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My very last pint jar is in the canner now. I really don't want to buy more jars................ we've started eating up canned stuff already, just so I have more jars.

How funny. My DH is in the Air Force, and we have lived most of the places you have too! Maybe another thing to consider is the growing zones you will live in. We last lived in coastal CA, a zone 8, then moved here to a zone 5. I can't grow some of my very favorite veggies or fruits. If you...

I know how you feel. I hatched out chicks for meat, they were/are mixed breed eggs, and go figure, out of 4 I have 3 girls and a boy. It seems stupid to raise hens to 4 months only to eat them for meat. And one of the little girls is so sweet, she runs over to me and hops up and down to be...

I love fresh roasted beets, and I would like to preserve some, but I don't know the best way. I have recipes for freezing, canning and drying, which way keeps them closest to fresh? I am guessing dehydrating is probably out. What do you all like?

One Medium dog and at least one foster dog - $70 - 80 for a 2 month supply of local meat, veggies and some kibble. 2 bantam pullets - $12 for 50 lbs of feed - lasts about 6 months 2 pastured lambs, they get a little grain and minerals - $14 for grain - lasts 5 months, and minerals $20 will...

About 60% of the food we eat comes from within 2 hours drive. Most of it is even closer, but still about 40% is not grown in the midwest. My 'holdouts' are pretty much the same as the ones the Kingsolver-Hopp family had in their book. Grains, oil, spices, occasional exotic fruits, chocolate...

I make crock pot applesauce all the time. I love it. It does turn out a little darker though.

I was thinking about canning my pumpkin, but have read that the USDA frowns on it now......... I might try it anyway. Did you pressure can yours? How long and at what pressure? Oh, and what size jars?

I think some people have overlooked a buying option, which is local farmers. The people I buy milk from raise chickens the same way I would, really truely free range, a healthy, mostly organic diet, and they charge about what it would cost for me to raise them myself. There are also a lot of...

So I just talked to a man about buying a quarter of a beef. He guessed it would be about 5 cubic feet in a freezer. Last week I talked to a woman about buying 10 chickens. They will take up a lot of freezer space. I only have a top-of-fridge freezer, and a 5.5 cu ft chest freezer and they are...

BBH - I listened to that on CD this summer and loved it! I really didn't know much about the channel islands except that some cool cattle breeds came from there.

I love my crock pot, I use it about 3 times a week. It's a Rival with a removeable crock that I recieved as a wedding present years ago, so I don't know how much it cost. I usually add a lot of extra moisture to it because I am constantly forgetting it an only remembering 6-8 hours later. So...

Today I canned 3 more quarts of apple crisp filling, and 6 half pints of cinnamon-lemon honey. I have a crock pot full of apples cooking down for applesauce, then my 'must can' canning season is over! Maybe I will 'recreationally' can soups, pumpkin, beans, ect, but my hands and fingers are...

I like mozzerella and chevre best out of my homemade cheeses so far. The mozzerella forms a curd REALLY FAST, which is cool to watch if your family is there with you. Mine also 'strings' in a spiral, which is also way cool. I add powdered garlic and herbs as I am kneading it and get a sort of...

For me one of the big hurdles to SS living is learning to like what I can make/grow/buy locally, before I give up the 'worldly' alternatives. I buy most of my milk from a semi-local farm. They have 7 grass fed Jersey cows. Fresh, grass fed, raw milk TASTES DIFFERENT! and not always in a good...

5 quarts of apple pie filling, 4 pints of applesauce, and 3 little 1/2 c. jars of pear butter. My fridge is full to bursting with apples and I have boxes of apples all over my kitchen, so I will be canning apples all this week! Yay! I love apples. And the end of canning season is in sight!

I mix crushed garlic, basil, parsley and little dill in my yogurt before I drain it. I can never find ways to use the whey anyway. My yogurt cheese does have a little 'tang' to it that perhaps might be called a bite, I usually spread it thin on my homemade bread which can stand up to just...

4 more pints of tomatoe sauce, and 5 half pints of roasted red peppers. They are so good on burgers, sandwiches, in hummus, in salads, blended into the dressing..... too bad they are so time consuming.

I had garlic ice cream at the Gilroy Garlic Festival, it was suprisingly good. Pat - I have the same problem with my 'seed' green beans, potatoes, garlic, ect...... they're all so tasty.

I dry a lot of pears, this year I tried soaking them in honey and lemon juice before I dried them, they turned out softer, which I like. I cut 2 of the sides off, then the other 2, so the core is square and I have two big pieces and 2 small ones. One year I tried using an apple...