with education, I'm working 4 days. Working on some other preps, but I can't really talk about them. Working on retirement income and it's taking off - I'm a little nervous, so lots of work on that as well. And canning, and laundry, and regular cooking, and gardening....

I need a nap.
 

coloradohermit

Veteran Member
This week is working out to be for non food preps. Get the Oct kids/grandkids birthday cards in the mail. Split a little more firewood. Get a haircut and get a flu shot. I should make a run to the dump if I get up the energy in this heat to load up some more stuff.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
What a long, hot, and exhausting day! I survived my shopping day, and am glad to be back safe and secure in my own home!

First, I went to Walgreen's and took advantage of some items they had on sale, including stocking up on my doggie's treats.

Next, I went to Food Giant for groceries. I bought what we needed for a two week period (our usual groceries), plus for storage, more canned veggies, soups, and since pork was so cheap, I bought all pork (chops, ham, bacon, tenderloins) for my freezer, no beef this go around. I also added more cheese as well. More bologna, Polish sausages, wieners, and sandwich ham. Came home and put all of that away. This was all done in a small little town close to us. Then we went on to Tupelo. It's a larger city in the opposite direction from the small town.

Sam's came next. I bought bath towels, bath cloths, cookie sheets, micro fiber dish towels and cloths, for the house. Added two more cartons of hash browns, 2 more large cases of bottled green tea, more coffee, 15 lb sack of potatoes, bread crumbs, large jug of mixed nuts, and other food items that I can't remember right now. The car trunk was full. Also bought Cary two packs of underwear, two sports bras and two packs of panties for myself.

Home Goods was our last stop. Bought two sets of bed sheets.

We finished the day off by eating at our favorite Mexican restaurant. The company, service, and food are always great!

Tomorrow will be online shopping day!
 

Digger

Veteran Member
I put some sweet peppers in the freezer and saved the seeds for planting. I also filled the dehydrator with squash.

We stopped in the feed store and I bought 2 varieties of tomato seed to go with the ones I already have. I am saving some seed from my heirloom tomatoes and the squash my mother in law likes.

I have to take seed inventory this week. I am not sure that I can add anything at this point, because you can't find seeds, but I will know what I have. They last for years in the freezer.

I had the feed store order me a dog proof raccoon trap. They are causing too many problems.

Hubby says he thinks we are cutting hay today. We will cut half the field at a time. Last week I sold all but 7 bales of the little we had put in the barn. Cutting just half is easier for me to put in the barn if no one buys off the field. Next year we may add some of one of the other fields if it is cleaned up enough.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I wanted to tell you guys and gals, last evening about our shopping experience at Sam's, yesterday, but I was too tired. It was a pleasant surprise.

We were going down an aisle, and two women were standing where I needed to be with their shopping cart loaded. They were looking at the Ramen noodles, so I was waiting on them to finish, so I could grab a box for ourselves. One woman told the other that they needed to get another box of Ramen for their "provisions". Cary spoke up and said, "yeah, they are great for provisions". The older woman told Cary that's what they were doing, stocking up on provisions. Well, that started a 30 min conversation with them about their prepping, and what all they were doing, or had already done. Turns out, they are "died in the wool" preppers, just like us. They are very serious about their prepping. We were amazed that there were others in our area that were like-minded about the seriousness of the situations we find ourselves in, not only with food, but the country as a whole. After it was all said and done, they just lived two counties over from us. Never did exchange our names, though. OPSEC on both sides.
 

psychgirl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Hub needed new underwear so I went trolling eBay (he is hard to shop for, long story, hard to find item, eBay has been my go to for these) ....found the item and tried to pay but got an internet disruption, so went back to looking again.
Then!! Got the best surprise !!

Things have a way of working out , don’t they??!

The next page of where I left off doing my shopping, I saw...a seller offering TWO, full unopened packages for the SAME price as the one I originally tried to buy! Shipping kind of stinks on this one but I jumped on it lol!

So he’ll be set with 10 new pairs by Monday, instead of 5.

God has a way, doesnt he?! :flngl:
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
Since I have enough canned green beans and corn to sink a battle ship, and want a different variety of vegetables available to me, plus I don't have a green thumb, I've been buying bagged stir fry vegetables, to include cabbage, carrot sticks, broccoli slaw, kale and so on. They go straight in my dehydrator and get vacuum sealed when dry. If the bag has a sauce packet I just put that in the fridge. Maybe I'll give dehydrating the sauce a shot. I'm going to go through my freezers and pull out any frozen vegetables I have and dehydrate them. I have fruit roll up sheets that I put the chopped up vegetables on and a mesh sheet over them to keep the product from flying around.

