Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: July 25 ~ August 1, 2021

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Home made flexible ice bag - 1 cup water to 1/2 cup rubbing alcohol; freeze. I use a freezer bag for these. If it's not flexible enough, increase the amount of rubbing alcohol.

Thank you. I could have used that last night. It's hard to hold a bag of ice cubes in one spot while trying to sleep. I could have used something more flexible like you suggested.
 

ReneeT

Veteran Member
And while I'm throwing out recipes, I'll re-post this one since we're going in to hot hot hot weather here:

Homemade Sports/Rehydration Drink
1/2 gallon water
1 or 2 pkts of Kool-Aid powdered drink mix
1/8 tsp Morton Salt Substitute or Morton Nu-Salt (main ingredient Potassium Chloride)
3/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar

Hubby uses 1 packet of Kool-Aid; I make it for him to carry to work with him as it gets pretty hot in the shop. The grandsons and I use two packets; we have been refilling the 24 oz twist top type of Gatorade bottle with our homemade stuff to take to older grandson's JFL practices since we've only found it in blue raspberry flavor and that's not our favorite flavor.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
And while I'm throwing out recipes, I'll re-post this one since we're going in to hot hot hot weather here:

Homemade Sports/Rehydration Drink
1/2 gallon water
1 or 2 pkts of Kool-Aid powdered drink mix
1/8 tsp Morton Salt Substitute or Morton Nu-Salt (main ingredient Potassium Chloride)
3/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar

Hubby uses 1 packet of Kool-Aid; I make it for him to carry to work with him as it gets pretty hot in the shop. The grandsons and I use two packets; we have been refilling the 24 oz twist top type of Gatorade bottle with our homemade stuff to take to older grandson's JFL practices since we've only found it in blue raspberry flavor and that's not our favorite flavor.

Thanks! Your recipe would be cheaper. I've bought 3 cans of Gatorade powder mix. Just mix with water. One can makes 6 gallons. I'm going to stock the ingredients to make it myself from now on. Copying the recipe, now. Cary drinks it a lot during the summer in our heat when working outside. LOL, Blue Raspberry flavor is his favorite. He hates the orange flavor.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
Peanut butter: we get jars of generic PB in commodities. We also don't eat PB very often. I also use to buy the natural PB, IMO its a pain to stir, but I did it for a long time and then cut way way back on my PB consumption.

sometimes we get up to 4 jars a month. I just gave two jars away yesterday. I also have two 3 1/2 buckets of jars of PB stored in my second bathroom. That bathroom is somewhat climate controlled. I've opened older jars and the smell fine. I've had opened jars in the cabinet get smelly and out they went.

If I had my druthers I'd prefer the ground peanuts from whole food. But I don't live near whole food and also don't eat PB very often anymore. I don't remember why I stopped eating PB, it was probably when I was on a low fat diet years ago. The woman I knew that owned a health food store told me a low fat diet was unhealthy. She was correct, it changed the skin on my face and it barely recovered from that.

God is good all the time

Judy
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Peanut butter: we get jars of generic PB in commodities. We also don't eat PB very often. I also use to buy the natural PB, IMO its a pain to stir, but I did it for a long time and then cut way way back on my PB consumption.

sometimes we get up to 4 jars a month. I just gave two jars away yesterday. I also have two 3 1/2 buckets of jars of PB stored in my second bathroom. That bathroom is somewhat climate controlled. I've opened older jars and the smell fine. I've had opened jars in the cabinet get smelly and out they went.

If I had my druthers I'd prefer the ground peanuts from whole food. But I don't live near whole food and also don't eat PB very often anymore. I don't remember why I stopped eating PB, it was probably when I was on a low fat diet years ago. The woman I knew that owned a health food store told me a low fat diet was unhealthy. She was correct, it changed the skin on my face and it barely recovered from that.

God is good all the time

Judy

Cary loves his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a big glass of cold milk! I keep it mostly on hand for him. I don't care for those sandwiches, though. My favorite use is to make homemade peanut butter cookies. I keep a couple of jars of "crunchy" Peter Pan on hand for those. We both like the bits of peanuts in our cookies.
 

