Tomatoes and Peppers are our primary staple vegetable. Apples, Peaches and Plums our primary fruits. Strawberries and Black Berries our primary berries. Beef, Pork, Poultry and Fish in that order our primary meats. Do you buy or produce your own or a mix of store and farm/garden? I think we all know I take the produce my own at around 94-97 Percent of what we eat we raise here but do keep a pretty large selection of dry and commercially canned goods. How do you preserve your food if you do? What is your stored food rotation time cycle? IE I have a 3 year rotation and always have at least 2 years in reserve by rotating oldest to front newest to rear on the shelves. If say everything fell apart in the world right now and the supply chain came to a complete stop I have 2.5 years of food I preserved and another year of grocery store stuff. Do you keep a running inventory of what you have? I have a sheet on a clip board that gets whatever I take out checked so I look at the sheet and know what I have or don't have. Are your food reserves secured under lock and key? Just curious how other folks do it or if they bother being a food aggressive hoarder like me or if I am just weird I am told I am a bit extreme on the food and food preservation. Like for the last two weeks and for the next 5 weeks I have and will be processing 200 pounds of tomatoes twice per week. This is part of what I picked today. The equipment long ago paid for itself. And I save a ton of money by not having to buy much in the way of groceries. There is another black flat and a half in the wagon outside. The one in the pic weighs in at 90 pounds. Also 30 pounds of Gypsy Peppers, 10 pounds of Cayenne, 12 pounds of really hot Jalapeno and god knows how many pounds of Zucchini LOL. Thank GOD apples, peaches, Plums and Berries are done...... Well mostly done I still have the October apples to press and make juice and cider with. But all the dehydrated, pie filling and jellies and jams are done! I only did 48 quarts each of new potatoes, green beans, carrots and beets this year. I did go kind of overboard with the Kraut this year and did 115 quarts of it, really nice stinky well fermented batches this year I still have 2000 pounds of beef in the freezers from last year so I am going to sell the steers I finished for myself this year. I am really trying to take two more chest freezers offline. If I can get the last two of the older ones unplugged I pretty much won't have a electric bill for the containers. Those last two old freezers are kind of electric hogs. And I am still making pasta sauce from what I picked 3 days ago.... And Finally down to the last two pots to cook down! I have quite a bit invested into my food processing equipment and yes a lot of it was used commercially preparing stuff for the food trucks. But I always took care of our needs before the business needs and the equipments primary function was for meeting our needs. The Food Trucks, Market Stands and Meat Broker Wagon started out as a way to get rid of our surplus and make a little money...... I can't help it that it grew out of hand Since July 2020 when I said screw trying to do business in the Covid Restrictions, the commercial kitchen has only been used for processing and preserving our personal foods. I have kept it and the trailers Certified and Inspected in in case I get a wild hair to roll out and sell again. LOL right now it has kind of became a catch all as I am reorganizing the storage container and stuff kind of landed in the kitchen. I make and vac pac a lot of this over the summer and fall. Hot Sausage Stuffed Gypsy Peppers. Sweet Gypsy Peppers with my Firecracker Sausage. Poke a hole in the top of the bag, heat for 3 minutes in the microwave and instant lunch. Warms you up on a cold winter day or makes a 100 degree day feel a lot cooler And I learned today that my Corporate Business office make the new Health Inspector uncomfortable. She mentioned something about crazy gun nut and misogynistic as she was leaving I don't think she appreciated my office wall deco Doesn't everyone keep a gun or many hanging on their office all?????
Flour for bread and tortillas, corn meal for tortillas, empanadas, corn cakes and cornbread. Tomatoes, peppers, onions and garlic, okra, squashes, and eggs are grown at home. We buy stuff like corn, peas, beans, field peas, and root vegetables at the local farmers market. Great gardeners we ARE NOT. My wife loves performing hospice on her dear dying plants and my hand will barely fit a hoe after growing up working a huge garden. I do maintain about an acre of 40 year old garden (for emergencies) nice and healthy with yearly mulching and a crop of field peas every couple of years. I'm trying the no till theory out in it. The purchased meat we eat is generally beef and chicken from the Mennonite butcher down the road. We butcher our own chickens, goats, and hogs. I trade with a neighbor for rabbits. I can cook just about anything we eat with the stuff above.
Some things like cornmeal, wheat/flour, dried beans etc it just does not make sense to grow. the cost of buying it is so low that the land space and labor to grow and process it is not justifiable IMO.
The wife is a canning fanatic, and she freezes a lot also...so damn much that yesterday I was griping about having to purchase another freezer which I am seriously considering since the damn things are so full I can't get even an ice cream bar in them. So, in a nutshell, she cans everything coming out of the garden, more than enough for the two of us. That is supplemented with produce and meat deals. She works now at a major grocery store in the produce section...a dream job for her. LOL! Anyway, canning is our major means of storage.
Of all the most food secure families I know, the family with a grocery store worker is by far the best. The wife brings home EVERYTHING she can get at a good deal and preserves/freezes most of it.
I have spent the last 28 hours making pasta sauce. Slow and time consuming but well worth it since there is very little even close the stuff I make That 7 gallons on the cart = 275 pounds of tomatoes. Only thing in it produced off the farm is the little bit of added salt. Greek Oregano, sweet basil, Tarragon, Rosemary, Sage, fennel seed, gypsy peppers, cayenne peppers, garlic, onions and a touch of salt.
