Freeze it, Dry it, Can it, Love it

It’s Labor Day! That means I should not be laboring. But I am. I am trying to get some work done on Pastor Wilkerson’s book. I also have to slice up and freeze the Costco prime rib roasts that have been aging here since last week. I still can’t believe I got prime beef for under eight bucks a pound.

It’s really shocking, how cheap food is when you put thought into it. The beans I fixed yesterday are fantastic, and they’re very good for you, and you can make a pot of them for maybe three bucks. The cornbread contains one egg, a quarter of a cup of grease (free, if you save it when you cook bacon), 12 ounces of milk, and two cups of meal. What does that cost? Let’s see. An egg runs about fifteen cents. The meal is something under a dollar. The milk is under fifty cents. It ain’t much.

I you buy whole pork loins at Costco, you get a giant loaf of meat for about 15 bucks. It’s something like 40 pork chops, and two of them will make a meal. Seventy-five cents per meal! And it’s not second-rate food. Pork chops are wonderful.

Ham hocks are a great deal, provided you’re willing to man up and eat the fat. Two hocks contain enough energy to make a meal all by themselves.

The pot of chili I made the other day ran me about 15 bucks, but that’s because I didn’t make any effort to get cheap meat. It was a spur of the moment idea. I suppose a smart person would get Costco beef and freeze it in one-pound bags. I don’t know what they charge for ground beef, but it can’t be a lot. And there’s no reason you can’t grind up a pork loin and freeze it. My chili is half pork and half beef, so I have to have ground pork. Maybe I should get a grinder. They’re cheap. I don’t know what Cuisinart ground meat looks like, but I’ll bet it’s not great.

Even though I paid too much for ingredients, 15 bucks is not bad for eight or ten huge portions of dynamite chili.

I need to start cooking the rest of my SHTF dried beans. After a year in storage, they’ll be too hard to cook. I suppose I can prepare one bag per month and freeze the results. Oh, boy. That would be pure hedonism. Bags and bags of frozen bean soup, full of pork chunks, pepper, and onions. Best not to dwell on it. I know it sounds stupid, but if you make bean soup right, it’s magnificent.

Because I live in Florida, I have to think about hurricanes. That means I should get real and start canning. Some day, a hurricane may take out my frozen food. What a horror. I would not lose canned stuff.

Home-canned food is great. Don’t let anyone tell you different. I’ve never had store-bought sweet pickles as good as the ones my grandmother used to make. And she used to can her own sausage, suspended in congealed grease. Best sausage I ever ate, and the residual grease has a thousand uses in the kitchen.

When you cook your own pork, you get to decide how it tastes. And you can take steps to make sure there is no gaminess in it. Most commercial sausage has at least a little boar taint. There is no excuse for it, but that’s how it is. A soak in water and baking soda kills it.

It just occurred to me that I can freeze bananas. They wouldn’t be worth eating out of hand, but you can cook with them. I can also dehydrate them and have chips. I’m going to have tons of bananas and plantains, so I have to do something.

I am trying to learn to think of the stuff I own as God’s property. If that’s true, I have to avoid frittering money away. I can’t say I’m a good steward if I buy food on impulse, at the highest prices, or if I throw out produce because I’m too lazy to preserve it. If you don’t take care of little things, you can’t expect to receive big ones. Check the gospels.

I don’t think everyone has to live like the Waltons, but some expenses don’t make much sense. For example, buying bread. If you own a food processor, a loaf of bread is almost no work, and the cost is minimal. It will be a lot better than store bread. The only advantage of store bread is convenience. I know people have limited time, but the actual hands-on time required to bake bread is about five minutes. And bread freezes with no damage. You can make ten loaves in a day and freeze them.

Costco’s freezer bags are not a great deal. Ebay is better.

It’s not about depriving yourself. It’s about not being an idiot. It’s about getting value for your money. Why spend twenty dollars and get one choice steak when you can spend a hundred and get over a dozen prime steaks? Why pay a restaurant to cook mediocre food when you can have better food at home? And if you arrange life so you have more money for yourself and your family, you’ll also have more money for your church and other people’s needs.

Maybe if I make an effort, I can do a better job taking care of my money. During these Forty Days of Teshuvah, my big aims are to get past laziness and irresponsibility. I’m not a basket case, but there is a lot of room for improvement.