ReneeT

Veteran Member
The boys and I like the black cherry flavor, SB. Hubby usually makes regular cherry or strawberry (strawberry definitely needs 2 pkts!), but we keep a range of flavors on hand to change things up a bit. I catch the 5/$1 sales when I can and stock up. If you vacuum seal the packets, they don't draw as much moisture as they would otherwise.
 

moldy

Veteran Member
And while I'm throwing out recipes, I'll re-post this one since we're going in to hot hot hot weather here:

Homemade Sports/Rehydration Drink
1/2 gallon water
1 or 2 pkts of Kool-Aid powdered drink mix
1/8 tsp Morton Salt Substitute or Morton Nu-Salt (main ingredient Potassium Chloride)
3/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup sugar

Hubby uses 1 packet of Kool-Aid; I make it for him to carry to work with him as it gets pretty hot in the shop. The grandsons and I use two packets; we have been refilling the 24 oz twist top type of Gatorade bottle with our homemade stuff to take to older grandson's JFL practices since we've only found it in blue raspberry flavor and that's not our favorite flavor.

I add 2 tsp of CALM magnesium powder to a gallon as well.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
Still doing a little here and a little there. It adds up, slowly, but at least its progress.

My knee was hurting today and I use the ouch liniment that ST makes. It helped quickly. Thanks ST.

I ordered a big package of Brawny papertowels from walmart, they came today, along with the case each of chicken broth and beef broth. Also a couple of bottles of Lowrey's seasoning salt.

I dug around in one of the freezers to find three large bags of pig fat. DH wants to get it rendered tomorrow. It cleared out almost half of that freezer. Most of what is left in that freezer is venison and pork sausage from 2018. I consider that good meat.

We have a nice sissle rug in the front room/mud/sand room. We are taking it out tomorrow to beat it and hose it down, its filled with Louisiana sand.

Since I ate off my diet for two days I'm back on track today, thankfully I did not get up hungry like I did yesterday morning. In an effort to have something not loaded with calories I dug out a can of Del monte Zucchini with italian sytle tomato sauce. I simmered it in a skillet with a 5 oz can of chicken breast, added some Tony's seasoning and scrambled two eggs into the mixture. I like adding eggs like that to foods. It was tasty and really filling. I also had my 4 cashews. Funny thing before I started counting my calories again again, I would grab a big handful of cashews, but now 4 are quite satisfying, I chew them slowly and that gives me a nice taste of cashews without a lot of calories. I count 15 calories for those 4.

Its been so hot, cools off later in the day to a bearable temp but the mosquitos are out in force.

I was watching a utube video this morning about a man in southern MS getting his wood ready for the winter.
run time: 7:32 mins
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_ODWripLcg


God is good all the time

Judy
 

aviax2

Veteran Member
Judy- Doing a little here and there is the only way I can get much of anything done any more. Slow and steady is what works for me. In the video you posted, is he expecting this winter to be especially cold or is this an older video.

I canned 7 more quarts of stew veggies today but used chicken broth in it. I’ll probably hold off on doing anymore until I open some and see how we like it. I think tomorrow I’ll be working with corn again, not sure how that’s going to work with 3 kids underfoot?! As I was putting the jars in the canner today, the older two were on their devices and DH rocked the baby while she listened to nursery rhymes as she fell asleep. I hope tomorrow goes as well.

Between canning, 3 kids and 3 meals today, I’ve got the dishwasher going for second round. Still a couple of cast iron skillets to be done but I’M done for the day.

Finally got a shipping email on my canning jar order, the wide mouth jars are leaving Salt Lake City, Utah to come all the way to little Podunk town in TN. Still no word on the regular mouth jars, SMH!
 

philkar

Veteran Member
Thanks for the recipes Renee T!
Judy- Doing a little here and there is the only way I can get much of anything done any more. Slow and steady is what works for me. In the video you posted, is he expecting this winter to be especially cold or is this an older video.

I canned 7 more quarts of stew veggies today but used chicken broth in it. I’ll probably hold off on doing anymore until I open some and see how we like it. I think tomorrow I’ll be working with corn again, not sure how that’s going to work with 3 kids underfoot?! As I was putting the jars in the canner today, the older two were on their devices and DH rocked the baby while she listened to nursery rhymes as she fell asleep. I hope tomorrow goes as well.

Between canning, 3 kids and 3 meals today, I’ve got the dishwasher going for second round. Still a couple of cast iron skillets to be done but I’M done for the day.

Finally got a shipping email on my canning jar order, the wide mouth jars are leaving Salt Lake City, Utah to come all the way to little Podunk town in TN. Still no word on the regular mouth jars, SMH!
Looks like that video is from July 29th of this year. But I could be confused which is my usual state of mind!
 

