When you’re trying to cook as many meals as you can at home, you find that you need more and more kitchen gadgets.  Or at least I did.  Being the frugal person that I am, initially I had a very hard time shelling out money for those gadgets, when my goal was to save money, and not spend it. However, I’ve found that sometimes you’ve got to spend money, to make saving money easier.

Case in Point::  Kitchen Gadgets.

One of the top questions I am asked about is my variety of kitchen gadgets, and what I cannot live without in my frugal kitchen.  Over the next few weeks {or however long it takes me to run out of gadgets } I will share with you my favorite kitchen gadgets that help me to maintain a minimal grocery budget.

First up is one of my favorites-and probably the one that has saved me the most money.

My canning supplies.

When I first realized that home canning was something that I was interested in, I bought the water bath canner that is pictured on the right and later invested in the pressure canner {well hubby bought it as a Christmas gift}.  This time of year, many merchants have their canning supplies on sale–and you just might be able to score a deal.

In addition to my canning pots I use a funnel, magnetic wand and a jar lifter.  Neither of these are essential, per se, but they do make the process a bit easier.  Before purchasing them, I relied heavily on my awesome pouring skills {ha! more like my awesome wiping-the-edge-of-the-jar-skills}, my silicone oven mitt, and a pair of tongs.

Cost Breakdown

Oftentimes you can find canning supplies from garage sales, consignment stores, auctions or even on clearance at major retailers. Just keep your eyes open!  I have more canning jars than I will probably ever use at one time {although that would be one fantastic pantry!}, and I’ve probably only paid retail for half of them.  I’ve decided to do a cost breakdown of my out of pocket expenses for my canning supplies, versus what it would cost me for one years worth of buying canned goods.  This is obviously my best guesstimate, so may not be completely accurate, but will atleast give you number people like me something to compare to.

Water Bath Canner:: $8

Pressure Canner:: $90

Miscellaneous Tools:: $14

Jars:: $100 {our current stash is roughly200-250}

Lids for ONE canning season:: $60

Total:: $274

What would it cost to purchase one year worth of canned goods?

Roughly $365, based on 2 canned goods a night at 50¢/can.

More often than not the produce I use to can with comes from my very own garden, or bought on manager mark down at the grocery store for next to nothing.  According to the figures above, I break even in the first year, even if I were to spend $91 on produce.

Sounds like canning is a frugal kitchen must!

Want some canning inspiration? Check out these recipes and this post to help you get started.

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To Can or Not to Can? is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

Homemade refried beans are on our menu atleast once a week.  If we’re not having them in our quesadillas, we’re having them alongside our tacos, enchiladas or in a taco salad.  They’re frugal and packed with flavor, two musts in our kitchen!

I was delighted when I found out that dried beans could easily be canned at home.  {I  might have even done a happy dance. }  After doing the cost comparison and doing a taste test–home canned refried beans will be a regular around here.  They are incredibly delicious and effortless to make.  Home canned refried beans {using my calculations} cost under 50¢ a quart!  That price is hard to beat in the store–and we’ve not even begun to talk about the flavor!

Home Canned Refried Beans

Soak Your Beans

I just soaked mine in hot water for about 3 hours before I began. I knew I was wanting to do 7 quarts, so I measured out about 11 cups of beans. Your beans process in the pressure canner long enough that you won’t have to worry about them not getting soft–the soaking here is mostly to remove the gas and any debris.

Gather Your Supplies

Get out all  your jars, rings/lids, and spices that you will need.

To make 7 quarts of refried beans I used::

14 cups water
2 1/3 cup chopped onion; 1/3 cup per quart
7 cloves of garlic, minced; 1 clove per quart
1 ½ Tbsp Chilli Powder
4 tsp salt
6-8 Chipotle Cubes {or, 2-2½ Tbsp chipotle pepper powder}
2 Tbsp Paprika

In a large pot, bring water and spices to a boil. Do not add the garlic or chopped onions to this mixture. 

