Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: August 20-26

[moldy]

I was waiting on Renee, but she must be working,or napping,or gardening, or running grandkids somewhere....

Been a busy day already, and I even slept in! Yesterday, I took the class that is required to get your CCW license. I learned a lot,but by the end, I had a splitting headache, so I didn't go to the range. Woke up this morning still feeling icky, but I"ve managed to hit the grocery store,hardware store, do a couple loads of laundry, and work on homework. My first big batch of homework is due Tuesday, and I"m concerned about internet speed tomorrow, so when I'm done here, I'll go finish it.

DNeighbor caught me heading into town, and asked me to come pick apples, plums, and chokecherries at his house. He's just so nice.... I asked if I could bring him a little something, and he said no. I'll probably make some cookies or soemthing for him.

NOw, back to work. My only problem is that I have about 40 hours of work for each day!!

 

[ReneeT]

Thanks for taking the time to start this, Moldy; I appreciate your help! My work day was only 14 hours compared to your 40 but I was still beat by the time I got home - it was all I could do to sit like a bump on a log and read the main page of the forum after I got home. Good luck with your homework!

I'm taking a brain break at the moment - still working on the ACLS Sims. Video games - UGH! Later plans for the day include viewing the eclipse if it's not too cloudy and baking a batch of peanut butter 'n jelly cookies for the grands to carry in their school lunches - these are just your normal peanut butter cookies, but you make an indent with your thumb in the top before baking and add a dab of jelly or jam. I need to run in to town to pay the taxes (planning to sneak in to the gun shop to look at AKs while I'm there), and might possibly take Hubby out for lunch or supper, depending on what time we go to town. I need to take the grandsons to get shirts with our school mascot on them - we went to a "Meet the Teams" Friday evening as granddaughter was a part of it and there was a stand set up selling shirts, but none in their sizes - we'll all be attending football games starting next week (first game - this week - is an away game - a long way away!) so they will need shirts before then.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, so I want to take a hike around the farm today to check on the persimmon and hickory trees - the squirrels are hitting the black walnut trees in the yard hard already so I am a bit concerned about the possibility of a hard winter. I also want to place an order for some LTS food, do some general clean up work outside; and then, of course, there is the normal housework and laundry.

Tomorrow is aqua aerobics with the girls, and maybe a trip to the Amish store for this 'n that. I may have to run a friend to town in the afternoon for a doctor's appointment, but if I don't have to do that, or if I don't have to work on those ACLS sims in the afternoon, I may try to thin out my library a bit and fix up a donation bag of books to take to the nursing home. Not sure what the plan is for Wednesday as yet - other than 'Don't answer the phone if it's work calling!'

Guess I'd better go get that cookie dough mixed up so it can chill for a bit before I need to start baking! Take care all; stay away from the crazies if you can!

 

[SAPPHIRE]

hi ya'll........we've been treading water here along front range.......nothing too exciting (guess that's good)...preps et al are pretty slim just now......picking up clearances/markdowns/sales w/coupons...that sort of stuff........FYI we try to eat as much organic as possible and stay away from tons of preservatives/nitrates & nitrites/artificial gunk and it's so difficult on slim $$........bought ONE PACKAGE of clean bacon on instore special for about $2.65 (8 oz.) lately. There was a limit of 6 but I thought, "I'll find another sale/markdown etc.".........HAH......today that same package at another store is $9.99...........

I just can't believe the jump in prices around my area...........I should have bought the limit a few days ago........but I had no idea same stuff was so much higher across the street.........YIKES.....

KEEP STOCKING YA'LL......................

 

[ReneeT]

Got the boys t-shirts and sweatshirts on Monday; went back on Tuesday to pick them up from school for daughter, dropped them off, then took granddaughter up to the sports store - she has plenty of school themed items but needed a drawstring bag for her pom-pons, so we got that, plus a pair of earmuffs. She needed deodorant for PE, so we checked the CVS ad - Dove deodorant was buy one, get one 50% off. I checked a coupon database and found a $2/2 coupon (had my file in the van), then when we scanned my card at CVS, we got two different deodorant coupons - $2 off any deodorant purchase, and 30% off a deodorant purchase. I had her do the math to figure out which way was cheaper - $4.49 x 1.5 = $6.75 rounded up. $6.75 - $2/2 coupon - $2 off 1 = $2.75; $6.75 x 70% = $4.73 - $2/2 coupon = $2.73 so we were going to use the scanner coupon that expired soonest. Then she asked if she could give the second deodorant to a girl in her gym class that didn't have any, so we ended up doing both deals - she had one for her and 3 to share for a dollar more than just buying one deodorant for her would have cost.

