What did you do to save $ today?

[BarredBuff]

I am just fascinated by the way you all are living. BarredBuff, how do you can chickens? I assume that you cook the meat first before canning it. Do you flavor it then, too? Is it packed in broth or water or something else? How long can you safely use it after it's been canned? And why not just freeze it? Wouldn't that be simpler?

It is really rather easy. You cook the chicken in some fashion first, then you can either debone it (as we do with dark meat) or pack whole or halved (like the breasts). Some people flavor it with chicken boulion, I don't because usually the broth is very good and works just as well to cover and retain flavor. I pack all of our meat with broth, however it can be covered with boiling water. After it has been canned, it is good for quite a long time, probably several years under good storage conditions. I don't freeze because of several reasons, one is that it is not dependable 100% of the time, it can fail or the power can fail and go out. Then you lose all of your meat, and that is not fun. Also it makes cooking simpler, open a jar of meat mix it with this and that or bake it or casserole it. Then it is ready to eat in 15 minutes. Therefore if you are on a tight schedule, it would be simpler to just open a jar or two. That is we can meats.

 

[moolie]

Just to add to what BarredBuff does, we also can several kinds of meat and when we do chunks/pieces there are two ways to do it: you can pre-cook and then can with broth or even just water, OR you can jam the meat in tightly and let it cook in its own juices.

The second method produces a more solid "mass" and you have to work the pieces away from each other when you open the jar, but works really well for fish (never add liquid to fish, always can it raw) and for chicken--I prefer my pork and bison/beef partially cooked before putting into the jars.

 

[cheepo]

for chicken ..i do moolies second method..just cut it up and stick pieces in the jar.raw..and fill with water...it comes out tasting wonderful...and for me anyways...have never had a problem with them sticking together...
but l can cooked turkey, and it comes out amazing...so maybe will try cooking chicken first too...sometime
i can say...it is better to sear cook your meat first...though...i have done it raw packed, and the steaping in the juices, just has it so tender and tasty...
Chantilly there was a time...that i thought...canned chicken...oh gosh, don't know about that one...but taste and convenience...it is the way to go...
i still have a freezer with meat though..

 

[Wannabefree]

I still haven't tried canning meats yet..maybe this is the year

I got 5 free pigs yesterday, going to sell them at the market tomorrow.

 

[Chantilly]

Thanks for the responses everyone! I live in a suburban area with buried power lines, so we've only had one power outage in 15 years that lasted more than half an hour. (Yes, I know we're lucky.) Having both canned and frozen my own home-grown produce, I found it so much easier to freeze things. But if you're subject to power outages and don't have a generator (so expensive!), it really does make sense to can things. Plus there's just so much personal satisfaction in seeing those rows of gleaming jars and knowing that you did it yourself. Plus you can provide your family with organic, chemical and pesticide-free products.

 

[moolie]

Thanks for the responses everyone! I live in a suburban area with buried power lines, so we've only had one power outage in 15 years that lasted more than half an hour. (Yes, I know we're lucky.) Having both canned and frozen my own home-grown produce, I found it so much easier to freeze things. But if you're subject to power outages and don't have a generator (so expensive!), it really does make sense to can things. Plus there's just so much personal satisfaction in seeing those rows of gleaming jars and knowing that you did it yourself. Plus you can provide your family with organic, chemical and pesticide-free products.

Inconsistent electricity for the freezer isn't the only reason to consider canning meats

I also live in a suburban area with buried power lines, but my city is subject to winter blizzards and wind storms the rest of the year which can take down power lines outside of my immediate area. That said, we personally haven't lost power more times than I can count on one hand in the last 16 years, in two totally different neighborhoods.

But I can meat (and prepared dishes like soups, stews, chili etc.) for convenience. Frozen meat makes it difficult to whip up dinner at a moment's notice, but canned meat makes just about anything possible. A jar of home canned tomatoes, some dried herbs from the garden, onion and celery, and a jar of home canned ground bison is a killer sauce over Pasta dish or in Lasagne. The sky is the limit when dinner is instant from a jar--Shepherd's Pie, Chicken Pot Pie, Bison Tacos, Pork or Chicken Curry, Bison Stew, Chicken Enchiladas, Bison Samosas--you name it!

And it's a super thing to take camping, as it doesn't need to be kept in the cooler

 

[Blaundee]

I didn't do a thing to save money today, unfortunately, as I had to take a trip to town with my mom, which is an all day thing since town is 2 hours away and we had to clean the rental property. However, we actually made money today, by selling a horse (we raise them), boarding a client's horse (another aspect of our horse business), and renting out the property in town today Then I took $80 of the money and bought a bunch of yarn for more projects to sell on etsy

 

[Wannabefree]

I went to the neighbors and shovelled horse manure from their stalls and brought it home and spread it on the garden.

 

[Chantilly]

I went to the neighbors and shovelled horse manure from their stalls and brought it home and spread it on the garden.

That brings up something I've always wondered about. What do horse owners and horse boarders DO with all the manure that a horse produces? If you have to muck out a stall daily, that's a fair amount of straw and manure that has to be removed from the stable and put somewhere. You can only use so much in a garden. Do you haul it out to the far end of a pasture somewhere? How do you get it there? And how long does it take to clean out a stall and put in fresh straw?

 

[Denim Deb]

Don't know about other areas, but around here, almost no one uses straw in stalls anymore. They use shavings. And, it doesn't take as long to clean a stall as you might think. When I was working on the horse farm, I could clean a stall after the horse had been in it all night in about 15 minutes. And, that included dumping the old bedding out, replacing any that needed to be replaced, scrubbing and refilling water buckets and putting fresh hay in the stall.

As to what they do w/it, it depends on the number of horses and the size of the property. If there's large enough fields, the old bedding and manure is normally put on a manure spreader. Then, when that gets filled, the manure is spread on the field. If you don't have one, or don't have large enough fields, the manure is normally piled. If it's composted properly, many people sell it. Others just give it away.

ETA: Chantilly, if you're looking for manure, look on CL. Many people (at least in this area) will advertise it for free there. If you're close enough to me (South Jersey), I'd be more than willing to give you as much as you want!