A Productive Day Of Winter Preparations Part 2

 

I talked to you yesterday about what I've been doing to get winter ready.  My work continued bright and early the very next day.  I didn't even wait to get dressed first!  I was still in my pajamas when I went into the kitchen and began by cooking up some Italian sausage and putting a huge batch of pasta sauce on to cook in my large slow cooker.  I set it on low for six hours and boy did it ever smell good.

 

I browned up the Italian sausage

I reserved some cooked sausage in small containers to use to make pizzas

Once my sauce was in the slow cooker I cooked up some pork breakfast sausage, whipped up a dozen eggs and made a pan of scrambled eggs and sausage.  Then I pulled out some leftover grated cheese and some low carb tortillas and made myself some breakfast burritos.  I even sprinkled some chipotle Tabasco sauce on the eggs before I rolled my burritos and that made them even better.  Each of my breakfast burritos went into a separate Ziploc bag and then I put all of them into a larger gallon sized Ziploc bag and into the freezer.  I was going for ten and ended up with eleven burritos (Spinal Tap anyone?) for quick grab and go meals to take to work.

I already had eggs and tortillas on hand as well as some extra cheese left

I drizzled each one with chipotle Tabasco sauce

Next was to mix up some meatloaf using the rest of the pork sausage and some ground beef I had thawed.  I made one for us to cook and eat that week and one for the freezer.  I put the one for the freezer into a Ziploc bag and we can either use it as a meatloaf or make meatballs out of it, whichever we choose.  Then it was time to clean up a bit and move onto my next project.  Baking!

 

Chopped onion and some leftover mushroom I had in the fridge

One meatloaf for now and one for later

I divided the markdown beef franks into four meal sized portions for the freezer

Wrapped and ready for the freezer

We were pretty lucky that day in that the weather was significantly cooler and I wasn't afraid to turn on my oven.  I also hadn't baked anything since Christmas so I was really itching to do that.  I decided to use up a couple mixes I had on hand in the pantry picked up for mere pennies at the store.  I made a batch of peanut butter cookies and a pan of brownies (with added chocolate chips!) and that made my girls plenty happy.  Especially my youngest.  She and I love our cookies, which is bad for me, but good for her.  I did indulge, I'm not going to lie, and it was heavenly.

 

My daughter was thrilled to find a full cookie jar

And brownies too!

My daughter headed off to work and I took a break until the pasta sauce was done cooking.  Then I set up the canner and filled up nine pint jars of sauce.  Once they were canned and cooling down my job was pretty much complete.  In eight days we had managed to get us stocked up and ready for the upcoming winter and it felt, and still feels, pretty darn amazing.  It was a lot of bargain shopping and strategizing to get it all done and without blowing the budget, but we did it.

 

Breakfast burritos, sausage for pizza and beef hotdogs ready for the freezer

The broth from cooking chicken the day before sat in the fridge overnight

I removed the fat and packaged it up for the freezer to use in future recipes

Finished pasta sauce ready to be processed

I will go over more about what I spent on everything when I post my next grocery budget update.  I think you'll be impressed.  I was thrilled.  Are any of you doing any canning or making preparations for the winter ahead?  I'd love to hear about what you are doing.