Digger

Veteran Member
Well, the deer have been in the garden again. They ate all the leaves off the green bean vines and most of the young okra plants. :gaah: I am about ready to give up. The weather is crazy and the deer are much too plentyful. But the squash is doing well. I have been battering it and frying just till it starts to brown. Then I lay it on a cookie sheet to freeze. Hubby likes fries but I love the squash. It is so easy to just take out a few and fry with his F/Fs.

I have 2 pints of elderberries picked and frozen so far. I just have to keep a close watch and beat the birds to them. I will make more of Summertyme's medicinal syrup when I get done picking.

Our weather should cool off next week. We will be below average starting out in August. Hopefully next week we can cut our hay. It was just too hot and humid this last 2 weeks. Next week will be less humid. That is much better for drying hay.

Our Federal taxes were accepted by the IRS the second half of March. We finally got our refund this week. There are a couple of farm projects we want to do and were waiting on that money to fund them
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Heat index of 114, yesterday, and today is suppose to pass that! Cary is trying to get the weed eating done, before it gets any hotter outside. He got the yard mowed just after daylight. He doesn't like to mow when there's a heavy dew, but in this heat, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. He cleaned the mower good after he was finished. He wants to finish splitting and stacking the load of firewood, so he can go after another load, and is planning to finish this load this afternoon IF it cools down enough.

I'm still nursing my thumb, but it's a lot better. The blistered part has gone down, and I've been having to take a cool shower each morning, just to keep the warm water from hitting it. I'm not complaining too much with this heat. I'm also still using the cold Aloe Vera gel on it all during the day. I did manage to cook supper last night, although Cary still had to help. He also washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen for me. He's a sweetheart!

I liked the video, Judy. Our wood shed is 12x40 and is full. All the firewood Cary is dealing with now will have to be stacked with a tarp over it. I sure hope the man is wrong about us having a bad winter! We try to keep, roughly, a 3 year rotation going.
 
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nomifyle

TB Fanatic
Heat index of 114, yesterday, and today is suppose to pass that! Cary is trying to get the weed eating done, before it gets any hotter outside. He got the yard mowed just after daylight. He doesn't like to mow when there's a heavy dew, but in this heat, ya gotta do what ya gotta do. He cleaned the mower good after he was finished. He wants to finish splitting and stacking the load of firewood, so he can go after another load, and is planning to finish this load this afternoon IF it cools down enough.

I'm still nursing my thumb, but it's a lot better. The blistered part has gone down, and I've been having to take a cool shower each morning, just to keep the warm water from hitting it. I'm not complaining too much with this heat. I'm also still using the cold Aloe Vera gel on it all during the day. I did manage to cook supper last night, although Cary still had to help. He also washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen for me. He's a sweet heart!

I liked the video, Judy. Our wood shed is 12x40 and is full. All the firewood Cary is dealing with now will have to be stacked with a tarp over it. I sure hope the man is wrong about us having a bad winter! We try to keep, roughly, a 3 year rotation going.
Our wood is in a barn and out of the weather, I know he's got some in there that is a good three years old. That wood will burn fast. We have a lot, although we only have one wood burning heater/stove. We use it along with the furnace and he uses a propane heater in the bedroom, which gets way too hot for me.

God is good all the time

Judy
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Our wood is in a barn and out of the weather, I know he's got some in there that is a good three years old. That wood will burn fast. We have a lot, although we only have one wood burning heater/stove. We use it along with the furnace and he uses a propane heater in the bedroom, which gets way too hot for me.

God is good all the time

Judy

It does make a difference in how much one has to store depending on how it's used. We heat with wood only, and from time to time, I cook with wood on my wood stove. Before it gets cold enough to fire up either one, we have a small propane wall heater we use. We only used 60 gals of propane last year out of 250 gals.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
It does make a difference in how much one has to store depending on how it's used. We heat with wood only, and from time to time, I cook with wood on my wood stove. Before it gets cold enough to fire up either one, we have a small propane wall heater we use. We only used 60 gals of propane last year out of 250 gals.
We have our wood stove in the first room that was added onto our old mobile home. It gets very hot in that room but does not heat the whole house. Our furnace is electric and our bill is very high, but part of the problem with that is Dh is very cold natured and if he doen't get warm he tends to get bad chills. The propane heater is portable so he can take it in the bedroom. He gets cold and then he sweats, its a never ending battle. Even though we are in Louisiana it can get very cold here and the older houses are not insulated very well if at all.

