Prep Genrl Weekly Prep Thread: June 5~11, 2022

hd5574

Veteran Member
I think that is supposed to be a sister store to Aldi's I'm not sure.
Big lots in the city always seemed to have a good bit of international foods.

I think Trader Joe's is the sister store.

As far as I know Lidl is just a big German chain in Europe. Their US headquarters is in Arlington, VA . They also have a lot of things from Belgium.

Giant Foods , Food Lion and maybe a couple of others are owned by a Dutch company. .. .maybe the headquarters is in North Carolina.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
They are very different. .our Aldis is a tiny cramped store..and I really don't like it...so I never go there..our Lidl is larger and has a good mix of items...wonderful imported cheese..great seafood..not in love with their fresh meat and chicken..I think it is over priced..wonderful inexpensive imported chocolate and European cookies. .it is not huge..more like old time grocery stores...before super markets...from the 1950's...lots things from Europe....it is like everything today...I get some things there and somethings..other places...it seems you can't get everything in just one place anymore.

For a long time after our local Aldis opened, I wouldn't go there. GTRers took over the place, and it was nasty on the inside. It was so disorganized that you couldn't find anything. It's different, now, but it's still a small store, and has mostly American oriented food. I've seen nothing there that you wouldn't find at any other grocery store in the area. The prices on some things are cheaper, but not much. It's not really worth my time and gas just to shop there. It's out of our way, and would have to go to the other side of town. If I could get European/German foods there, I would make the effort to shop there. It might be worth the extra time and gas.

My choices are very limited as far as buying groceries. WalMart, Kroger, Aldi's, Hometown Market, and Food Giant are what's available. There are other smaller independent places, but they are not places I would buy dog food much less food that we eat. So nasty and run down.
 
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summerthyme

Administrator
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@ReneeT ...they had well-stocked shelves but limited choices on brands/package sizes. I do agree that time will be needed for them to learn the local market demand (they just opened yesterday) so I shall not give up hope yet.:chg:
That's just Aldi's MO. I'm sure it's how they keep their prices as low as they do. At least the ones I've been in (mostly rural/lower income areas of NY state) they are a simple, clean store which stocks the basics.

Dairy is always the best prices in town. Flour and sugar have always been cheaper than buying bulk from restaurant supply places. Their brand of Nutella is *much* less sweet, with a stronger nut and chocolate flavor... and half the price. Their sweetened condensed milk is comparable to the name brand, but less than half price.

Their chocolate brands are excellent. Ours also has both fresh and frozen pizza for excellent prices.

If you're expecting a Traders Joe's or other high end gourmet store, that's not Aldi. But for quality basics at the best prices in town... yeah.

Summerthyme
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Cary got the lawn tractor fixed, and the yard mowed!!!! Now, it's coming an unexpected flood! Today's forecast had no rain at all. What a great surprise. The humidity level must have reached so high, it rained. Of course, it would do this after I spent much of the morning watering everything. Not complaining, though.
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
We got a short shower here, really just enough to send he goats running for the bus. Under the 32' school bus is their domain, by their choice. Goats do not like to get wet.

Dinner tonight was large butter beans with ham and pickled beets. The beats were delicious and the juice is also delicious. I need at least 6-8 more cases of pickled beets. Two cans a week for a year is 104 cans.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
We got a short shower here, really just enough to send he goats running for the bus. Under the 32' school bus is their domain, by their choice. Goats do not like to get wet.

Dinner tonight was large butter beans with ham and pickled beets. The beats were delicious and the juice is also delicious. I need at least 6-8 more cases of pickled beets. Two cans a week for a year is 104 cans.

The flood we got sure did drop the temp. I had to turn off the fan for awhile, once the rain stopped. I got chilled, LOL. I had on one of my daily wear sundresses, and I thought I was going to have to get a sweater. I'm just cold natured like that. It doesn't take much for me to get cold. Going back into the 90's tomorrow, again. If the humidity gets too high, again, we might get more rain.

We had fried egg, ham, and cheese sandwiches with hash browns for our supper. I love those large white butter beans cooked with ham! My grandmother on Dad's side cooked them for me a lot for Sunday dinner at her house while growing up. She was still cooking them for me when Cary and I got married. Ham, beans, and her famous cracklin cornbread! She always had either a made from scratch coconut cake, banana pudding, or a coconut pudding for dessert. Forget the beets, though......Dad loved them, but I don't like them at all, pickled, or otherwise.
 

