Logan is reading!!!

Green Beans in January???

Who can's green beans in January??? WE DO WE DO!!! We were fortunate to find a great deal on green beans $5 for a bushel so we had another canning day. We brought in two extra ladies to give them some hands on experience with the pressure cookers. The children liked bean snapping. We call them "The Whippersnappers." Green beans are a really easy plant to grow so look for us to have a gardening class soon too!!

We ended up with 13 quarts and 20 pints of green beans out of one bushel.
The best part... this jar contains green beans, salt and water... What's in your green beans?

Vickie is washing the beans....

Here we have "The Whippersnappers" snapping beans...

Happy Whippersnappers ;)

Adding the canning salt...

Babysitting the cookers....

I love the difference in colors...

Before and after a dip in the cooker...

Clean The Fridge Soup...

What do you do with your leftovers? Well here's an idea... Make soup! Tonight I had some various left overs that I threw together and waaalaaa SOUP.

Last Sunday we had roast for lunch. I took the left over roast and put it in the food processor and turned it to mush. I froze some of it and one container I put into the fridge for a soup base this week. I took the left over taco meat, beans for taco's and rice for taco's that we had for dinner Wednesday evening, combined it with the roast soup base and threw in some frozen chicken stock cubes. (I freeze my chicken stock in ice trays so I have handy sized cubes to use in different dishes.) I chopped 3 fresh carrots and one good sized potato to add to the soup and now we have a yummy meal that's enough for the family and a clean fridge! :)

Local Cannery Getting Started....

What a fun day! I had the privilege to gather with some of my good friends and can some BEANS! We had three pressure cookers going and canned 48 quarts of beans in 8 hours. If I had tried this with one cooker it would have taken three times as long!!! This is also a much cheaper and healthier way to process food.

I bought a 50 pound bag of beans for $32 which makes the beans around .64 cents a pound. I soaked 20 pounds of beans over night and some of the other ladies brought about 4 pounds of beans with them. This means there is about a half pound of beans per quart container. We used peppers I had frozen from my garden so that didn't cost us anything. We figured it up that each quart jar cost us .32 cents. We all brought our own jars and lids. We're going to work on a system for collecting jars and keeping tabs on how many everyone has so we don't have to haul them around everywhere. We're so blessed to have our local church facility to gather in to have canning days and store some supplies.

This is just one thing we're doing in our local community to help teach others how to live cheaper and healthier. These beans have very little salt and no preservatives. My challenge to the rest of the world... Find like minded people and start doing things together. Work together to enrich each others lives!!! I was so blessed today and I got some canned beans too ;) How about you?

The Canning Crew

Two easy recipes to use your canned beans!
Bean Dip
Take one jar of beans put them in a food processor with a quarter
block of cream cheese and half teaspoon of salt. Process it up and
you have instant bean dip.

Fancy Beans & Rice
Cook 2 cups of rice in a rice cooker with a quart of tomato juice.
Combine rice, one quart of canned beans a quarter of an onion
and some bell peppers. Add a little cajun seasoning, salt and pepper.
Cook on stove top until the onions and peppers are soft.

The Pepper Processing Station (Don't Rub Your Eyes)

Roomy Kitchen

Beans Ready For Canning

Getting the beans into the jars...

Getting the jars into the pressure cookers....

There are three pressure cookers working here and one pot of beans...

This is what the beans look like before and after... aren't they pretty?

The finished product...

We Will Survive!!!

(Singing to the tune of "I Will Survive" You know you know it)

We.... will survive!!! No matter how high gas prices go.... We know we'll stay alive..... We eat all our meals at home.... McDonalds is a no zone.... We will survive!!!! :p

Ok all silly stuff aside... Yesterday I filled my mini van full of gas and the grand total was $51.74... It hurt my heart. I know there's others out there with bigger vehicle's that are hurting too but I drive a mini-van... I hate paying so much for gas... :( Now we'll have to be spending many more days at home and no more eating out... We really want to get out of debt and living on one income means we have to budget and save to pay off our debt.

As I was preparing lunch I started to feel encouraged that YES WE CAN!!! save our pennies! For lunch my four children and myself are eating yummy stir fry noodles for approximately $1.74. That's like .35 cents per person! Now that is encouraging!!! I have smaller children so they don't eat massive amounts yet but from what I made today there will be no left overs. Here's how I did it...

I shop at discount grocery stores and I have a circle of friends who scout out good deals where ever they go as well. When they find a good deal they'll call and pick me up what they're getting too. (Thanks Vickie & Jennifer!) The ingredients I used break down like this...

Stir fry sauce $1.35 10 servings in a bottle = .13 cents
Soy Sauce .85 cents 10 servings in a bottle = .08 cents
One package of spaghetti noodles = .60 cents
1 lb bag of (12) carrots .69 cents = .11 cents (2 carrots used to prepare meal)
3 lb bag of broccoli $2.00 (I'm estimating this will be enough for 6 meals) = .33 cents
1 onion regular grocery store price .99 cents a lb and I'm estimating it will be enough for 2 meals and I'm not sure if it weighs a whole pound so this is estimating on the high side = .49 cents.

If I can do this and make my kids happy with their lunch for $1.74 then so can you!!! Start today!!! Talk to your friends, neighbors, co-workers... Start a network of people that you are involved with and utilize the discount grocery stores. Coupons are great but they take a lot of work (I've still not figured it out) but finding a good deal without the coupon isn't so hard if you're looking in the right places.

I used more broccoli than shown but I had to take a photo of the ingredients :)

Yes you can eat broccoli with a missing front tooth ;)

Ignore my messy kitchen and instead focus on the smiles of happy, well fed children :)

Want a bite???

We will survive!!! :)

Slow down... take time... wake up world...

Sound Teaching

We need sound teachers who are learned in the scriptures and teaching what God tells us without twisting things to meet their agenda. I'm so thankful for the sound teaching of No Greater Joy Ministries. Praise God he sends preachers and teachers!

The New Year...

The first day of the new year 2011 brought about a stirring in my heart. I am not going to start off a new year with strife and bitterness. Praise God I don't have to. In reflection I look back to October 26th of the year 2000. I am thankful for the crazy habit of journaling that I have. I am able to actually read what I wrote on that day and I wanted to share it here on my blog. :)

October 26th 2000 Thursday

We went to the church revival tonight. I'm so glad we did. I'm going tomorrow night and Saturday too. I really believe I'm saved. I was really unsure after the sermon tonight. I was confused because I didn't go up last time to pray to God. I went because Brenda went. I do believe that God made it happen that way. He made it easy when Brenda went up there so it wouldn't be so hard for me to go for myself. I've been saved and I'm a child of God and I'm going to Heaven. I just need to spread the word of God and help people who are lost to see what I've seen and realize this is the true and only way to Heaven. I'm really scared now because I know the devil is going to be working against me and try to drag me back down. There's going to be so many hardships and temptations I'm going to pray more so I can be true to God and be a true Christian. God is with me. He is on my side and knowing that I truly believe I can make it!

I was saved listening to Reg Kelly preach this sermon on the Hell of Hells.

This is such a blessing to read. I was born again that night. I knew I was a child of the Living God and that He saved me. Praise the Lord I have grown so much and learned so much. I've made many mistakes and fallen many times but I look forward to many more years of growing in grace and knowledge of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be glory! Both now and forever Amen!