I followed the basic steps to canning dried beans mentioned in this post, and basically added in my spices.  But to keep things all in one place, I’ll outline the basic steps here also.

In order to can your beans at home, you have to have a pressure canner. Beans can not safely be canned in a water bath canner because a water bath canner cannot reach the temperature needed to kill any bacteria that could be lurking in your beans. This isn’t something to take lightly, so please, do not even attempt it!

Sterilize

Sterilize your lids and jars. You can see a step by step tutorial in this post. While I’ve never done it this way, you can also run your jars through your dishwasher, without soap, on the sterilize setting.

Fill Your Jars

Add your beans to your empty jars; 3/4 cup beans for pints, and 1½ cups for quarts. Once you’ve added in your beans, add in 1/3 cup chopped onion, 1 garlic clove and 2 cups of your seasoned water to each jar.   You will also need to add straight water to your jars, filling to 1 inch headspace. *TIP* This is basically to the bottom of the rings on your canning jar. Wipe off the rim of your jars, and add on the lid and ring.

Process

While you are filling your jars, prepare your pressure canner. Once your jars are ready, carefully add them into the pressure canner. Process pints for 75 minutes, quarts for 90 minutes–both at 10 pounds pressure.

Once your time is up, remove from heat and let your canner cool on it’s own.  After the pressure has returned to zero and the vent lock has went back down, it is now safe to remove the weight.  Let the steam escape, remove the lid {Be very careful, the canner still contains steam.} and then remove your jars using a jar lifter or silicone mitt.  Place your hot jars on a towel to cool down.  Check your seals after 24 hours.

*New to pressure canning?  This post will walk you through the steps, even though it’s for green beans.  

*Note::  To my next batch, I plan to add more beans to the jar.  After I processed them, the beans settled and soaked up a lot of the water–leaving me with more headspace than what I would like {as you can see by the picture}.  While I haven’t tried it yet, my guess is that 1 2/3 cup of beans per quart would be adequate.

*While refried beans may not be the most accurate name for this recipe, I’ve went ahead and named them that because the flavor is that of traditional refried beans.  The beans are still whole when they are finished processing, but are easily smashed to resemble traditional refried beans, or could be “refried” before serving.

What is your favorite way to enjoy refried beans?

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Home Canning Refried Beans is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

I really enjoy looking back over my posts to see which ones ended up being the top posts. Oftentimes, I am surprised by the results.

3. Managing Your Expenses was another post I really enjoyed writing–I could talk finances all day long.

Have you purchased your copy of the Home Management Binder yet? It's not too late!

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Top Ten Posts of 2009 is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

I truly think that my children could eat their weight in applesauce. While I am very happy that they love it, sometimes the store bought stuff is just laden with sugar, which to me, almost negates the nutritional benefit of the apples.

When I stumbled upon an awesome deal on apples ($10 a bushel!), I decided now was my chance to try my hand at homemade applesauce and apple butter. It was easy, frugal, delish and sugar free! Since then, I’ve picked up 2 more bushels, although these were higher, and I’m ready to stock my pantry with homemade applesauce!

This is all there is to it:

I peeled, cored and sliced my apples just like I did when I was making the apple butter. This time, I placed all the apples into my biggest stockpot and added about 2 quarts water. Instead of water, you can add apple juice instead. I didn’t have any, so I used water.

It wasn’t until I was finished with the batch that a light bulb went off. If you have a juicer, throw the peels and cores that were leftover into the juicer–and Wa-La! You’ve got juice! You may still need to add a smidge of water to get enough, but atleast most of your liquid would be juice.

After I had my water and apples in the stockpot I brought it to a boil. When the apples started softening up, I added in about 2 Tbsp of cinnamon and cooked for an additional 5 minutes. If you want a chunky applesauce–remove from heat before the apples are translucent. If you are going for a smoother textured applesauce–cook until completely soft.