WanderLore

Veteran Member
Locally we have a higher price family owned grocery. Otherwise its WM, Kroger and Dollar stores. Anything else is close to 30 or more miles to closest one.
Raining now and rained all day. Boys team won soccer game again. Other team only had half their team show up. But they really tried.
I'm finally getting a nights break at sons. Dinner was a dollar burger from dollar store and a candy bar LOL.
 

Digger

Veteran Member
Things are coming up in my new garden. We got the electric fence up around it. Deer love peas, beans, and okra. I replanted some peppers where 3 died. The sun was too hot and they were still tender. I also planted some green beans in the skips in my row. Things are growing good. We recieved just over 1/4 inch of rain yesterday. That should help the rest of the seed come up. But it will also help the weeds and grass. I am staying ahead of the weeds so far. My two older gardens are mulched heavily. That helps with the weeds and I never till any more. The new garden was pasture not long ago. So I have a battle on my hands there. I have raked out a lot of Bermuda grass roots, but there are still a lot just waiting to sprout again.

Saturday we went to my 40 year high school reunion. About 30 of us were able to make it. We had a class of over 80. I am not sure how 40 years passed so fast. There was no talk of politics. There was some talk of our aches and pains. LOL I don't remember that from the 30 year get together. It was nice seeing folks and catching up.

My daughter and her family have decided to stay in the house they have. It is small, but their payment is less than $400 a month. They are going to wait to add on also. The price of lumber may come down later. Right now they just don't want more debt with the economy seemingly going in the wrong direction.

I mowed most of the yard Sunday since they have been saying we will get lots of rain this week. The weather forecasts have not been very accurate lately. It makes cutting hay difficult. We need to cut soon, but rain is forecast about every other day.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Locally we have a higher price family owned grocery. Otherwise its WM, Kroger and Dollar stores. Anything else is close to 30 or more miles to closest one.

We shop, mostly, in small town that is about 10 miles away. There is a Walmart, Hometown Market, and Food Giant there, plus a Dollar General that is only about 2 miles from us. Aldis, Sam's Club, and Kroger are about 30 miles away in big town. We hardly ever go into big town, unless we have business there to take care of, such as doctor's appointments, or something special going on. We try to shop close to home if it's possible. The savings on gas alone keeps us close.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Today is my big day at the dentist. Anxiety is running high.

I've got more jars to wash, getting ready to can more ground beef. I'm so proud of all my pints jars sitting on the shelf in the pantry. I've done 15lbs so far. That turned out to be 15 pints. I've got another 5lbs in the freezer that is close to being a year old. That's what will be canned next. I might stop with the ground beef, after that is canned up, and move on to doing beef chunks. Sam's has some great bulk packages of beef stew meat that I want to use. Don't know when I'll be back in big town to shop there, though. I also want to make up large pots of soup and can that. I just love my new canner, and I feel blessed to have the option of pressure canning food that wasn't possible for me to do, before now.
 

ReneeT

Veteran Member
HA! We've got you hooked now, SB!!

Gas today ranged from $5.19 to $5.29 to $5.49 a gallon. Casey's pumps and the ones by Wal-Mart didn't have much traffic as they were the highest.

Bluelady, thanks for the tip on Renee's Garden; I ordered 3 packages of the hibiscus seeds. Now to decide whether to plant them in pots so I can carry them inside over the winter (where the inside cats will likely shred them :rolleyes: ) or try for a sheltered location outside.

I got off work late as we had two call ins this morning, so I stayed to help pull the morning meds. Worked out pretty good since Aldi opened about 15 minutes before I got there so I didn't have to take a nap in the van while waiting for it to open. Hubby had made me a list - mostly things I don't eat, like cream style corn, canned peas, protein bars, etc... I added some stock up items to the list, and then a few impulse items before the buggy made it to the check out. I was feeling my 14+ hours by the time I pushed the buggy out the van and got it unloaded. Saw a young man one row over digging in his pockets and then looking inside the front and back doors of his car - figured he was hunting a quarter, so I pushed my buggy over there and asked him if he'd mind returning it to the store for me because I was just too darn tired to make the walk - I think it made us both happy :lol: One of these days I'm going to have to decide if the extra distance to walk is worth parking in the shade... Reckon it depends on the temperature!