God is good all the time.

Judy
 

ReneeT

Veteran Member
Good deal on the underdrawers, Psychgirl! Gotta love a bargain!

Judy, I have used the fruit roll up sheets to dry frozen veggies as well - it was always one of the things that caught people's attention when I did the canning classes. I'd put a 1/2 gallon jar of dehydrated frozen mixed veggies on the table and have them guess how many pounds of 'wet' weight I'd started out with :) The store in the pool town will often have containers of fruits or veggies that they have cut up (probably ones that had a bad spot!) to use in recipes; they are often marked down - I have put those through the dehydrator, along with marked down ones from a store in my work town that I cut up myself. I hadn't thought of drying the broccoli slaw though; I will see what I can find at the store price wise once the peaches are all off the kitchen island counter. I think the dehydrated broccoli slaw would be good to have on hand to use in broccoli cheese soup.

Since Aldi opens early on Tuesday and Thursday for the old folks (Hey - I qualify!!), I stopped by after work this morning to snag a couple of things for us and to do daughter's weekly shopping so she can work in a couple of clients on Friday afternoon. The entire side wall of freezers were down; doors propped open, etc...; and nearly all of the canned goods had 'Limit 4' signs on them. Dry beans were in short supply - all I saw were some scattered bags of pintos. Guess I should have gotten some, but I didn't; did pick up some assorted canned ones though.

I popped in to the small local grocery store to pick up a couple of roasts - I bought one rump roast and one top round roast this trip, but will pop in a few more times before the sale is over. I can't decide if I just want to vac seal and freeze them, or if I want to chunk them up and can them. I have the freezer space, but we like the convenience of the canned roast; it can be used to make several things we enjoy eating: beef stew, Italian beef, beef and noodles, beef hot shots, beef vegetable soup, hash... I'm sure there are more but I'm only about an inch down in my first cup of coffee since I woke up so I'm not firing on all cylinders yet :lol: I'll pop in at the store a few more times this week to pick up a half dozen or so more of each - I live near a small town where everyone knows everyone else, so I'm trying not to draw attention to myself by piling them up in the cart and getting them all in one trip. They also have ground beef on sale for a decent price so I will pick up a few more packages of that to use to make meatloaf mix - need to re-stock the freezer with that.

I work Wednesday night, so I'm going to try to finish up the school supply shopping Thursday after I get off work - I will have a little time to kill before I meet the neighbor lady at the pool so I can get it done then. I do need to dig through the store room tonight and see what I already have on hand before I go too wild at the store though. Several local schools started this week..... Does anyone else have a know-it-all at work? I said something about needing to get the rest of the supplies and she rolled her eyes and said she couldn't believe I didn't have it done since ALL the local towns started back to school this week; and then gave me a look like I was fibbing when I told her grandsons don't go back until the 31st. Ah well, she's taking a job on another unit here soon so they can deal with her attitude :lol: At least two of the local schools decided to do online only; the grandsons' school is offering in-house or online so we are going to go with the in-house option for as long as it lasts; then switch to our version of homeschooling if they shut down.

Well, Hubby just pulled in the drive, so I guess I'd better get off the computer and at least say hello to him... You folks all take care and stay safe out there!
 

prudentwatcher

Veteran Member
Quick trip into Walgreens today--3 jugs of laundry detergent, 2 packs of toilet paper, 1 bottle of marked down cough syrup, a box of cereal for the food bank box, and 2 cans of soup. Everything was on sale plus my 20% off. Just keep stacking.

Also finished another knit hat on the loom. This one was for a Christmas present.
 

ivantherussian03

Veteran Member
We picked berries all day. Each picking a gallon. Another week, we will have enough. I am noticing a untapped resource, grasses are growing in substantial amounts on the tundra, probably because of warming earth. Could I feed a pig that grass? You thinking out loud . I don't anything about farm animals.

August has been good for the garden, long warm, sunny days. Garden is going great. Fishing has been slow because of weather......always a trade off.

I cleaned stove flu. Then I helped the neighbors several times. Busy.
 

summerthyme

Administrator
_______________
Pigs won't survive on just grass... although some primitive breeds are better graders. However, the ROOTS of that grass, and other plants, can be good pig feed. Problem might be how much damage (and how permanent it woukd be in your very unforgiving climate) they might do to the ground.

Grass is much better food for ruminants.

