Canning and Freezing....more stuff UPDATED

Update on all my work today. The carrots and celery came out fine. I loved using my dicer to do the work. I also got this handy new peeler and I will never go back to using a hand held peeler again. Here is a picture of the peeler. It cost $5.99 at Bed, Bath and Beyond. It fits in the palm of your hand. Sweet!

Here is a picture of the apple pie filling. I can not tell you how good this tastes.
There was a bit of a mess up on the recipe amounts. I used 4 quarts (16 cups) of apples. I used two cups of sugar. Other wise I used the same amount they recommended for most everything else. I used freezer bags and so I mixed the apples and filling together before putting in the bags.

And you can also see the carrots and celery I bagged today as well. I have lots more apples to do tomorrow and will post an update on applesauce.


We have a local store called Shelton's here where they have produce at rock bottom prices, specials and locally grown fruits, veggies, and more. Depending on what you are looking for you usually get pretty good prices on seasonal items. Today's trip was a good one. I was able to get a bushel of Paula Red (Love that they are named after me...LOL) for $4.99. I got bulk carrots for a couple of bucks. Celery at .89 each, plums so cheap it was unbelievable and fresh cantaloupe for $1.00 each. I also got bulk walnuts (shelled) for $3.99 a pound, some smoked Cheddar cheese, eggs for .99 a doz and discounted bagged lettuce that date is 5 days away. I picked ups some other produce and milk as well.

My plan is to take the carrots and celery and freeze them in portion bags for cooking. Here is the thing with carrots and celery. I never have them on hand when I need them and canned mixed veggies are too salted and not used enough to take up space on the shelves. I love to make stews and pot pies during the winter and this will make for easy recipes this winter. For the prices I got I can't pass up the opportunity to stockpile some fresh produce. You can not can carrots unless you have a pressure cooker so I will be freezing mine. Go here to see how to do it.

From what I can see raw celery should not be frozen and it is recommended that it be steamed or boiled first. It doesn't have a long freeze time, (3 months) so I will make sure I use up what I do freeze before the end of the year.

I also will be freezing and canning my apples. I am going to make apple pie filling and will be making applesauce a bit later this next week or so. I will probably just have some bags of apples around for muffins and such as well. I plan on dicing part of the apples so the small size will already be ready for me to use.

I also got some mushrooms for a good price so I will be trying out the homemade mushroom soup and freezing some of that as well. My friend, Denise made it and said it was good.

So I have a lot to do in the next few days so I had better get to work and not let my good buys go to waste. I will post some pictures of all my hard work later. I truly feel this is all worth the effort, to help cut costs, eat healthier, have the produce on hand and make great food whenever I want to make it.