Well, my eyes are closing so I guess I'd better head for bath and bed - hopefully I can stay awake long enough to make it to the bed :lol:

Take care all - stay safe out there!
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
HA! We've got you hooked now, SB!!

Yep, LOL! I'm addicted for sure. I'm really enjoying it, too. I've always done water bath canning with the garden veggies, but this new canner is a breeze to use. I may never do water bath canning again. I have the pressure canner set up in my laundry room on a nice size table next to an electrical outlet. I have plenty of room, and I can leave the canner sitting there even when it's not in use. I just cover it. I'm enjoying canning so much that I tend to forget that I have a brand new dehydrator, too. I haven't even used it, yet.
 

prudentwatcher

Veteran Member
I went to Rural King on Saturday looking for buckets. They didn't have any, but I added two pair of work pants and three boxes of 2 gallon freezer bags. Tractor Supply had the buckets, and I got 5. Will get more next week.

Hit Walgreens to pick up my meds and got 2 packages of tp and 3 bottles of laundry detergent on sale for $1.99. I have well over 3 years of laundry detergent, or I would have bought more.

I think I am going to start canning some meat out of my freezer and am going to pull a couple of roasts out today to thaw and do up tomorrow.

I just saw this video on youtube and thought it was great. That was a lot of strawberries!!!
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5m6ezN6aQM


Run time is about 12 minutes.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
My dentist appointment went well. I absolutely love my dentist. He told Cary he could stay in the room with me if he wanted to, and if it would make me feel better. He didn't want to stay, though. I made it fine without him. The numbness is wearing off, and I'm still really groggy from the Valium. All went well, though. My next appointment is July 12th. Got more fillings to get done before time for the surgery.

It's good that I made the big pot of chicken enchilada soup, yesterday. That's what I had for supper tonight. Cary wasn't hungry after eating half of a large pizza for his lunch. He ate a chocolate candy bar, instead. The soup was easy to eat even though my mouth was still numb. I think I drooled a bit, but it was all good, LOL. This recipe is really good, and I'm trying the loaded potato soup recipe next. As I try all these new recipes, if we like them, I'm going to make a big batch a second time, and can it. All of the soup mixes and recipes are the Frontier Soups from Anderson House. I ordered a large case of different varieties of the soup mixes that I thought we would like. The chicken enchilada soup is the first one I've tried. The mixes call for some of your own ingredients, but all the basics are already included. For the chicken soup, I added a pint of my own canned tomatoes, 2 cups cooked chicken, 4 cups of chicken broth, and a cup of green chili enchilada sauce. You can add shredded cheese of your choice and/or sour cream to each serving. I'm already thinking or ordering another case of the same varieties.

Could any of you gals tell me how to can roasts? How do you fit a large roast into a jar? The reason I was going to do the beef chunks was to have them on hand for a roast, potatoes, and gravy type meal. I didn't know you could can actual roasts.
 

WanderLore

Veteran Member
Oh man Renee, when I used to be able to go to Aldi, I always gave my cart to someone. Too much trouble for a quarter and usually had a passel of kids with me LOL.

Praise the Lord. My last grandson to be tested for the disease my nephew has, has tested negative!! Praise the Lord. My test shows I'm a carrier but that doesn't mean a lot at this point. My doc is referring me to a Neurologist, just to be safe. And any new children born from here on out, will get newborn screening.

It was a rough go to get it all done. Lord I truly loathe the medical establishment at time. No offense to anyone.

Since I was in the bigger town anyway, picked up some food items at dollar.25 tree and got the beet chews at WM. Still same price a little over $14. There are 30 in a bag or so, enough for a month.

I'm just worn out. But its all done.
 

Wildwood

Veteran Member
I just wanted to give everyone a heads up on the WMart canned veggies. I buy the Great Value brand French style green beans and usually get a case every couple months. I didn't notice the case I bought last week expires 12/22. The ones I bought at the same store a couple months ago expired 12/24. I was going through my pantry and I organize everything by date and caught it. It's not an issue because we will just use them first. All the other GV veggies I bought that day had good dates.

