House of Cards

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House of Cards

October 21, 2018 by The Minnesota Farm Woman

You know how it is. In the late summer and fall, we stock up for winter. People have been doing it for generations, but I sometimes wonder if I once lived another life during the Great Depression. I canned and froze green beans. I picked spaghetti squash from the garden. There are only three, but since HE won’t touch it, there are plenty of meals there, because they are the biggest I’ve ever seen. I shredded, drained, and froze many bags of zucchini for soups and baking. HE won’t touch that, either, but what he doesn’t know can’t hurt anything, right? I bought a quarter beef, raised by a local farmer. I cleaned my three small freezers, stacking it neatly in the space I had upstairs and in the small deep freeze in the basement. I was gifted many packages of venison, which we love, so I found room for that. I peeled, cored, and sliced apples for winter crisps, frozen in zipper bags. I bid on two halves of a pig at a silent auction, and won them both. I picked up the pig at the local butcher’s last week, all 202 pounds of him. As I lugged the boxes in, I started to panic. How in the HECK was I going to fit 202 pounds of meat into my limited amount of freezer space? How was I going to pack it so that when HE reaches in the freezer to take out his favorite ice cream, it all won’t come tumbling down like a house of cards? Ingenuity, I tell you. Farm Woman ingenuity, organization, and a few naughty words thrown in for good measure. (That happened when I dropped a package of frozen pork chops on my foot.) I managed, through creative stacking, to get everything in except for half a ham. Fifteen pounds worth of half a ham, to be exact. Guess what we are having for Sunday dinner, and it’s not even a holiday? We will probably have ham for leftovers Monday and Tuesday as well, and perhaps even ground ham for lunchtime sandwiches. Whether sliced or ground, leftover ham freezes well. I’d like to freeze the leftovers, but unfortunately, there’s no more room.

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

5 Responses

on October 21, 2018 at 6:34 pm | Reply Heidi Florance

I think it is an inborn thing with women-storage and stocking up of food, In August I get that feeling to start stocking up on can goods and in September canning a few things my husband likes like apple butter and applesauce. In October I will buy 100lb sacks of potatoes and onions and split with my daughter and a couple of other seniors. My husband thought I was crazy when I had kitty litter delivered to the house-saves my back! and I didn’t have to carry it in through the snow this winter, Now I feel like I am ready!

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- on November 4, 2018 at 2:29 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman
  
  I bought extra chicken feed today! 😉
  
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on October 22, 2018 at 6:12 am | Reply valbjerke

Ah yes – I’ve learned to stand off to the side when I open the freezer doors – guaranteed a frozen block of something is going to launch out of there and have me limping for the rest of the day 😄

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on October 22, 2018 at 11:16 am | Reply Joann Kilmer

I see you can lots of veggies – you could also can meat if you so chose to – instant meals if you use your pressure canner. I ate lots of that when I was a kid – but have never done it- but my hubby knows how to do it cause he’d help his mom can a lot of it – He said he cut the meat in chunks, then seared them in oil to brown them just a little – then put them into jars and do what you would ordinarily do with a pressure canner, and I believe he said it takes about 20 minutes and your jars of meat are ready to cool, take to the basement for future eating. He has asked me to do this many times, but so far I have only gotten the big new pressure canner – over winter sometime, I may give it a try. He said his mom used a lot of this kind of meat what with raising 6 kids on a farm, many times she helped outside and it was so nice to come in to a quick meal… and the kids loved the hearty soups mom made with this. Any kind of meat can be used like this.

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- on November 4, 2018 at 2:28 pm | Reply The Minnesota Farm Woman
  
  I was raised on canned venison. It is still one of my favorites.
  
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