I dropped my grocery bill with canning.
I had to invest $300 in supplies, which paid for itself in one month.
My favorite things (so far) are:
beef stew
chicken stew (very cheap!)
split pea soup (vegetarian)
chili
Next year we’ll have a garden, that that will go down more. I’m hoping for a good tomato crop for sauces.
A freezer is also a great investment. You can buy things on sale and stock up.
Finally, DON’T WASTE LEFTOVERS! :-) Keep your bits!
About once a week we end up having a leftover night where one person gets spaghetti, another gets chicken and potato salad and someone else has to live with MORE SOUP! lol!
(I love this topic!)
:-D
LOL... at my house we call those nights "Mom's Mystery Meals!"
Marie, we do the same thing. I save up the leftovers, and on one day a week they can choose off the menu. Some items are highly desired, so they have to come to mom and claim it first.
We can too. Nothing like seeing a row of jars full and waiting for the rest of the year. Love the sound of the seals popping.
Ditto on the freezer, we have the chest and then the refrigerators. One freezer I have dedicated to bread and rolls, and the chest is mostly meat, the other is mostly vegetables.
I use LDS sites for menu planning and food storage. No use reinventing the wheel, they have it down pat.
I planted tomatoes this summer. I had about 16 sauce tomatoes and got over 30 quarts of sauce after draining off the liquid.
I buy regular split chicken breast and bone it myself. I freeze the scraps and then when I need to clear out my freezer, I boil them all down and make my own chicken broth which is very easy to pressure can. Plus, The best part is that I know what's in it.
Speaking of pressure canning, what's the best way to pressure can meat? Chunks or strips? With water or not? What do you use it for after that?
I'm thinking that if I ever get hold of a really good deal on meat, I'd like to be able to do something more reliable for saving it than freezing.