In the other two rooms he's added on I have those radiator type electric heaters. I also have one in the she shed and my camper, just enough warmth to keep those places from freezing.

God is good all the time

Judy
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
We have our wood stove in the first room that was added onto our old mobile home. It gets very hot in that room but does not heat the whole house. Our furnace is electric and our bill is very high, but part of the problem with that is Dh is very cold natured and if he doen't get warm he tends to get bad chills. The propane heater is portable so he can take it in the bedroom. He gets cold and then he sweats, its a never ending battle. Even though we are in Louisiana it can get very cold here and the older houses are not insulated very well if at all.

In the other two rooms he's added on I have those radiator type electric heaters. I also have one in the she shed and my camper, just enough warmth to keep those places from freezing.

God is good all the time

Judy


With our open floor plan, the wood heater heats the whole house (small house). If it gets really cold, we fire up the wood stove. It's in the laundry room that is open to my kitchen. The laundry room was added after the original house was built in 1930.
 

Barry Natchitoches

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Today has not turned out well for me at all today. After the bread fiasco this morning, I accidentally poured hot boiling, off the stove, chicken broth all over my right thumb! Dang it! It hurts! After rinsing it under cold water, I smeared ice cold, out of the fridge, aloe vera gel all over it. Cary had to finish making supper. I'm sitting here trying to type with one hand. It's already blistered up. What a day......
Oh, Southern Breeze, hope that finger is doing better now!
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
Made a trip to walmart, mostly to pick up my new sling shot. go ahead and laugh, DH did.

These trips have turned out to be almost weekly and they are going to have to stop. I use to spend maybe $130 (mostly stocking up stuff) and now its more like $180. That's just too much for me.

I wanted more of the Del monte brand zucchini in a tomato sauce. The only had 9 cans and I took them all. I could not get my walmart list to come up on my phone so I guessed at what I had on it. There were a couple of things I missed but not many.

Many many things were spread out on the shelves. Boxes long ways taking up more space and nothing behind them.

They did have canning jars and I bought two cases. No lids this time. I bought two more packages of 2 sure jell. I had to ask my friend what you use it for, LOL.

The water section was low, none of the brand of gallon size I buy, but I did get two cases of 24, had a hard time picking them up, the larger size of 40 is now impossible for me to pick up.

The had two packages of the walmart brand of 1000 sheet toilet paper, I got one. I don't need it but one can never tell what might happen.

DH rendered enough pig fat today to fill two cases of quarts. We use it frequently but I guess not enough to go through what he rendered last year. We still have a case and a half of that left.

I usually buy a case of mandarin oranges no sugar added but there were only 2 cans, I was surprised.

There was a decent amount of paper towels and tp, but paper plates are another thing, very little.

God is good all the time

Judy
 

moldy

Veteran Member
Made it thru the first week of the new job. That was a goal in and of itself. I did manage to refill a prescription and get a $25 gift card for that at Safeway. DH and DBIL are out of state for a funeral this weekend, so I"m hoping I can get a lot done without interruptions. Today, I bagged up some calcium carbonate in pantyhose. We use this instead of the little expensive things of damp-rid. We have a couple of storage areas that tend to hold moisture.

I also got some geraniums and an aloe repotted - I think I need a bigger pot for the remaining aloe - or I may prune it down some. Other plans for the weekend include exciting things like cleaning, laundry, and weeding!!
 

paxsim2

Senior Member
Put in another Walmart order, I will pick it up Sunday morning.
Our closing got pushed out two weeks due to a shortage of appraisers. Supposedly.
Headed to the farmer's market in the morning to buy meat from a local producer.
Making relish and pickles with my sister.
Our hottest day is tomorrow then a break, I'll use that time to work in the gardens.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
The heat index hit 116 here, yesterday. It was our hottest day so far. Today is suppose to be a bit cooler at 108. We might get some rain tomorrow to cool things even more. Next week, it's going back into the 80's for daytime highs. Hopefully, without a heat index.

