Saving Money On Food

My boyfriend and I are pretty honest with each other. We both love to eat and drink and we both have gained weight since meeting each other. As long as we're healthy and active, we just say "more of us to love" lol...Having said that, we often overindulge in fatty foods, especially cheese. So last night's dinner was a homemade chicken soup. We like to give our digestions a little break now and then! (grudgingly, a big cheesy pizza would have been nice!)

For the soup, I used up the last of my freezer celery. It fared pretty well for being in the freezer for nearly 5 months! This is good because now I know that the supply I froze should be doubled the next time celery is very fresh and on sale. We rarely eat it raw so this really works for us. Back in the fall, I just washed, dried and chopped it up; wrapped it in foil and then a freezer bag and this method has been working for all of my freezables. We've had our deep freezer for a year and a half now and it's so wonderful! 

That got me thinking about my birthday last year when my boyfriend bought me a water bath canner. I started food preservation probably in the fall of 2015 when we invested in the deep freezer. So far I've only used the water bath canner last summer when I bought 80 pounds of tomatoes at the farmer's market for $24.00.

I was so proud of my canning efforts and I definitely got the bug! We still have about a third of this supply in the pantry for the rest of the winter. It was SO worth it! 

I was talking about dehydrating oranges lately. We love our cocktails and go through about a Mason jar of these a year. Last fall I used my dehydrator to dry out all of my herbs that I knew I couldn't use fresh. Since my planned garden probably won't produce enough to can a lot of stuff this year, I'm going to take advantage of that farmer's market so that I can get some fruits and lots more tomatoes to can for next winter. And I am now squirreling away a little bit of money each month to buy myself a pressure canner in 2018! This is very exciting! It's funny when I think back...I thought the whole idea of food preservation was so overwhelming, but if you start a little at a time and buy supplies when you can, you quickly have everything you need! 

I'm now doing some research on freezer meals for those lazy summer nights when I don't feel like cooking. I've already adopted a monthly grocery shopping day and it's been really successful! I took a few days and made a meal plan for a month, then wrote my list based on the flyers. I've saved money, not only on food but also on gas and wear and tear on the car. I used to dread shopping day every two weeks. Now I'm looking forward to next month's plans. Actually I still have enough food for another few weeks, so my "monthly" shopping turned into a 6-week endeavor. Nice huh? I stray a little from the plan, but I have all of my ideas on paper. All of this is so rewarding!

Burger Night!

Last night was burger night. Whenever a nice cut of top sirloin goes on sale, I try to stock up for the freezer. I don't eat beef, but my boyfriend loves it. I have a horrible ailment where food gets stuck at the bottom of my esophagus and beef is the worst culprit. I've had that problem since I can remember as a kid, it's mostly due to stress but some foods make it worse. It's traumatic when it happens because one naturally thinks one is choking...but I always have to remind myself it's the esophagus, not the trachea...it will go down eventually...I've learned to adjust though, but my boyfriend really helps me through the panic. I made myself a chicken burger instead. Mmmmm...whenever we have "diner" style food, I always make milkshakes too, last night was strawberry :)

Have you ever bought something and completely doubted its quality? Last October I did with this meat grinder. It was on sale from $35 to $30 at one of those kitchen outlet stores. It was also on liquidation for 50% off, so I figured why not? It looked so cheap...I didn't think it would really grind meat very well. Oh my gosh was I wrong! I LOVE this thing!!! I haven't bought any ground meat, ground chicken or ground pork in nearly 6 months now. It's perfect. My last shopping day I bought a pork shoulder roast to grind up into sausage patties. This little miracle has a sausage attachment too, but I have no idea where to find casings...I'll have to do a little hunting.

This is my future Moon Garden, formerly my garden! I put everything in that tiny little space last summer because I wanted to fence it off so the dogs wouldn't get in. 

Charlie found her way in anyway last fall. I'll have to do a better job of blocking it off because the Moon Flowers are toxic to animals and I don't want any curious pups eating those flowers. Plus it's right off the porch so I can enjoy seeing the blooms and colours at night from the comfort of my lounge chair. We are lucky that we have a lumber yard close by and they gave us all of these lattice boards that I turned into fences. Some of them were rotting, but we weeded out the good ones. I wonder if we'll be just as lucky this year.

It's pouring rain today, the dogs don't mind though. But I'm wondering where all this snow is going to go as it melts if the balmy weather continues! Hopefully not in our basement!