Summerthyme
 

Jmurman

Veteran Member
I am shopping for a new dehydrator. I had one a few years back and loved it. Noisy but worked well.
So do you dehydrate? Recommendations?
 

coloradohermit

Veteran Member

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
In addition to broccoli slaw, I've also been dehydrating carrot sticks, and any bagged salads that have lots of good veggies in them. I'm going to concentrate on those now more than adding canned goods. With the canned goods I'm just replacing what I use to keep my 52 can supply current.

Yesterday I opened a can of beef ravoli that expired in 2018. The can was rusty around the rim (I'm now storing my cans different that prevents the rust). The contents were pristine. I have a shelf of cans that is designated to use first, which I do.

I got some fajita seasoned chicken in my commodities that I stir fried with canned corn and canned french cut green beans the other night (in an effort to use some of the older cans) and it tasted good. It would be good over rice, if you eat rice, or even egg noodles mixed in. DH ate it and had seconds and would probably like it with the noodles even more.

I get commodities and my 40# box of food (for the elderly poor) next week. It will be interesting to see what will be in the box what with the can shortage. We get peanut butter every month, and it adds up. I recently bought 3 1/2 gallon buckets (which I love the size) and was able to store about 18 jars of peanut butter in one. That bucket is stored in a cool (well as cool as it can get here in Louisiana heat) dark place. That didn't make much of a dent in my PB supply. If kept properly PB lasts a long time.

A couple of months ago I bought a 20# bag of flour tortilla mix. Yesterday I finally got it stored in one of the 3 1/2 half gallon buckets and of course I put mylar bag inside the bucket first. I had some left over which is going in a half gallon jar in the next couple of days (vacuum sealed). I'm now working on the several 10# bags of flour I've gotten from walmart.com.

Trying to get more done each day. I can see the sofa now. Before Katrina my house was organized and everything had a place. We lost that house and most of its contents and had to start over. Now not so much, but I'm working on it. A little each day when I can manage the energy.

God is good all the time

Judy
 
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Jmurman

Veteran Member
Excalibur dehydrators (or ones with a similar setup with the fan at the back as opposed to the bottom) are the best/most efficient in my opinion.
So glad you posted this. A gal that I follow on YouTube for her Chinese cooking, souped Up Recipes, (I am learning a whole new level of cooking from the Asians) she posted a vid on dehydrating shrimp, scallops and mushrooms...she uses one very similar to the Elite. Stainless trays and rear fan. Only uses 480 watts. I think I’ll go with this when I get paid next week.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I got some fajita seasoned chicken in my commodities that I stir fried with canned corn and canned french cut green beans the other night (in an effort to use some of the older cans) and it tasted good. It would be good over rice, if you eat rice, or even egg noodles mixed in. DH ate it and had seconds and would probably like it with the noodles even more.

Rice and pasta are the two basics to most of my food storage. Just mix a can of this or a can of that with some veggies and a meat, along with some spices, and you've got a meal. There's also lots of things that make rice or pasta toppers. Just stir up, and pour over either one.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
Went to walmart this afternoon. We needed to fill a couple of propane tanks. One was about half full and they only charged us half, nice man.

At walmart I completely passed up the canned foods, things pulled to the front but empty in the back, except for the mandarin oranges with no sugar added that I love. I got a case. I eat several cans a week, so they won't last long enough to go bad.

I concentrated on bagged fresh vegetables to go in the dehydrator. And a few bags of frozen vegetables. A couple of bags of broccoli flowerets, whole green beans and brussel sprouts. I also got extra cold cuts and cheese, the extra cold cuts will go in the freezer, the cheese will get vacuumed sealed to either keep in the fridg or go in the freezer.

I did buy a couple of cans of apple pie filling. And at some point when I don't have pie shells I can make a cobbler, which would also be cooked over an open fire. I have a good selection of cast iron cook ware, been using it since 1968 (although not that long over an open fire).

I managed to keep my bill for all this way down in comparison to the last several trips I made to the grocery.

God is good, all the time.

Judy
 

prudentwatcher

Veteran Member
We made a rather large order to Chewy.com to get cat litter and canned cat food. We were really getting low on the litter. It should be here tomorrow as we live about 30 miles from a shipping center. With five cats it can be hard to stay ahead, though we are at least 4 months ahead on food. More if we rationed it a bit.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
I wore my new hiking boots today to the store. My feet are fine but I've had an unusable back ache which I don't usually get from shopping. I may need to add another pair of arch supports to the boots, there is room. My other lace up boots have two pair.

If I'd tried these boots on in a store I would not have bought them, but I have not yet decided if they are a failure. I have to get the size a little longer to accomodiate the arch supports and my feet tend to be a little wide.

God is good all the time

Judy
 
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