The fall season of the year can be quite chaotic and challenging trying to manage a household and take care of chores in a timely fashion. The kiddos are going back to school, the weather is changing, and you forgot about those tomatoes that finally ripened in the garden and now they started to rot. You just spent tons of money on back-to-school supplies and were not anticipating a grocery store trip for tomatoes. Never fret; I want to share some time and money saving tips and tricks to help you make the most of (if at all) your free moments and pennies. These practices will also help you become more resourceful and innovative, and hopefully, you won't end up losing any more tomatoes.
I know a lot of people might hate that phrase, and sometimes so do I. Meal prepping is pretty much the same things as saying, "eating leftovers". I am not saying you need to make 3 meals a day for an entire week all in one day. What I am telling you to do is check what you have in your garden/fridge as far as vegetables and write down some recipes you could make with them. This will help take the burden off of trying to come up with recipes at the last minute every night. It will also save you from throwing or wasting food that has gone bad because you forgot to use it. For example: peppers and onions in the fridge = make stuffed peppers or southwestern omelets. Tomatoes and/or lettuce in the garden = BLTs YUM!- Dehydrate or freeze your harvests.
Dehydrating is one of the easiest methods for food preservation. You just have to put the food the dehydrator, turn it on, and pretty much forget about it. Freezing produce is also super easy, and using frozen food is almost a necessity when cooking for a family to save time on food prep. I like to freeze zucchini chunks or corn into a small bag so that I can just dump them into any soup or stir-fry. There is so much versatility on how you can group together frozen veggies for different recipes. As far as dehydrating, apples are very abundant in our area and are easy to dehydrate or freeze.
Herbs and spices dehydrate well, too. The dehydrator I use:
Did you grow a really nice pepper or zucchini plant this year? Save the seeds! Dry them out, store, and label for next year. Be careful that the vegetable was not hybrid as those seeds do not produce. When planting season rolls around, you can also save time by planting the seeds indoors first and growing them until safe to transplant outside (after the last frost). Throw all your food prep scraps (i.e. potato peels) into a compost bin to use as a fertilizer for your garden. It's organic
and free! I will be writing more about composting at a later date. I do not have a compost bin currently and am looking for the best option for a small area.
By adopting all or some of these practices, you will not only save some time and money, but you will also surely create a sustainable and self-sufficient way of life. Enjoying the fruits of our labor is priceless!
Happy Harvesting!
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