Grocery store canning

Yesterday I took a small trip to the local national chain grocery store to check out the marked down produce. The trucks run there on Tuesday and Friday so if I go in the early morning, they are marking down produce to make way for the new stock. I came away with about 11 pounds of pears for $6, organic baby carrots for $1 a bag, bell peppers for 25 cents each, some really nice portabella mushrooms for $1.75, a big bag of shallots for 50 cents, and 2 bags of green beans for a dollar. I also got a bunch of strawberries for less than the U-Pick-Em price.

Needless to say, I was busy yesterday afternoon. I canned 2 quarts of green beans, 5 pints of carrots, and 6 pints of spiced pears and dried the mushrooms. I am going to dry the peppers today and make some strawberry jam.

So for about $25, I got a pretty fair amount of goodies to feed the family. It may not be enough to last the winter, but it is a good start. And after all, any is better than none.

I still want to hit up the farmer's markets to get peas, tomatoes and corn. I wish I could find broccoli and cauliflower, but it is just too hot here to grow that well and it would already be picked even if it was. Maybe I can find some seeds and start some this summer for a winter garden. I wouldn't can them, but they do freeze very well.

On a side note, I got ambitious last week and decided that the big empty space in my garden needed something in it. I looked around the house for stray seeds to plant. I happened upon a 4 pound bag of dried pinto beans in my pantry, so I took a handful (or two) of them and soaked them for a couple of hours, then planted them. In less than a week, I had almost a hundred (yes, I counted them) baby bean plants in my 8' X12' garden. Wow! I really wasn't expecting that many to come up. After all, they are not intended for seed, they are meant to be eaten so I planted them kind of thick. I did make zig-zag rows to be able to plant more in a small space, but, Geesh. I will likely have fresh pinto beans coming out of my ears before it is all said and done. A good thing we like beans.

All in all, I think we will at least have a good supplement to our winter food supply. Maybe we can come away with a much lower grocery bill and a healthier eating habit because of it.