Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: September 10 ~ 16, 2017

[ReneeT]

Good Morning, All! Prayers going out to all in Irma's path, and wake, this morning...

Chilly here this morning at 46*F; expected high of 77*F, so it will be a nice day to work outside once it warms up just a bit. I have plenty of housework to do inside between now and then, anyway

Daughter and SIL's flight left early this morning for the hop to Atlanta; then on to Saint Lucia. Not something I would have done on a bet, but they are adults so I just wished them a safe trip - and then made sure my phone was fully charged... If I don't hear anything from them, I will be in touch with daughter's step-mom (grands are spending the weekend with them) later in the day to see if they let the kids know they got to the island safely.

Plans for today include cleaning the fridge, getting fall wreaths made and taken to the cemetery, gathering the pumpkins from the garden and getting them up to the porch to cure, picking the bell peppers now that they are finally changing color and getting some of them put in the freezer - I'll cut some along the lobes, then stack them together with wax paper between each before vacuum sealing them for use in stuffed peppers. I also need to clean out all the bird feed barrels (and figure out what Hubby did with one of them - betting it's in his shop or down at the range!) so that I can start stocking up on feed again. If I have more time, I'll spend it working some more on garden/yard clean-up.

Co-worker Buddy will be out later today with the Sunday papers; hoping for some decent sales on stock up items. The mid week ads were generally nothing to write home about; about the only thing I noticed is that soup sales are starting to show up again, as are coupons for soup.

Tonight before we go to bed, we'll pull the chicken I bought on sale last week (week before?) out of the freezers and set it to thaw in the coolers so that I can start working it up tomorrow - which reminds me that Hubby needs to sharpen some knives today; better put that on the list

Guess I'd better get up and get moving if I want to get all that done today - and besides, my coffee cup is empty

Take care all; stay safe out there...

 

[ReneeT]

Daughter and SIL got to Saint Lucia safely; that was a load off my mind!

I got the fridge cleaned and dishes washed yesterday morning, then Hubby threw a monkey wrench in my plans by deciding he needed more work pants, so off to town we went. I asked to stop by the grocery store to snag one on-sale item; it was out of stock, but I had to go through the meat department on my way to the empty shelf - noticed that they had quite a few packages of their 'Yesterday's Fresh Beef' (the ground beef that didn't sell the day before) 85/15 mix at $3.49/lb, so snagged 5 pkg for a bit over 13# of ground beef. I also grabbed 6 pkg of Hamburger Helper to throw in for emergency use - on sale for 79 cents each; and I had 2 - 75 cent off 3 coupons, so net of 54 cents/box.

We'd picked up my Sunday papers from co-worker Buddy's house on our way in to town, so I had time to study them while waiting for Hubby to pick out britches, so I asked for a quick stop at Walgreen's. They had Bic brand razors on sale for $5.99 and I had $4 coupons, so I snagged two. On my way to the cash register, I noticed school supplies were on sale, so stocked up on good pens for work, plus grabbed 30 of the composition books for 32 cents each (we hand 'em out at work like crazy!). Got to the car and discovered that I'd been overcharged for 15 of them - 99 cents each. Trotted back in and the register was being a booger - they had more so we just figured out that I was due another 30 books, which I quickly snagged and headed out the door.

Once home, I used 4 pkg of the ground beef to make up meatloaf mix - froze one large meatloaf to take to daughter's house to feed the grandkids later this week; then filled 10 pint vac seal bags with the mix and tossed them in the freezer. The last pkg of ground beef was divided into thirds and also frozen in vac seal bags. I had a bit of meatloaf mix left, so snagged a bell pepper from the garden and cut it into 4 lobes; filled 3 of them with meatloaf mix and plopped them in a small cassarole dish, poured over a bit of spaghetti sauce, covered with foil and baked until the peppers were fork tender. Hubby and I shared one pepper 'boat' for supper along with fresh green beans and salad. Today, I plan to freeze one of the other pepper boats to take take daughter's to make single serving Frito pies for granddaughter and myself for supper one night - one grandson won't eat 'mixed up food'; the other will be happy with leftover meatloaf. To use the last pepper boat, I'm going to saute some of the last lobe of the pepper that has been chopped up along with some onion, garlic and a bit of shredded zucchini. I'll boil some macaroni, and chop up the last pepper boat. I'll plop everything in a bowl, add some of the spaghetti sauce leftover from last night and add in some of those partial bags of shredded cheese from the fridge. Most of it will go in a 4 cup Pyrex cassarole dish to be frozen for later, but I'll keep out two servings and bake them in small cassarole dishes for supper tonight.

While putting the meatloaf mix and ground beef in the fridge, I encountered a bunch of frozen chicken breasts - pulled out 4 packages, which was all that would fit in the cooler and left them to thaw overnight. They are just about thawed enough to start working up so Hubby has been sent out to sharpen a couple of knives and we will get to work on canning/freezing and broth making here in a bit. Then it will be on to working in the yard and dealing with the bird feed barrels Sounds like a full day - reckon I'd better get at it!

Take care, all; have a wonderful day!

 

[nomifyle]

Its been awhile since I've done much of anything around here, at least 3 months or more, since DH got sick. He's in Rehab and doing well, and I'm motivated to get some organization going on around here again. The room that we added last year has been a big catch all for things i didn't know what to do with. My cousin is coming to visit in a few weeks and I have to get that room in decent shape for her to stay in there, it also has a private bath. My friend came over the other day to help me and we cleared out a big pile of stuff. Today, with help, I got the bed moved around to a better place, and I'm making headway. I can't take everything out of the room because its also part of my storage for my prep stuff. I've decided that as things (canned mostly) have to be eliminated I won't replace them except for what I get in commodities, which will keep me supplied with basic foods.

Awhile back I was dehydrating tomatoes from the garden and I decided to try dehydrating a can of tomatoes. The garden tomatoes turned out beautifully and the canned ones are fine too. I need to dehydrate the contents of some of the cans that starting to get a little rust on them, that or I'll end up tossing them.

Judy

 

[ReneeT]

Busy - but fun! - last half of the week hanging out with the grandkids; boy are they a busy bunch!! Pretty sure we were ALL in bed and asleep by 8:30pm Thursday night; which was good, because we didn't get in from the football game until after 10pm last night lol!

I hit a couple of garage sales Thursday morning - got 2- 10 gallon(?) waterbobs for $2 each - opened and checked; no odor; lady at the sale said they'd belonged to a friend of hers who had to go into assisted living and had only had water in them. Also snagged an impulse sealer at the same sale for $3; I'm betting the gentleman was a prepper. I felt guilty at the prices and asked if they were correct, but the lady told me that he had priced the items himself, so I'm thinking that maybe he just wanted to help other's prepare.

Here in a bit, we are going to go to a customer appreciation day/car show at a local body shop - free food, kid games, balloon twisting clown; what more could you ask for?! Oh yeah - a petting zoo put on by the local 4-H kids too! Who needs expensive amusement parks?

 

[moldy]

Great idea about drying the canned goods, Judy. I'm just happy I've canned so much into the past because I sure don't have the time to do it now!! School is going great....only another 18 months to go.

 

[ReneeT]

So glad to hear from you, Moldy! Have been keeping you in my prayers...