WHAT ARE YOU CANNING TODAY?

[FarmerJamie]

Looked in pantry with canned goods to place these qts of chicken in there. Really, it's almost embarrassing -- I have to rearrange to have room. Seems I felt a need to prepare for years. So overstocked. Maybe never buy again. And I'm looking at a garden? Why? Tomatoes would be main thing. Some limas, peppers, a couple eggplant & squash. I could get all that with a 12X12 spot Reality sets in. Slow down needed.

Am I the only one in this spot? Fess up now Surely I'm not!

I had to open a new case of jars the last canning stint go-round. Running out of planned/allocated shelf space.

 

[frustratedearthmother]

Am I the only one in this spot? Fess up now Surely I'm not!

I totally understand, hence why we're eating out of the pantry at least once a week, and quite often several times. I mean, I canned it to use it - so we're using it!

I'm going to milk a couple of days before we leave for the trip. I'll try canning it before we go. Evaporated milk has gotten stupid expensive. (what hasn't?)

 

[Mini Horses]

I canned it to use it - so we're using it!

I'm using pretty much full time. Gotta get it eaten. Habit, convenience, retraining mindset. Otherwise, why do it?

Milk -- easy to do. Look out Carnation!
Definitely that same taste. But I use for cooking, there's that. Same for hot tea but, I prefer the fresh for that during season.

 

[LaurenRitz]

I still have food from 2014, as I inherited my mother's storage. 2025 and 2024 are separated, I'm trying to eat the oldest first. I did clear out everything older than 2011 before I moved.

It's been convenient not to have to go grocery shopping.

 

[Mini Horses]

Actually, back in the day, you ate your canned or went hungry. My grands had no electric, little lone a vehicle. You grew it, preserved it, or did without. That puts a new meaning to life & a groc store. . Finding a wild fruit or nut tree was special.

Those people lined at McD and can't cook from scratch -- they're in a world of trouble if things keep going downhill. So goes life.

 

[flowerbug]

we have very limited space for storage so i don't keep more than a few dozen cases at a time but it is also my closet for some clothes and also our pantry for baking supplies and other extras we can fit in there so it gets rather challenging. also when you consider you need extra space to store the empties that can take up a lot of room in a small house, but we got it figured out.

the past few weeks i took the remaining two cases of tomatoes from 2024 out of the closet and put them right here on the floor in my room so we would have them handy for cooking, but i am also using some tomatoes from 2025 too as they are so sweet it adds a really nice boost (2 old + 1 new quarts) to the flavor.

some years ago i'd made a ton of canned bean salads, pickled beets, pickles, etc. and then the main person who was eating them found out he was pre-diabetic and so he stopped eating anything with sugar in it. we gave away about 20 cases of things i had in that closet that we weren't eating and i've gone further and now only keep tomatoes in there. some pints of sweet pickles we use for recipes i have stuck up on some other shelves in the kitchen but we hardly have touched those. i think i should get rid of them but they have so much sugar in them i doubt they'll ever go bad. they'll get used eventually.

some really old garlic pickle (not pickled garlic but an indian garlic pickle) i just used up last year by putting it in the planting trenches for the peppers - i figured they wouldn't mind having a little bit more sulphur and molasses types of compounds down in the root zone and the plants all did ok so at least it didn't hurt them. i try not to waste any bit of extra organic materials here if i can possibly help it.