The Challenge

This was fun! I would go to my local produce stand and shop for great deals.  The deals changed throughout the season.  When peas were in season, I would buy gobs of peas and we had to eat them all before I showed up at the produce stand the next week.  Beans rose where peas started to wane and tomatoes reigned as beans started to tire.

Summer's end produced a massive surge of vegetables that local Produce Stands wanted to sell before they went bad.  I took full advantage of this.  Pecks of tomatoes threatening to turn were converted into tomato sauces - I make a very tasty tomato sauce!  $2 pecks of peppers were hauled home and prepared to become freezer cubes of near fresh produce in the off season! Of course tomatoes made for a lovely salad - wash it; chunk it; a little salt and pepper and there you have it! You learn to be creative!  You learn to eat more produce; which makes you choose to eat less of something else. This was great, great fun!

Local produce is reasonably priced (low transportation costs) and very healthy for you, I bought squash up at $.25/lb!  I bought crates of it and hauled it home to figure out what the heck I was going to do with all of this.  I think I may have had 50 pounds of squash, potatoes, beets, yams or more at any time.  Buy root vegetables with a tough exterior and  relatively uncleaned, they will last for a very long time in chilled areas, or root cellars.  Acorn, butternut, ambercup, autumncup, carnival and delicata were just a subset of what I bought. I made some lovely soups with it and froze a fair amount as well.

Zucchini and summer squash, doesn't freeze well.  I knew there would be food loss if I didn't freeze some of it; and at summer's end you can get great deals on zucchini and summer squash - $.10/lb! I froze it with the intention of figuring out what I'd do with it later. Well, true to the documentation I read, it doesn't freeze well, but don't let that deter you!  It still contributes very nicely to soups and stews and I have recipes to prove it!

The money I saved was amazing.  Beets were $15/50 lb. bag and freeze very well. Corn in season froze nicely. Fruits became jams and jellies that I loved making and giving for Christmas presents. My mixed berry jam was such a hit, I had to make two more batches! When one pays $1.49 for a one lb. bag of vegetables, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that it's worth the effort to preserve and freeze.  But it also supports the local farmer while putting really great food into the freezer for a reasonable amount of money.

My new challenge is to make sure all the vegetables get eaten before the next growing season!

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