Last week I was lamenting on how we really should move everything into the house freezer, because we were wasting so much energy keeping a freezer out there that was over 3/4 empty. This week we are filling it with beets, cloud berries, blackberries and just today 27lbs of blueberries.... We ate the second to last bag of blueberries yesterday. We have one more quart before we are out for good... and we just bought more. In season, fresh and ready for freezing.

We have 3 more jars of peaches, and 5 more jars of applesauce. And that is only because Alex has been gone for 3 weeks or we would have less of both. lol!

I LOVE this type of efficiency.

I am helping my dad clear out his house. My mom and he are getting divorced (this is my step dad, not the biodad I had so much drama with a couple years back) and I have been helping him clear shelves, get rid of things etc. I found, in their pantry shelves, food from (get this) 1998!!! Yeah... 10 year old home canned goods. I found marshmallow fluff that was older than that. Stuff that had moved with them when they moved into the house 20 years ago... stuff that if you ate it, there isn't a deffinate, but a possiblity, of death! Scary!

It has firmed my reslove to keep my pantry and freezer this efficient. To keep my space free of things that are more than two years old and to not be afriad to throw away things that "expire" in my mind, even if they may be good food. I am totally ok with tossing a can of food that is old.

Anyhow.. just being happy with efficiency. :)

ITA! I was having the same thought this morning. I went through the cupboards and freezer today and came up with a month's worth of breakfast, lunch dinner and snacks. I'll have to buy a few things in between like fresh veggies since our garden is pathetic at the moment (ugh) but even veggies I have quite a bit stocked up. I don't have to worry about fruit, meat, grains and beans.

I'm trying to use up our food too. I tend to have lots of food storage in the winter. I just went through the pantry and made up a menu plan good for about a week. After that we have to go buy supplies to use up the last of it. I want it all GONE before we fill the shelves again.

I sooo need to go thru and use up things that I have stored around in the cupboards. I stock up on things when it is on a great sale, but dont get around to using it, so it's not really saving me anything. I could probably not go shopping for a least a month or two even (except for fresh veggies/dairy) and have enough to get thru with whats in the cupboards/freezer.

That's great. I keep wanting to call my elec co and get a meter to put on my upright freezer in the basement, to see how much it really is costing me monthly to run it...it's an older Kenmore...I suspect I don't really want to know the number! Sigh.

I unplugged my freezer when we stopped eating meat (and convenience foods). It was a fairly new one, and I still had the energy star info: $35 a month if I remember correctly. Wasn't worth it for how little we used it.

If I had an insanely productive garden, I might well want another.

I am in the midst of "clearing" both the pantry and the freezer. I haven't gone shopping in a month and we are living off the supplies I have accumilated. As we "eat up" our supplies, the canning season is just getting started. Everything I am putting in the freezer and on the pantry shelf (jar-wise) will go to the back with an '07 for the upcoming year of eating.

I have no applesauce or bread n'butter pickles left. Only 4 jars of applepie filling and maybe 8 qts of stewed tomatoes.

I am out of peaches this year- I had a small harvest due to frost and burnt an entire pot of peach preserves due to bad timing... boo hoo! We will be craving peach cobbler until next summer!

After I am finished putting up, I will make a master shopping list and take inventory. Fall "harvest" sales should be hitting right about that time and then I can stock up as time and budget allows.

I am not even dating things because everything else is gone. No need to date when you only have stuff from one year. You know? lol!

I know I probably should... but I haven't yet. Sick babies keep you from doing things 100%.

Val