Once your apples have reached the desired doneness, process them in a food processor or food mill, juice and all.

Your applesauce will keep in the refrigerator for 2 months, or you can home can it for longer storage, using the water bath canning method. We prefer ours in quarts, which should be processed for 25 minutes. If you are canning them in pints, process for 20 minutes.

Homemade applesauce is perfect for after school snacks, a side at dinner, or even as a substitute to oil in baking. With it being sugar free, there isn’t any guilt, either.

This post is linked to:

• Mouthwatering Monday
• Slightly Indulgent Monday
• Tempt My Tummy Tuesday
• Tasty Tuesday
• Tuesday at the Table

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Visit the Clever Housewife for Saving and Stretching a Buck.
Homemade Applesauce is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

I remember eating homemade apple butter as a kid and thinking that it was the best thing. Ever. Let me tell you, it is!

I’ve always assumed that making applesauce and apple butter would be a laborous task, that wasn’t really worth the final effort. Part of my 2009 Goals, we wanted to get atleast 3 months of food stored up. This includes everything from jam/jellies, to vegetables, to meat, to grains and everything in between. Over the past few weeks I’ve bought 3 bushels of apples and jumped right in!

To make apple butter all you need is:

• Apples
• Cinnamon
• Nutmeg
• Sugar

You need to peel and core your apples before placing them in the crockpot. To make this easier and faster, I used an apple peeler, corer and slicer thing. Similiar to this one. I filled my crockpot all the way to the top. The amount of apples will vary by the size of crockpot. This is so vague, but I used about a Wal-Mart bag full, or a ¼ bushel.

Once my crocpot was loaded, I added 2 cups sugar, roughly 2 Tbsp Cinnamon, and 1 tsp nutmeg.

Put the lid on and cook on low for about 7-8 hours, or on high for 4-5 hours. You can stir it around if you want to (I couldn’t resist), but you do not have to. When it is done, the apples will cooked through and will look somewhat like applesauce.

If your mixture is a little runny still, remove the lid and let cook for roughly another hour.

Put mixture in a food processor and blend until smooth.

Yum! This will keep in your refrigerator for up to 2 months. If you want to can it for long term food storage follow the water bath canning method and can pints for 10 minutes, quarts for 15.

• What’s in Your Crockpot
• Tackle it Tuesday
• Frugal Friday
• Recipe Swap.

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Making Crockpot Apple Butter is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

I’ve had so much fun baking the last few days. While I have been alone in my kitchen with nothing more than my radio going (and an occassional 4 year old, when he isn’t at school), I know that I have my Twitter friends who are baking along with me. Twitter was all a buzz with the #bakingday hashtag today. Everyone was tweeting what they were baking, their questions, and their progress. So fun!

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies (2 bags of 20), Chocolate Chip Cookies (2 bags), 2 batches croutons (Garlic Paprika, and Garlic Pepper), French Bread Baguettes, and French Bread. Not included in this picture are the Breakfast Burritios I made this morning; I already stashed those in the freezer.

I started out by tossing my beans in the crockpot for dinner and mixing up my breads so that they would have time to rise. In addition to the 2 batches of French Bread, I also made a loaf of Whole Wheat bread. However, I used my new (bigger) loaf pan, which was too big. Lets just say it isn’t the prettiest loaf on the block.

I exeriemented around and made some Apple Streusel Muffins. They were really good–but there is still a bit of tweaking that needs to be done.

Last week when I was cleaning out my freezer (which is what inspired me to do a baking day) we found this old pack of hot dog buns, that was obviously past it’s prime. I hated to throw them out, so I turned them into Croutons! So good!

Lots of Taco Meat for the freezer.

