FoodSaver and Bulk Meat
Since we've moved out into the country and have a large pantry, I've really gotten into the whole "food storage" thing. For one thing, I don't have to worry about getting snowed in. That doesn't happen often, but my neighbor tells me they were snowed in for over a week once, unable to even get out of the driveway (which we share with them).
But mostly, it's a heck of a lot more economical if I buy in bulk or when things are on sale. I also save trips to the store by always having something on hand for dinner.
Here's a lovely pork loin that was on sale this week. I snagged it.
$2.99 a pound is a good price by any standards. Meats here go on sale for ridiculously low prices (compared to Atlanta) but the produce selection is poor, frequently wilted, and expensive. That's okay, I have a garden. I'll happily take the cheap meat.
We like boneless pork chops so instead of buying boneless pork loin chops like I used to do, I get the whole loin and slice it up into thick chops myself. I could probably ask the guy at the meat department to do that for me, but I just never have bothered. Boneless is easy to slice!
I put three chops in each bag and seal it up. Then I label it and put it in the freezer. This loin yielded 5 packs of three chops each, plus a leftover end that I'll use for soup or fried rice. $3 for a pack of three thick boneless loins. You can't beat it.
Labels: food
posted by Leslie @ 10:26 AM
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Leslie - are you planning on having sheep/lamb on the farm for meat?
WF, no, we haven't planned on sheep/lambs. Folks around here tend to raise cattle, sheep, and a few goats. We plan (eventually) on pigs, and a milk cow or a couple of milk goats. Need to do some fencing first, right after we build a new chicken house and expand the rabbit colony... you know how it goes :)
Leslie..just wanted to let you know that I was checking out your house site. Have ya'll made some progress on new projects? The old wood burner is awesome. Take care.
peace
Woody, We haven't done much to the house. When we first got here we replaced the windows (had to, you could literally stand in our bedroom, drop a screwdriver at the closed window, and it would land outside - the windows were that warped! And many were broken). We also put up vinyl siding, as the wood siding had little or no insulation under it and breezes came in through the log chinking and through the outlets and wall switches. We still want to tear out the old attic insulation and re-insulate; have the materials just need the time. After that, we're going to take a "wait and see" attitude. We're not sure whether we want to fix this place up or build. This place is real cool but it has some irritating aspects: no closets, very narrow stairs, uneven floors... and we're concerned about the integrity of the floor joists. So, we're going to get it paid off, then save money and if we can afford to build, we'll build. Depends on the economy.
The imperfections of your home sound charming!
My Aunt and Uncle used to live in a canyon above a funky town in California, called Sierrra Madre.
They lived in a house that sounds similar to yours, uneven floors (we always enjoyed testing marbles on it to see which direction they'd roll), narrow stairwells with very low ceilings, rooms with closets that had secret passageways, windows with treetop views and sounds of the water gurgling down the canyon gulley,
and a fireplace that had been almsot lost several times due to earthquakes. And the electric always went out if more than 2 appliances were used at the same time as the A/C.
But gosh! We all loved that odd little house.
ON the same note of your post, though. We also live far from shopping and we have an extra fridge and freezer in the garage so I can stock it full in cases of being possibly snowed in.
I think I could really benefit from one of those Food Saver contraptions.
The house IS charming, no doubt about it! The bits that really concern us are the spongy areas in the floor where we don't know the condition of the joists beneath (crawl space goes from 2'6" on the "high" side to mere inches on the "low" side. It's impossible to get up into the spongy areas to see what's going on. And it leans. We keep watching the walls for cracks.
But it's SO cool! The original part was a two story cabin built in the late 1800s and the logs are still visible in the living room (the upstairs has been covered with sheet rock or rough cut boards).
Why this excitement about cheap food (in particular cheap meat)? Surely a country dwellers you can figure out the conditions this pork was raised in and the environmental, rural employment, local farm, and general health implications of industrial farming.
Are there no local farmers you can support? Or grow your own?
Evan
Leslie, we have sheep, it was the first four legged meat animal we started with. I love lamb in all forms but they don't grow very quickly or produce very many young per year ergo why we ended up raising pigs on pasture. We still have some sheep, they browse together well with the pigs, ducks, geese and chickens, but the pigs produce a lot more meat a lot faster and are much hardier than the sheep. We also had rabbits for years and they were great - like chickens but no eggs. :)
Soo... go for it. Get some feeder pigs in the spring and raise them up over the summer. A little pasture, dairy, garden gleanings, bread, grower feed if you can't find free foods, etc. They'll thrive and reward you well in the fall with a lot of your own meat.
Evan,
You're absolutely right about the conditions surrounding commercial meat production. We can buy local beef, goat, and sheep, but to my knowledge we cannot buy locally raised pork. We raise as much of our meat and garden produce as we are capable of raising, but we do buy commercially produced pork, dairy products, coffee, and lemon juice. This is a journey and we've not yet reached our destination. Your comment about the commercial growing conditions is dead on. I was focusing on preparedness; perhaps I should have used rabbit as my example meat.
Walter, you make it sound so easy. I'm not sure I'm ready to fence in an area and haul feed and water that far before and after work. DH doesn't want them very close to the house. We'll see... sure is tempting to get a couple of mutt feeder pigs to learn on!
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