Garden Plans For 2017

My big seed order arrived!! I've been holding off on starting a full-fledged garden because I'm currently renting. Although I have a landlord who doesn't care much about what I dig up, the biggest issue is all of the tree roots and since my boyfriend and I will be (fingers crossed) buying our property in 2019, I don't want to go to all that effort. I decided that everything I plant this season will be in containers. I just couldn't wait any longer. I started small last year with some tomato plants, a strawberry plant (that the squirrels ate all up!) - which I hope comes back to life this year; and some herbs. My plans are a little more lofty this year!

I kind of went overboard...but I'm in all or nothing this year! I'm planning a few areas for the garden. The first will be a Moon garden. The white Morning Glory species Moonflower blooms at night. The Blue Fescue is a shiny blue/silver ornamental grass that will also shine and the blue Morning Glory will give some colour during the day. I have to make some trellisses for the flowers to climb.

My porch garden will be herbs. I used to plant a dozen different herbs, but I chose these five because they are the ones I use the most. 

I had great success last year with my herbs, except the thyme and oregano didn't even bloom. It could have been the seeds though, they were old. I still have some chives from last summer in my window garden and they are thriving. My rosemary...it's so dry no matter what I do, but I'm hoping it'll come back to life!

I have an area that currently has some wildflowers. I'm going to add these Pollinators to that area and some lavender for my Bee and Butterfly garden. I have a lilac tree that attracts hummingbirds, and I hope they like the flowers as well!

My Vegetable garden is my biggest hope. I chose a lot of different varieties and now I'm in the midst of doing research on container sizes, seed starting, drainage and soil needs. I'm going to get all of my containers at bazaars, flea markets, second hand stores or last resort...the dollar store. We are lucky that once a year, the town has an Earth Day and gives away compost. You just have to bring your containers, so that'll save me a little money. We have a lot of wood lying around too so I'll likely build some raised beds for the lettuce and spinach.

The garden I'm MOST excited about is my pumpkin patch! This is the only seed that will go directly into the ground. I have to assess my space when spring comes to see how many I can plant. I chose most of the seeds because they either grow well in containers and/or are very hardy for Northern climates.

This will take some work to begin with because I'm going to dig up an area that is currently packed with these. I have no clue what they are, nor does the landlord, he said a previous tenant planted them. THESE grow like weeds and took over a big portion of our yard last summer. We liked them for privacy but I want to clear an area for the pumpkins this year. 

I'm going to put up a little fence and some netting around the patch as well, my neighbour says these grackles love to eat the blooms.

I also got a little gift from the seed company, red and white Zinnias for Canada's 150th. I'll put those on my porch too! And I went a little more nuts and ordered more seeds yesterday gasp...yellow peppers, marigolds and nasturtiums for my porch. I have to stop!

And of course, from last year, I still have my Meyer lemon tree. In the last few weeks we've been getting more sun and I've noticed 6 new lemons beginning to grow!

This big one has been the same size since I brought the tree in last fall, it never turned. The nursery where I bought it is closed until March 15th so when they open, I'm going to visit and ask for some advice. I really hope we get some YELLOW lemons this year! 

I've heard advice to start small...but honestly? I'm starting BIG. I don't work, I'm on a disability income, so I have the time to spend outdoors. Plus I have the motivation! Last year I pretty much spent April through the end of October on my porch anyway, I love being outside and this winter is long and hard to handle. But doing things to plan for the garden is cheering me up. I started keeping my eggshells and they are periodically drying out on my seedling shelf - I read that they are good for calcium for the soil. I also am keeping my coffee grounds to add nitrogen where needed; and to keep the feral cats away - I do hope that works, this town has a problem with feral cats unfortunately.

And I'm keeping track of everything in my Garden Journal. I'm really having fun with this! My hope is that when we have bought our property, I'll have some experience and then slowly move from container gardening to a larger garden. The goal is to grow to feed us for the year (not this year though); and eventually find a way to grow during the winter as well!

We still have a ways to go before spring! These are our two huskies, Charlie and Marlene.

And my special little guy Jack always keeping me company with his big mouth eating bones...we adopted these rescue dogs in 2015. I feel so blessed to have dogs in my life again. After having to say farewell to my pugs in 2011 and then 2014, it was a long year without any dogs! Half of the yard is where they'll hang out all spring/summer and fall, so there is room for the dogs to play and for my garden to grow!