Make Ahead Freezer and Pantry Meal

 I belong to a group of "tight wads" on YouTube called "Southern Savers." We coupon, squeeze pennies into dimes, and help others do the same. In today's economy, it pays to be a tight wad and save as much as you can. My background or mindset as a homesteader (and a couple others) has proven to be valuable assets to the group. This week's topic was Make Ahead Freezer Meals and Menu Planning in a live chat session format.

I mentioned how I menu plan for two months at a time and rotate it every two months for a year. After doing this pantry and freezer meals are a no brainer. The group wanted to know the particulars. They also wanted to know how my pantry stores lasted for a year. As you can imagine, we (me and the other homesteaders in the group) got flooded with questions. The lady running the live chat got involved also after one person commented that they have trouble cooking for two and I answered back "Don't, continue prepping your meals for 4,6, or 8. Just put the extras in gallon bags for 2 or more servings in the freezer or can it instead." It's true. I never learned to make things like spaghetti sauce, chili, or soups in a small batch. By the time I got everything I wanted in it, it was at least 8 servings worth at a minimum. 

Once, shortly after my husband died, I was hungry for a good vegetable soup. By the time I finished putting all the yummy, low carb veggies in it that I wanted, it filled a 16-qt stock pot. Do you know how long it would take me to eat that much soup? Let's figure it out shall, we? Figure 2 cups of soup. three times a day. I have to break out the calculator for this one. A 16-qt stock pot of soup equals 32 cups of soup, divided by 2 cups per serving equals 16 servings, divide this by 3 meals a day equals 5.34 days of eating nothing but this soup! 

Dividing this up between pint jars (the same 2 cup serving) and canning it or 1-qt freezer bags seems a much better option. So that's what I did. Now, I do it on purpose to stockpile 16 pint jars of canned vegetable soup in my pantry. If I want meat I'll pop open a jar and now I'll have two or three servings. In this one instant, I'm not dependent on the grocery store, but am empowered to do more for myself.

From this live chat, one of the ladies asked me for my recipe for my "Meatless Mondays" Triple Bean Chili recipe. I'll have to find it. I thought I'd published it on the Cockeyed Homestead blog. but I couldn't find it.  I've had quite a few posts vanish each time they update the program. Still, there are over a hundred recipes over there. I used the postings as a sounding board when I was compiling a homestead cookbook. Now, defunct because I'm a homesteader without acreage to grow my own food on. Life changes and we adapt. Now I'm a suburbanite, grower of herbs and a few vegetables in an elevated raised bed and pots where I can on a little bit bigger than a postage stamp yard on the coast of south GA.

You take the sustainable homestead away from the sustainable homesteader, BUT you can't take away the sustainable homesteader spirit away. I'll be digging in the ground until I'll buried in it. I'll be putting food by, and cooking until this body don't move anymore...then, I teach others and tell stories from my rocking chair. I'll squirrel away dimes that I squeeze from pennies, and perhaps my great-grands will have a little inheritance. 

That makes sense and cents.