Reply To: Long term food storage..

  • DeepSouthBamaGRITS

    Member
    February 11, 2023 at 7:41 am

    😉 Whew, glad to see that I’m not alone with all that I’m doing. I waste NOTHING. This past summer we had a massive heat wave & drought so my garden literally fried, except what was in partial shade. I didn’t have as much to process as normal. That freed up a lot of my time to pressure can. A grocery store in my little town went out of business the end of May 2022 & I lucked up and got frozen turkeys for .59cents lb. I bought every single one they had. They were not out in plain view but were in the frozen meat section in those huge freezers with glass doors. I got 11 of them & put in the freezers to can “when I had extra time”…which is a rarity for me. When the garden failed, for the most part, I started canning those turkeys. I have a huge double roaster that would hold 2-20 lb turkeys at a time. I roasted them with onions, celery and extra water to make more broth. I could put the roaster on warm while I deboned the turkeys. Then would fill pints & quarts with turkey meat, filled with the already seasoned broth & pressure canned. Left over broth went in ziplock baggie & all bones, skin & giblets would go in ziplock bags in the freezer. When I had enough to boil to make soup stock, I would take my 22 qt stock pot and boil everything, especially the carcasses to remove all meat from the bones. Then remove the bones from the stock & they went on cookie sheets, in the oven to roast to crush for BONE MEAL for the garden. Then would add frozen veggies I had in the freezers to the stock to make turkey veggie soup. I did save some turkey to add to the turkey soup. While I was making the turkey veggie soup I had 2 more turkeys thawing. While canning the soup I was roasting the next round of turkeys. Repeat process over & over til I had canned turkey in broth with onions/celery to add to stuffing to make a turkey & stuffing casserole but also had turkey soup in single/family servings and bone meal for the garden. Then early fall I found a sale on frozen turkeys at another grocery for .79cents lb. I had heard turkeys were going to be sky high for the holidays (bird flu scare) so my preps for that month were 10 more turkeys. Process was repeated again. Granted I got cat naps while doing the turkey processing marathon and would take a day of rest when my body said ENOUGH! I did buy an extra turkey I kept for Thanksgiving JUST IN CASE they were crazy expensive. A month ago I was visiting my sister (out of town) and a Winn Dixie in her city had turkeys for 99cent lb. Yes, I’m a glutton for punishment and got 4 more. I love turkey meat and so does my little Yorkie. I even convinced my sister, that isn’t into prepping, to buy 2 turkeys to roast for her 5 little fur babies. She cooks their meals as I do for my lil Yorkie. She thought I was crazy to talk her into buying 2 whole turkeys to cook for her babies. Well, after I canned up her turkey meat for her and she had READY TO EAT TURKEY in her pantry for herself AND her fur babies she thinks I’m pretty smart now. She can just get a jar out of the pantry and heat up or add to her fur babies meal. I do save all giblets from chickens, turkey or when I harvest my chickens/rabbits, too, and can those up for my Yorkie to have SOMETHING to eat or if times get REALLY bad and I’m out of everything I’ve canned, I COULD eat the giblets with gravy over rice or something. to keep from starving.
    I do the same process when I cook a ham (recently found those on sale for .99cents lb for shank hams) and got 4, Canned the baked ham with some of the ham juice & water. I even chop up the fat and fatty bits of ham and can that for HAM SEASONING. All pints have sealed. Use that to season greens, beans, etc. So far, I’ve used it and not gotten sick, all remain sealed & have not turned rancid. I then make a ham broth/stock with the bones to can dry beans and with two others I made a veggie soup (using more veggies from freezer), roasted those bones, crushed & added to my bone meal for the garden. I could go on & on with what I do to maximize every single use so nothing goes to waste.
    Being from the deep south where GUMBO, jambalaya, red beans & rice is a fav meal, I have sliced and canned our local link sausage. I raw pack this to can and it is actually delicious, all sealed, not any have turned rancid. I’ve even canned shrimp & different fish for the seafood gumbo we all love to eat here. I’ve canned bacon layered with parchment paper, and even tried canning bologna & chopped hot dogs. I’m sure some folks would think that was totally INSANE. I like fried bologna either as a side with my eggs for breakfast or to make a sandwich. Well, it WORKS, even with canned bologna! I love homemade beanie weenies so I added chopped hot dogs to some dry beans and other seasonings, onions/bell peppers and bingo, ready to heat & eat beanie weenies. I also canned whole hot dogs as well as chopped up. People always say to store WHAT YOU EAT so regardless of what people may think of bologna or hot dogs being bottom-of-the-barrel food, it is what I eat, sometimes, and enjoy. I love chicken and/or beef fajitas. I canned julienne sliced raw chicken or beef along with bell pepper & onions & seasoning ALL together in one-pint jars and voila’, heat & eat fajitas, just got to have flour tortillas or I will make my own if need be or make a thin fry bread. As long as we have grocery stores, the extras like the tortillas, sour cream & guacamole can be bought, when not available, MAYBE my avocado trees will be producing by then and I can at least have guac and I make my own salsa. Would just miss the sour cream since I don’t have goats or cows for making that. I do have SOME cheeses I’ve canned but I’m waiting to can anymore til May, that will be one yr since I melted & canned some (and also cream cheese) to see if it is shelf stable enough to can up anymore. I do have tons of cheese in my freezer as I LOVE cheese but didn’t want to can it all til I could see what it does. I may have to resort to waxing it.
    Anyway, so you see, It is a never-ending way of life for me to can, dehydrate, and vacuum seal and I’m doing one or the other every single day after my chores are done, dehydrators are going almost 24/7 regardless of what else I have going on. No rest for the weary, but I GITTER DONE and actually enjoy it. Keeps me busy and keeps my mind off other things going on in this ole world that I have no control over.
    We got this and we will keep on, keeping on! Blessings to you & yours. Apologies for the “book” which I’m notorious for when replying. LOL!! 🙄