When I was raising my very large family, I was so busy in the summertime! It was always easy for me to feed the family in the summer months. My garden produced all the tomatoes I needed and other vegetables. Then, food is cheaper in the summer, also. But, boy, ya hit those winter months and it is hard to keep the cupboards full.
So far this summer, I have made raspberry jam and rhubarb jam so, now, that will probably be all the jam I will make, and that will last us until next year. My tomatoes aren't ripe yet, so I haven't done anything with them, but soon, when they start coming in, I will begin canning them. And Jim loves homemade ketchup and it is fun to make, so I will make some of that, probably about 6 pint jars. Papa puts this ketchup on fried potatoes and scrambled eggs. It's also a good relish to use on hot dogs and hamburgers, or you can use it to flavor soups and stews.
My brother Scott always has a big garden in the summer, so at the end of the summer, he will invite me to come and pick some overly ripe tomatoes. With these, I will wash them and core them and grind them up in my blender and make tomato sauce. If it thickens up, fine, and if it don't, fine. It tastes good in winter stews and chili, etc. Often, if I have green peppers and fresh onions, I will grind them up, too, with the tomatoes. But that is so easy to do and tomato sauce is used in so many recipes.
I may freeze some corn and some green beans, too. They are easy to do. Just blanch them and freeze them in your freezer. It's easy to freeze produce. If my plums do well, I will pick them and just freeze them in ziplock bags. Then, in the winter, I will take portions out and stew them for Papa and me.
You can freeze most berries -- just wash them and put them in a bag. You can just take them out frozen and put them in jello this winter. Also, some busy mothers like to freeze all of their fruits and berries and make all of their jams when they have time in the fall, instead of in the summer.
Garage sales are just full of canning jars right now. And the lids and rings don't cost much; they should be new to make sure they seal.
If you know of a mother or grandmother close to you, just ask them about canning. I gleaned most of my knowlege about canning from the library and also Carla Emery's book called The Old-Fashioned Recipe Book
But ya know, she turned out like Cheryle from the Gentle Spirit Magazine. She really backslid. But Carla's book is still so good. It was written when she was young and raising a family. She was a Christian when she wrote it and she had a wonderful spirit. I think she got kinda power hungry, though, and then gradually lost her family. But just about everything ya wanna know about food storage is in that book.
Lately, I have been baking and cooking a lot in the morning for Papa. It isn't as hot as it usually is in Iowa in the summer. I made a lot of baking powder biscuits yesterday, and pancakes this morning from scratch. So I think this afternoon I am going to make the big biscuit mix again. Oh, no! I guess not. I don't have a bag of flour. Tomorrow, I will get groceries and make it then.
