Senior Sustainable Living with Jo

Have you heard of store shelves left empty without restocking? I witnessed it today. It was like the panic buying before a hurricane. I asked a stock person if there was any dishwashing detergent in the back. Sadly, he shook his head. I was left the grocery not buying quite a few items on my list. Now, I use coupons to shop with. I don't buy twenty or thirty of the same items. I'll buy maybe four of a given item. That's my personal maximum.  I have made a conscientious decision toward stock piling items in my stores of open one buy two to replace it. This way there is enough for everyone. Sounds logical and responsible, right? Pre COVID lock/shut down there was abundance, if not a glut, of choices. Since the reopening the choices are limited brands available and number available. Not that I'd buy a case of anything at today's prices. There would have to be a very good prices cut like 2000 prices. Today, I'm missing our chickens and quail. I bought two 10lb bags ...

My project that I've taken on is the family's food provisions. September is Preparedness Month. Actually, I started this project in June. This house has a 20'x25' pantry with two upright, 27 cu ft freezers plus an additional refrigerator/freezer in it. It was almost bare. I've having fun trying to fill it. I've laid in a couple months of paper goods like paper towels, napkins, and toilet paper. But things like Tampax, menstrual pads, urinary pads, and adults diapers are also stockpiled. Once again, couponing has saved my bank account as I squeeze pennies into dimes. In  fact the $5.00 a week I spend on Sunday papers (2) more than pays or itself in savings. A lot of weeks, I'm buying about $500+ of products for at most $75. My goal is not years or decades, but are least six months with to start with. I've reached my goal in laundry supplies and most of the nonfood goals. I'm not ignoring the food stock either. Slowly, I've been getting this big ci...

I finally broke down and bought our family's needs worth of pineapple last week. I've watched the prices of the fresh, tropical hover between 1.50 and $1.75. I kept waiting for it to drop to a $1 or below but alas it didn't happen this year. So I bit the bullet and paid the $1.49 asking price for two dozen, mostly green ones. I would have preferred ripe, golden ones, but I realize they have to pick them green to ship them to the mainland. I set them all in my southern facing windows to ripen. It took a full week. Even the fruit flies didn't notice their existence until the day before I started to cut them up to can and freeze. I pulled 6 wide mouth pint jars out of my stash. These would be for pineapple rings. The about a case of jars worth would be crushed in my hand powered food processor with the rest being cut into cubes for canning or freezing. I knew my daughter could not help me because she has an allergic reaction to raw pineapple. But my granddaughter was anoth...

 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,...

I've never had any luck canning potatoes without an almost metallic after taste and smell to them. The jars would have so much starch in them almost half the jars were impossible to see the contents. So disheartened,  I quit canning them at all. What was the sense of canning potatoes like that? It was a waste of time and energy. As you may have guessed, I spend quite a bit of my time watching YouTube videos. With my strokes, I have difficulty reading and comprehending written instructions (actually most types of reading) without reading anything four or five times through or storing it in my long term memory because my short term memory is gone. So much got my photo- and phonographic memory. It's gone too. Now, I guess my memory is just like anybody else my age with CRAFT (Can't Remember Any Frigging Thing). It gives a whole new appreciation to the other anagram, KISS (Keep It Stupid Simple) me please. Whereas before, everything was easy, now it takes hard concentration to ...

I found some organic pickling cucumbers on sale this week. The general consensus in this house like dill spears. So instead of buying all new herbs and spices that goes in my pickling mix, I decided to give Mrs. Wages kosher dill pickles a try. After reading through the ingredients, I added mustard seeds, celery seeds, black peppercorns, and two heads of garlic as tweaks to make the pickles my own. It would take 9-11 lbs of cucumbers according to the recipe on the back of the package. I have a love/hate relationship with premade mixes as you can tell from my additional purchases.  I cut the blossom ends off and cut the cucumbers into jar height lengths. I was using regular mouth pint jars. the extra lengths that I cut off didn't go to waste, but were cut into bite sized cubes in a jar to themselves. To help hold the cucumber to cut the ends and wedges, I was lazy and didn't grab my cutting board with the pins in it, I grabbed a regular cutting board and used the grooved side. I...

 I told you about the mix up with my ordering Napa cabbage and they substituted regular green cabbage, didn't I? But I didn't give you the recipe. Well, here you go. I believe in waste not, want not. First, I shredded all 10 lbs of the cabbage on my mandolin, or almost 29 cups shredded, This was no mean feat given my inability to stand for more than 25 minutes because of some brace issues. It took me the better part of two days. Another day shredding 3 cups of carrots and 2 cups of onions for that much shredded cabbage. The recipe (Ball Canning Book, 1966) calls for 1 cup of carrots and 1/2 cup of onions and bell pepper, but since I do not put bell peppers in my coleslaw, I substituted carrots for the bell pepper. I figured this was a safe enough to do since the mixture was basically being pickled for shelf stability. I wasn't wrong because I've made this recipe yearly since 1989 and hadn't been sick yet from it. So I feel fairly confident to share it. Canned Colesl...