Refried Beans. Plenty leftover to freeze (although I’ve never frozen them mashed up)

Jalapeno Cheddar Tortillas

In the midst of all my baking, I decided to go ahead and make up some Jalapeno Cheddar Tortillas for dinner, instead of my normal, plain jane one. I went ahead and browned and seasoned the whole pack of hamburger, so that I could freeze the leftovers for a quick meal.

Tomorrow, I will be baking again–if I still have energy!

Here is what I am hoping to do:

• Ham/Cheese Pockets
• Pepperoni Pizza Pockets
• French Bread x2
• Whole Wheat Bread(the right way!)
• Apple Butter
• Applesauce x2 batches (made and canned)

I should be set for awhile!

You can see other Baking Day participants over at Money Saving Mom.

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Thank you for supporting our February Sponsors!

Don't Feel Guilty About Dessert! Eat a Smart Sweet! Check out the 80+page Ebook from Kitchen Stewardship.

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Visit the Clever Housewife for Saving and Stretching a Buck.
Baking Day Update is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

Many home gardeners grow green beans. If you are anything like I was, when harvest time came I had no idea what I was going to do with all of them. I’m no fan of frozen green beans and I was terrified of the pressure canner. Something had to give somewhere.

I had to overcome my fear.

Honestly, and truly, there was no reason for me to be afraid of the pressure canner. As long as you follow the canner directions and pay attention to the pressure gauge–you are good to go. No worries!

First things first, harvest your green beans. Snap the ends off, and snap into manageable pieces. Depending on the size of the bean, I usually do them in thirds or halves. Once you have all of them snapped, you need to rinse them off, and drain off the water.

Now you need to get your jars, lids and bands ready. To me, this is where the guess work comes in. I never remember from time to time how many green beans I need to pick to yield a full canner load (which for me is 7 quarts). I just eyeball my snapped beans, and guess how many quarts I think they will make, and that is how many jars I sterilize. You can either do pints or quarts here, depending on what is effective for your family. A pint is roughly equivalent to a can from the grocery store.

Sterilize your lids by placing them in HOT water. Do NOT let these boil, as it can affect the rubber seals and they won’t seal properly.

To sterilize your jars, place in boiling water, and let boil for atleast 10 minutes.

While these are sterilizing, place your green beans in a pot and cover with water. Bring to a light boil.

Remove your jars from the boiling water, and get ready to fill them up.

If desired, you can add in ½ tsp canning salt to every quart and ¼ tsp to every pint before adding in your green beans. Pack in the green beans, and pour the boiling water over them, leaving 1 inch headspace. **TIP** 1 inch is roughly to the bottom of the threads.

Once you have your jars packed and covered in hot water, you need to remove all the air bubbles. Using a non-metallic utensil, gently push on the contents and move around to remove the air bubbles. In doing so, you may end up creating more room in your jars. If you have extra green beans, add them in, just be sure to remove any more air bubbles that made their way in. Oftentimes you can peer in and see if you got all of them out.

After all of the air bubbles are removed, wipe off the rim of the jars and add on the lids and bands. Now is time to load up the canner!

When using a pressure canner, you need to have 2-3 inches of water in the bottom. Add in your jars and put on the lid. Do NOT put the weight on, yet.

When steam escapes from the vent hole (located on the left) for roughly 10 minutes, then you can place on the weight. Basically what you are doing here is letting all the excess air escape from the canner.

After you have the weight on the canner, your canner will start to “seal up” and your pressure will begin to build. For green beans, you want your canner to reach 10 pounds of pressure.

You will notice in the picture that in between the weight and the pressure gauge, there is another thing sticking up. This is called the vent lock. It is naturally flush with the lid, but when it starts to seal up the vent pops up, then it starts to build pressure.

Your canner needs to maintain at 10 pounds of pressure. You will notice that in the picture my gauge is reading a bit over 10 pounds. This isn’t a huge deal, but you do not want it much over that..and NEVER under. If your canner ever goes under 10 pounds of pressure, you will have to start your timing back over. I’ve noticed, atleast for my stove, that once my canner reaches it’s pressure point, I can turn the heat down to medium or medium-low and it will stay there.

