Once a week I take everything that is edible out of our refrigerator and make a soup or stew. Usually I get about six or seven quarts. I save all my meat drippings, water left over from boiling chicken, water from boiling vegetables and roots like carrots and potatoes and throw them in the mix for a nice savory taste. I sautè some carrots, onions, celery that are old and going limp hanging around our refrigerator. I also can beans, be sure to soak them overnight before you can them or your jars will blow up from the beans swelling up during the cooking process. I've never had that happen to me but I've read about it will researching how to can beans.
Any bones left over I crack them open with a hammer and throw them in the stock and boil the bones and stock down to almost nothing, remove the bones and add more veggie water or soup stock. Bone broth makes the best soup stock!
I've canned over 300 quarts of meat, beans, fruit, and meals every year since 2010 with this pressure cooker, it looks well used and I need to give it a deep cleaning and buy a new steam gauge soon. But it still works like a champ!
This is a regulator weight and it helps gauge pressure, it will start jumping around when you hit your designated pressure.
I bought the seven quart pressure cooker, it is very heavy and during canning season I build up my arm and back muscles lifting this thing off the stove processing cans.
If you aren't near a garden you can go to a grocery store near you and ask for left over produce they are throwing out. Just say the produce is for your chickens and compost pile. The grocery stores are not allowed to sell humans their old produce. Lots of it is still usable. Last year I canned over 30 quarts of tomatoes from our grocery store old produce. The unusable produce that's organic I feed to our chickens or throw it in our compost pile. Be sure and use organic produce in your compost pile or you kill the micro-ecosystem. Regular produce is covered in pesticides and herbicides. Just imagine what it is doing to your gut eco-system.
My husband and I buy meat when it goes on sale. Usually we spend around $500.00 on chicken, pork, and beef and this will last the two of us through the winter. We save a so much of money buying bulk this way. Many stores will have fall sales where they run sales on bulk meat. The stores usually will cut and wrap it to your specs as well. Buying in bulk on sale is the way to go with beans and rice as well. I also buy sugar and salt in bulk. If the world goes to hell in a hand-basket you can trade salt and sugar for supplies you might need. They will be worth their weight in gold.
If you ask your store manager nicely, they usually will sell you 10lb bags of what ever they sell in bulk at a 10% discount.
One year while we were living on our little hill farm near Eugene we had an ice storm that knocked our electricity out for two weeks. I canned all our freezer meat that was thawing out! I can all the old meat we don't eat during the winter in the spring. No freezer burn and no waste!
My best garden's tomatoes I de-seed before eating and save the seeds for next year. No need to buy tomato seeds! You can also do this with store bought produce that has seeds. I regularly save my store bought pepper and melon seeds.
If you have a fine meshed strainer, just squeeze out the seeds and wash off with water, lay out the seeds on waxed paper and let the seeds air dry. Store in plastic bags with some rice grains to keep them dry.
I just ripped up all our tomato plants for the winter and pulled off all my green tomatoes. You can leave them in a nice airy place and let them ripen. I don't like green tomato salsa. But I think I will try to make some pickled green tomatoes.