I get the beets in capsule or pill form from Amazon. I get the ones with pepperine in them and they work great. There were too many mixed revues on the chews...you either love them or hate them it seems. I may try the ones at WM just to have a back up source.
 

Digger

Veteran Member
I bought chicken feed today at a family owned feed store. In September of 2021 Layena was 17.50. Today 21.25. It was 21.95 at Tractor Supply last week. ADM scratch in September of 21 was 15.95. Today 18.25. My 2 bags of each came to $86 and change. I am really beginning to worry about the future. :hof:
 

Wildwood

Veteran Member
I bought chicken feed today at a family owned feed store. In September of 2021 Layena was 17.50. Today 21.25. It was 21.95 at Tractor Supply last week. ADM scratch in September of 21 was 15.95. Today 18.25. My 2 bags of each came to $86 and change. I am really beginning to worry about the future. :hof:
Me too. DIL and I left TS week before last and went to the locally owned feed store because they were out of the high protein feed she needed. The prices were better and so was the quality of the feed we were looking for. I love the Big V brand in most any kind of feed and they had it in stock. It was cheaper plus all the bags were still 50 lbs.

Their chops are so pretty. I needed plain yellow corn meal for my garden and since our grocery store closed I couldn't get it here in town. I remembered I had the chops and ground some up. They worked just fine and made beautiful corn meal. The plain yellow corn meal works pretty well for getting fire ants out of your garden too.
 

hiwall

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Okay, we went shopping today. Normally we shop at the small town about 15 miles away for perishables and everything else we have shipped to our house. Today I drove to the small city about 75 miles away that is big enough to have a Walmart and a few other chain stores.
We were gone about 7 hours. First time shopping for maybe 8 or 9 months(or maybe more). Wife wanted to go to several stores and I made sure she went wherever she wanted. She bought a pair of shoes, some clothes, towels, drapes, sheets, rugs, etc.
I bought a pair of hiking shoes and some welding rods. We bought almost no food items.
At Walmart (which had countless empty spots all over the store), it took 1/2 hour to check out. They had only 4 registers open. I told wife I would never walk through their doors again.
I kind of wanted to stop at Home Depot and Tractor Supply for a couple items but decided against staying in the city any longer. She was mostly happy with the trip and that is all that mattered to me.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Just after I was on here last night, I fell asleep in the recliner. I barely remember Cary waking me up to go to bed. Dang, that Valium is some good stuff. I slept all night. I don't even remember how I got to bed. Mouth feels fine this morning, although, a bit sore.

It's coming a flood right now. The humidity was so bad when I got up this morning. I knew it was going to rain. Shortly after I walked out to the gardens and back, the bottom fell out. Gardens are going great. I have green bell peppers that are almost big enough to pick. Banana peppers about 6 inches long already. Tomatoes are loaded. Squash has lots of blooms, but the baby squash keep drying up and falling off. Same with the cucumbers. Don't know what's causing that. Hopefully, they will straighten out. Green beans will be blooming soon.

6 more pounds of ground beef are thawing. I'll be canning that up, tomorrow. I need to dig down and around in both freezers to see if there are anymore of the older stuff that also needs to be canned. I try not to keep meat of any kind longer than a year in the freezers. I bought so much of this ground beef that it's nearing a one year date, though. I was getting it on sale for a great price, and I went overboard buying it up. I told Cary just this morning over coffee that I really needed a good Food Saver. I think that would keep meat from getting freezer burned if I kept it longer than a year. We don't eat freezer burned meat. YUCK! I use it to make dog food.

Question on this next batch of ground beef. I know some of you use beef broth instead of water when canning it. All I have is beef bouillon cubes. Can I just put a bouillon cube in each jar before filling it with the ground beef? Would that work, or do I need to make up a big pot of beef broth? Up until now, all I've been using is boiling water.
 