Had to run into town today to do the hands on portion of the ACLS exam - so glad to have that DONE!! While I was in town, I hit Aldi for some current use items, but also picked up 6 bags of sugar, plus 4 bottles of lemon juice to use while canning; I dumped 4 bags of the sugar into a bucket for storage, then filled 3 pint jars with lemon juice and tucked them away in the freezer, dumping what was left from the 4th bottle into the partial bottle of lemon juice in the fridge. Popped in to the grocery store next - split chicken breast was on sale for $1.19/lb; lowest I've seen in a while, but I didn't have time to can or prep a bunch for the freezer today, so only picked up one 4# package; trimmed one breast for use in supper tonight, then froze the other three. I also picked up a 3.34# pkg of 80/20'yesterday's fresh ground beef' @ $3.49/lb (who the heck can afford $7/lb ground beef?!?), divvied it up into 3 bags and vacuum sealed it for the freezer. There was a 10/$10 sale on several items but the only one that piqued my interest was Hunts catsup; I got 10 of them to use in canning pork 'n beans. Got a case of bottled water on sale for $1.99 with a $2 cash back deal, pudding cups 99 cents with a dollar back.

I had a copy of granddaughter's English class reading list with me so popped in to the used bookstore to see if I could find the two I didn't already have on hand (from my and daughter's high school English reading lists lol!), but didn't have any luck; I may have to buy those two on-line. I did spend a whole $8 picking up some of the books on the list to give to the teacher to hand out if kids don't have them.

Back to work Thursday and Friday; I plan to stop on the way home from work on Friday to pick up some more chicken and check for more ground beef on markdown; then will pick up yet more chicken in daughter's town when I go pick up the kids on Saturday. What I do with the chicken will depend on how much I'm able to buy - a canner load will take about 2.5 per jar, so 23; that would be 6 pkgs - 7 if I want to fix homemade chicken strips for the kids for supper that night. I'm not sure if there will be a limit on them or not - if so, I'll ask co-worker Buddy to pick some up. I cleaned out one freezer, so I have enough room to stash it for a bit if I can't get it done while the kids are with us; and the neighbor that I go to aqua aerobics with said I can put some in her freezer as well. The sale doesn't end until next Tuesday evening, so I can also pick up more chicken when I take the kids home, and again on my way home from work next Monday and Tuesday - and make Hubby do the same on Tuesday before the sale ends Tuesday night. My vacation starts a week from tomorrow, so I should have plenty of time to can/freeze chicken then!

Well, Hubby just took supper out of the oven - chunks of chicken tossed in powdered ranch dressing mix, chunks of potato with olive oil and snipped rosemary from the garden, broccoli with a bit of butter drizzled over - so I reckon I'd better go fill my plate.

Take care all; wishing you a wonderful rest of the week!

 

[paxsim2]

I've had some extra time and a little extra money so I'm laying in more in the way of long term preps. I hate shopping in the winter and dragging it all in so I'm getting as much done now as I can. The weather is really nice for August in Oklahoma! I ended up with 9 full quart bags of chopped pears, we lost quite a few but I was got as much off of them as possible. They will be nice this winter for cobbler over the holidays.

The sales still aren't the best but I did stock up on toilet paper, vinegar, sugar, shampoo and soap plus some other things.

I'm going to pick comfrey and mint, I'll infuse some oil with the comfrey for salves and dry both mint and comfrey leaves for storage. I missed getting lavender from my garden this year but I will pick some stems for infusing oil as well.

 

[kua]

You all have been busy ladies. My recent stocking up is in the shape of canning green beans. Those plants are really producing like gang-busters this year so I take that to mean it will be a hard winter. DD has 2 really huge pumpkins for her grandchildren to carve and one for her 16 year old. There are lots of pie pumpkins at the other end of the pumpkin patch but they have not started to turn yet.

