Utilizing what God has provided
This month, I am trying to do a better job utilizing what God provides instead of buying so much. This week, I have an over abundance of tomatoes and I don't have time to can them. I have so many they are starting to go bad before I can get to them. So last night, we had spaghetti for dinner. I made our sauce from scratch with the tomatoes in my garden. To make my sauce as inexpensive as possible, I only used 1 lb of meat (usually use 2) and added grated zucchini as a filler (also from my garden). It turned out absolutely delicious. We ate it with home canned cherries and home canned carrots. So I spent no money on dinner tonight. Everything was either in my garden, freezer, or pantry. (Technically we did buy 1/4 of a cow back in July to put in the freezer, that is why I don't have to buy meat each week.)
That only utilized about 1/3 of the tomatoes I had, so today I am making beef stew. I usually put 1 jar of my home canned tomatoes in a beef stew. Today, I cut up fresh tomatoes instead for the stew, and put a few more in then I usually do. That used another 1/3 of my tomatoes and dinner is now cooking in the crock pot on the counter. Everything I had for the stew was either in the freezer or pantry as well except for 3 carrots which I purchased on this weeks grocery run.
Have you noticed the weather has suddenly turned cold? I hate to start using the heat already since it is oil heat (translate - super expensive), so I decided to use the oven instead. If I am going to pay for something hot to be running, it may as well be something I can use! In order to heat the house, I have baked 16 mini loaves of zucchini bread in the last 2 days and a dozen or so blueberry muffins. Obviously, we can't eat that much before it would go bad, so I have just been baking and throwing it into the freezer. This has been great as now I can pull out a freezer bag with 3 muffins or a mini loaf in it in the morning, set it on the counter, and give it to the kids for their afternoon snack! Voila! Snack without buying crackers at the store! I have enough ingredients to make probably 8 more batches before I would need groceries.
Tomorrow is Friday which is our normal grocery day for the week. Right now, I think we could go another whole week with only the purchase of bread, 1/2 gallon of milk, a few bananas, and maybe some trail mix for Thad's lunches.
That only utilized about 1/3 of the tomatoes I had, so today I am making beef stew. I usually put 1 jar of my home canned tomatoes in a beef stew. Today, I cut up fresh tomatoes instead for the stew, and put a few more in then I usually do. That used another 1/3 of my tomatoes and dinner is now cooking in the crock pot on the counter. Everything I had for the stew was either in the freezer or pantry as well except for 3 carrots which I purchased on this weeks grocery run.
Have you noticed the weather has suddenly turned cold? I hate to start using the heat already since it is oil heat (translate - super expensive), so I decided to use the oven instead. If I am going to pay for something hot to be running, it may as well be something I can use! In order to heat the house, I have baked 16 mini loaves of zucchini bread in the last 2 days and a dozen or so blueberry muffins. Obviously, we can't eat that much before it would go bad, so I have just been baking and throwing it into the freezer. This has been great as now I can pull out a freezer bag with 3 muffins or a mini loaf in it in the morning, set it on the counter, and give it to the kids for their afternoon snack! Voila! Snack without buying crackers at the store! I have enough ingredients to make probably 8 more batches before I would need groceries.
Tomorrow is Friday which is our normal grocery day for the week. Right now, I think we could go another whole week with only the purchase of bread, 1/2 gallon of milk, a few bananas, and maybe some trail mix for Thad's lunches.
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