ReneeT

Veteran Member
I use thinned down onion soup mix when I can chunks of beef, SB. I'm pretty sure I use 6 cups of water to one packet of the onion soup mix. I suppose you could just use wide mouth jars and cut it the roast to slide into the jar? I've never canned a whole roast as I worry about the heat getting all the way to the center - which is probably silly considering the length of time and the temp at which they are being canned. Same reason I've never canned a whole chicken, though the Amish in the nearby towns do it all the time. We don't usually eat roast beef in slices in any case, so the chunks of beef work well for us. We heat it in a pan on the stove if we want to eat the meat as a separate part of the meal, but honestly, we usually use it 'in' something, like beef stew, beef and noodles, beef hot shots, beef stroganoff, vegetable beef soup, etc...

The weather man fibbed again - the rain that was forecast to hit at 11am started at 7 am instead. Bleah. Good for the crops though, so I'll settle for just the one Bleah. I was hoping to get the green pole beans and sweet corn planted this morning; guess they will wait until next week when the ground is dry again as it is supposed to rain Friday as well. We have lots of clay in our soil, so we learned long ago not to mess with it when it's wet.

I had to zip over to work for my weekly Covid test this morning. One of our vaccinated workers on day shift caught the 'Rona from her Hubby, but they and their son are both doing okay so far. After I did the test, I hit the Evil Empire for chicken thighs for the feral cat (who almost let me pet her yesterday - progress!!) The chicken thighs were actually down a few cents a pound; surprised me! I decided to stock up on one type of item while I was there, so chose quick and easy box/bag mixes - added 16 assorted Knorr packets and 4 Zatarain's gumbo mixes. Hubby isn't a fan of Gumbo as much as I am, and even I have to thin it down a bit with chicken broth and some extra rice as it's too spicy for me, so usually 4 pints end up in the freezer for later meals. Now, if I'd just remembered to pick up some shrimp, I'd make a pot of it this weekend. Oh well, I'll hopefully remember on my way home from work tomorrow or the next day so it will all work out.

After the pool, I need to try to figure out what I did with my 'pocket' stuff from work when I got home last Friday. I know I was pretty well wiped out when I got home from daughter's, but usually I dump my pockets into my work bag or on my bedside table, but nada. I have replacements for everything except my work keys. Guess the rain will give me plenty of time to look :lol:

Take care all - have a great week!
 

nomifyle

TB Fanatic
30 miles in different directions to 3 walmarts, two are not supercenters. I buy most of my stuff on line, unless I want something fresh and that we do once a month, otherwise we make do with what we already have.

DH picked three red tomatoes yesterday, they are beautiful buy not quite ripe. He said there are two zucchini on the vine but not quite large enough to pick. A friend brought zucchini and yellow squash over a couple of days ago, it was so much I shared with another friend that came to visit.
 

SouthernBreeze

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I use thinned down onion soup mix when I can chunks of beef, SB. I'm pretty sure I use 6 cups of water to one packet of the onion soup mix. I suppose you could just use wide mouth jars and cut it the roast to slide into the jar? I've never canned a whole roast as I worry about the heat getting all the way to the center - which is probably silly considering the length of time and the temp at which they are being canned. Same reason I've never canned a whole chicken, though the Amish in the nearby towns do it all the time. We don't usually eat roast beef in slices in any case, so the chunks of beef work well for us. We heat it in a pan on the stove if we want to eat the meat as a separate part of the meal, but honestly, we usually use it 'in' something, like beef stew, beef and noodles, beef hot shots, beef stroganoff, vegetable beef soup, etc...

Thanks, Renee. I'll use beef broth made from the bouillon cubes this time, and might try the onion soup mix on the next batch. I'd like to experiment. I'll also forget about trying to do a whole roast. I think the beef stew meat chunks will work for what I want to use them for. When I cook a roast, I do it in my crock pot. I break it apart into chunks before we eat it, so the beef chunks will work. I'll add the gravy, carrots, onions, and potatoes to the chunks in the crock pot. Since the chunks are already cooked, it won't take long at all to cook a nice meal.
 
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nomifyle

TB Fanatic
DH has been under the weather for a couple of days, no fever, but cough cough cough and lots of congestion. He felt better yesterday, but not so much today. And now I'm coughing, my meds help but don't stop it entirely, So we are not getting anything done again today. DH did pick three red tomatoes yesterday, although they were not very large. He's had two tomato sandwiches so far.
 
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