Tomorrow I will pick the last of the elderberries and then strip the golden delicious apple tree. The Wolf River can wait a while yet. And the grapes look like they will be ready soon. About all we do with them is make grape juice. No one here likes grape jelly very much but I have thought of adding elderberry juice and both red and black raspberry juice. We even have some mulberry juice frozen so could add that as well. No one would know it is grape that way. Do any of you do anything different with your grapes besides juice and jelly (or jam)?

The apples will go into applesauce. I still have several jars of canned pie apples from last year. I am not so fond of applebutter but the 16 yr old says she is so I may make a tiny batch of that. Also have a bushel of summer squash, both yellow and zucchini, which needs shredded and frozen. Every time anyone goes to the garden they come in with more summer squash. Some of DD's co-teachers have taken summer squash so that takes some of the load off me but there is still a lot to work up.

Glad I am retired and not answering the school bell these days. Don't know how you girls get it all done AND work away from home!

 

[SAPPHIRE]

Elderberry and grape were our staple jelly maker mix..........really rounds out the flavors........can't lose

 

[ReneeT]

Hubby turns some of the grapes and elderberries into wine

Kau, I've decided that I'm done canning green/wax beans for the year - even though Hubby does snap them for me while he watches TV in the evenings so all I have to to is pick 'em, then pack 'em in jars and into the canner. My story is that I'm letting them dry for seed - which is true, as far as that goes

By 3pm today, I just KNEW that I was going to get off work late (only 3 staff on the unit instead of our usual 5, a really needy group of patients, and getting pulled into the boss' office to interview a possible new staffer with no notice = NO charting whatsoever done by that time!) and since my fanny was already dragging, I succumbed to the lure of a cup of coffee. Two surprise discharges later, I realized I might actually get off work only a little bit late and was kinda regretting that cuppa Joe... But all was well - it just meant that I ended up with plenty of energy left to stop by the store on my way home - I was surprised to see so few shoppers there on a Friday evening! 4 pkg (16 total) split chicken breast and 12-ish pounds of the 'yesterdays fresh ground beef' followed me home I carried the chicken right on down to the freezer as I brought it in to the house as I plan to prep it late next week when my vacation starts; the ground beef stayed upstairs for a bit. Hubby was grumbling that it would take an hour to get it prepped, but 15 minutes later I was carrying 10 = 1# vaccum sealed bags of ground beef down to the freezer and the other 2# were stashed in the fridge for use in feeding the grandkids tomorrow. I'm thinking mini hamburgers on Hawaiian rolls tomorrow; maybe goulash or spaghetti on Sunday.

Co-worker Buddy brought in his yesterday's papers for me to bring home - one of them had a $5 off $30 purchase Aldi sticker coupon on it; good at the Aldi in the next town over from work, which also happens to be the same town where granddaughter's orthodontist is .. I happen to know a lady that works there, and markdown day coincides with orthodontist day, so I will run over to take advantage of both the markdowns and the coupon next week. I want to hit the Ruler food store in that town as well - they have the frozen mixed 'soup' veggies that I like the best for canning soups for Hubby's lunches - the mix has both okra and lima beans in it, along with the usual suspects.

Just found out a bit ago that I'm going to be the special surprise reader for youngest grandson's kindergarten class one day next month - I am going to take my favorite book from when I was 5 years old to read to them; "Johnny Go Round". It's a funny rhyming story about a silly tom cat that was always going around in circles. I'm thinking that I might wear one of those headbands with cat ears on it, and bring them 'cat treats' (goldfish crackers) to have for their afternoon snack I love to read to kids!! We have always been readers in this family - now I read to the grandkids before bedtime every night that they are here, older grandson reads to us while we are traveling in the car - and younger grandson takes his turn by looking at the pictures in their magazines and making up a story to go along with them

Well, my eyes are finally starting to get a little heavy; guess I'd best close this and tip-toe upstairs and try not to wake up Hubby when I sneak into our room - he has an IDPA shoot tomorrow, so will need his rest. Wishing you all a wonderful weekend - a safe one as well! Take care, friends...

 

[Barb]

I have gotten back to ordering some Thrive Life every month. I am using it more and more in my every day cooking.