When processing green beans, you need to process quarts for 25 minutes, and pints for 20.

Once your time is up, turn off the heat and let the canner cool off on it’s own. Once the pressure has returned to zero and the vent lock has went back down, it is now safe to remove the weight. I must say, that nothing devastating will happen if you remove it before the vent lock pops down–just a massive amount of steam. Which is rather scary, and not recommended.

After removing the weight, let the steam escape, and remove the lid. Be very careful, the canner still contains steam.

Using your jar lifter, remove the jars from the canner and place on a towel to begin cooling. If you take a close look you will see lots of bubbles rushing to the top. Once they start to cool, you will hear the music to a canner’s ears.

*Ping*

The ping is letting you know that they have sealed properly. If you are uncertain if one has sealed, you can check them by pressing in the middle of lid. If it doesn’t give, then they have sealed properly. Let them cool completely before checking their seals, or you may cause them to “false seal.” The cooling process usually takes about 24 hours.

Now you are able to enjoy fresh from the garden green beans, all year long!

Home canned green beans work for me!

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Canning Green Beans is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

I’m sure that the first thing you think of when you hear “corn cobs”, is definitely not jelly. After you try this recipe, though, it will be!

Once you are done boiling, you need to strain the liguid. I used this Jelly Strainer that my husband got me for Christmas. For this recipe, you actually only need to use 5 cups of strained liquid.

Put your strained liquid into a clean pot and return to boil. Add in sugar, and bring to a full rolling boil. Empty both packets of pectin into the pot. (I asked a few people and searched around to find out how sugar to use in this recipe and it varied; anywhere from 3-5–so I went with 4 and it worked just fine). Bring back to a rolling boil again, and boil hard for roughly 1 minutes.

Ladle into sterilized jars and process in a a water bath for 10 minutes. Yields 7 half pints.

Perfect on biscuits and toast. I can’t wait to try it as a glaze on grilled chicken. Delish! I think I will also throw some in my Christmas Baskets for a unique gift. Wonder what other unique stuffer I can come up with, other than the jalapeno jelly?? Any ideas?

This post is linked to:

• Frugal Friday
• Recipe Swap

Have you purchased your copy of the Home Management Binder yet? It's not too late!

Thank you for supporting our February Sponsors!

Don't Feel Guilty About Dessert! Eat a Smart Sweet! Check out the 80+page Ebook from Kitchen Stewardship.

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Visit the Clever Housewife for Saving and Stretching a Buck.
Corn Cob Jelly Recipe is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

A full pantry is a huge blessing and a big relief in those times when the grocery budget is feeling a little squeeze. This year we have been blessed with bountiful garden harvests. I am so amazed! Everytime I am harvesting our crops or putting them up so we can enjoy them in the cool winter months, I can’t help but think that the “fruits of my labor” were once little tiny seeds and seedlings. God is amazing!!

Coming into this gardening season, Willie and I had big gardening plans. Our main goal was to store up enough food from our summer/fall harvests to make us through until the next garden was producing. We sat down and came up with a rough number of how many of what we needed, and we planted away. Mid way through the season, I was getting a little discouraged because things weren’t going exactly as I had envisioned or planned them to be. I wanted the perfect garden, with perfect gardening beds and walkways, with no weeds. Any.Where. End of story. I worked, worked and worked some more–but things just weren’t going as I wanted. My tomatillos came down with nasty bugs and once I got that taken care of my zuchinni plants and beloved pie pumpkins were compltely killed out by those pesky squash bugs. My green beans weren’t producing at the rate that I thought they should in order for us to end up with what we wanted..so I gave up.

Seriously.

I got to where I didn’t want to go out there, it was too discouraging. Then it hit me. You are blessed. Immensely and immeasurably blessed. And you’re going to throw it all away?? Everything doesn’t have to be perfect. You can’t give up when the going gets tough. Persevere and you will be richly blessed.