I gathered my first picking of figs this morning. The tree is loaded, but I don't do anything with them, other than to eat fresh. It saves buying fresh fruit at the grocery store while they are in season. I once made fig preserves, but Cary doesn't like it. I grew up eating fig preserves, but I'm not going to make up any just for me. I save my small jars for jelly, instead. I'm still gathering tomatoes, and will soon be canning those. I'll be canning them in pint jars to use to make my spaghetti sauce with.

Thumb is healing, nicely. All the skin is now puckered and red, but the burning has stopped. I still can't get near heat with it, though. I've got more bottles of Aloe Vera gel on my next shopping list.

I'll be making out my Sam's, Walmart, and Chewy orders sometime today. I'll go grocery shopping one day next week for regular groceries. I don't think our Governor will lock down our state again, so I'm not in any hurry to get there. Grocery stores were never locked down, anyway. If things I need get short, I'll substitute with something else. So far, I've seen no shortages. A close friend told me that our local Walmart was beginning to have empty shelves, though. I don't do in store shopping there, unless necessary.
 

WanderLore

Veteran Member
SB, you might try coating that skin with some honey. I just have a bottle of it I got cheap I think dollar store. I take it on hikes.
It will dry like a glaze over the burn and heal quick.
You can get fancy and buy the expensive stuff. But for that I just use what I got. It does work good
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
SB, you might try coating that skin with some honey. I just have a bottle of it I got cheap I think dollar store. I take it on hikes.
It will dry like a glaze over the burn and heal quick.
You can get fancy and buy the expensive stuff. But for that I just use what I got. It does work good

I've heard that about raw honey. I keep several jars to use for medicinal purposes, but never thought about using it on my burn. I immediately thought of the cold Aloe in my fridge. Cary loves to eat honey and butter with hot biscuits, sometimes, and sweetens his hot tea with it. The Aloe Vera gel has worked great for me. For just minor skin irritations, I have a huge Aloe plant that I pinch off of and use. It's so large that I'm going to dump it this fall, and start over with a baby plant sprout. Otherwise, I'll never get it back in the house. I move it out to the front porch during the summer.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Sheree, if you have a dehydrator, figs dehydrate well. Homemade fig bars are soooooo good too. All our figs are having to come back from the roots after our winter storm.

I don't have a dehydrator. I was thinking this morning that I would look to see if I can find some simple recipes for them.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I use my oven as a dehydrator sometimes, but it does heat the house up.

I once used mine for drying herbs from the garden, but haven't grown any in several years. I'm fully stocked. I also use the oven, in the fall, for canning pecans. I haven't done that in a couple of years, because I still have lots of those, too.

I try not to use my oven, or use it very sparingly during the summer. It heats the house, too much. We use our a/c just as sparingly. I just came back inside from hanging out the laundry, and checked our temp. Heat index at 105 already. When I walked into the house, I actually got a chill. The house is about 15-20 degrees cooler than outside, and that's without even having our fan on.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I have used the car to dehydrate stuff. Window down a little on each side. I guess people use a screen but I just put mine on piece of cardboard

Grandma and Mom always dehydrated their apples and peaches outside. They would set up a table, and cover it with a bed sheet. They would lay out whatever it was, and at the end of the day, they would bring the whole sheet with the fruit inside. Next morning, they would take it out to do the same again, and again, until they were dried.
 

aviax2

Veteran Member
I was so tired all day yesterday especially after not sleeping well the night before. DH pulled about 40 ears of corn yesterday morning and cleaned and blanched it while I spent time with the grands and rested. I managed to get it cut off and added another 11 pints to the freezer. He pulled another 60 ears this morning and Son-I-L picked it up for their family. There should be more corn before there’s less! Still not feeling very well today so I’m glad I didn’t have any to do today.

I really hope we get a break in the weather soon. I need to do some in store shopping but I can’t even think about it in this heat. Getting in the car is like getting into an oven, I‘m not a summer person at all.

I put in a large Sam’s order this morning, I’m hoping it will make the in store shopping I need to do faster and easier when I can get out to do it. I hope everything comes in without any issues.
 

chumly2071

Contributing Member
Thread on another forum espousing the greatness of Aldi Carnitas and BBQ pork roasts got me convinced to make a run to a local store. I had not been there in some time, and was quite surprised at the "new" look and selection in the store. They have clearly come a very long way from when I shopped there in what felt like a clearance warehouse/dungeon in the past. As with all shopping, you need to know your products and pricing, but I was pleased with my purchases and their selction/prices overall... I guess I need to get out more. :spns:
 
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