Slowly but surely Willie and I are regaining the garden. It has been overtaken by weeds in the walkways, but it is still producing like crazy! We planted some more green beans and some asparagus beans (huge 2-3 foot long beans) so that we can have a small fall harvest to keep our storage up.

Looking in my pantry and in my freezer just makes me smile. God, You are so good!

As of today, this is what my pantry and my freezer hold–all of which is from this year. (I do still have some pickles and jelly from last year, but they are not included on this list).

• 33 bags (with roughly 1 cup each) Chopped Green or Yellow Pepper {frozen}
• 5 (½ cup portions) sliced jalapenos {frozen}
• 12 cups shredded zuchinni (I was able to get these before my plants were killed off) {frozen}
• 2 gallon bags of Tomatillos {frozen}
• 1 Ice cream bucket of Blackberries. {frozen}
• 46 quarts Green Beans
• 11 pints sliced banana peppers
• 4 pints sliced jalapenos.
• 4 pints Hot Pepper Mix (Chinese 5 color, Fish Peppers, Banana Peppers, Jalapenos, and Cherry Bombs)
• 3 pints Spaghetti sauce (We’ve been using some of these. I do believe there were also 2 quarts and a pint more)
• 26 pints Diced Tomatoes.
• 6 Half-Pints of Corn Cob Jelly {recipe to come Friday}
• 6 pints; 5 Half Pints Blackberry Jelly
• 4 Half Gallon; 5 Quarts Sweet Pickles.

In addition to this list, I still have jalapenos waiting to be turned into more Jalapeno Jelly (notice there is none on this list!), banana peppers, various hot peppers, green/purple beans, cucumbers, and 100 tomatoes ready to be preserved. As well as a few pie pumkins that are this close to pie.

Wow. So glad I didn’t throw in the towel!

It may not be the prettiest garden these days, but let me tell ya something. It’s mine. God gave it to me.

How is your garden and your food storage coming along?

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A Full Pantry is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt

Last year we had so many cucumbers coming from our garden, that I ran out of ideas for them. I canned multiple Bread and Butter Pickles as well as Dill–I even tried my hand at relish. I had no idea what to do with the rest of them, so I started flipping through my canning book. I came across a recipe that sounded decent, but I didn’t like the very long process that it entailed, nor did I have the exact ingredients.

That is where this idea came from. I used the same process as I had with the bread and butter pickles, and some of the same spices, since that is what I had on had. Little did I know at the time, but this pickle recipe quickly became our favorite, as well as everyone who has tried them. I came into this canning season already having numerous requests for these–guess what I am giving out for Christmas?!

Sterilize your jars and canning lids. Meanwhile make up brine: In large pot bring vinegar, sugar and seasonings to a boil. Rinse salt and ice from cucumbers and pack them into quart jars and ladle brine into jars, leaving ¼ inch headspace. Using a non-metallic utensil, remove all of the air bubbles, wipe off rim, and put on lids/rings. For one reason or another, sometimes I run out of brine. Thankfully, there are equal parts of sugar and vinegar which makes it easy to mix up what I need. As far as figuring out how much spices to add–a dash here, and a dash there work real well.

• Tasty Tuesday
• Tempt My Tummy Tuesday
• Kitchen Tip Tuesday

Have you purchased your copy of the Home Management Binder yet? It's not too late!

Thank you for supporting our February Sponsors!

Don't Feel Guilty About Dessert! Eat a Smart Sweet! Check out the 80+page Ebook from Kitchen Stewardship.

{Mountain Rose Herbs}--Organic Spices, Herbs, Teas and Essential Oils {Plus MORE!!}

Visit the Clever Housewife for Saving and Stretching a Buck.
Recipe: Sweet Pickles is a post from: Getting Freedom From Debt