I’ve had several emails lately asking me about potatoes. Readers have written in to say that they are not seeing potatoes for .10 a pound; they are seeing them for .40 -.50 a pound, and they are wondering how I get them for so little.
The answer is simple: I buy them for that price in season.
It’s not potato season right now.
I generally buy several hundred pounds of potatoes on sale in November, when they are on sale for .10 a pound. I watch and wait for that price. I will see them on sale for that price a few more times, and then I’ll buy more. In the middle of summer I don’t buy potatoes; they’re four times as much and the quality is bad, because this is what is left of last year’s potato harvest.
Modern day grocery stores tend to offer everything all year long, but that doesn’t mean that it is the right season for those items. If they’re not in season, they’re being shipped from somewhere else, which means the costs go up, and the flavor goes down, because they are picked slightly under ripe in order to get to the stores in time. If you’re buying grapes in the middle of winter, they’re coming from the other side of the equator. They’re going to be mostly tasteless, and they’re going to be four times the cost of grapes in season.
Watch your local grocery ads within that season for the lowest price, and when it gets down to that price, stock up! Can, freeze, and dehydrate what is in season. You’ll have the tastiest fruits and vegetables to use throughout the year at the lowest prices.
Some things are easy to keep for months if you have the refrigerator space. Apples, oranges , and grapefruit will keep for months in your refrigerator. (Not all varieties of apples last real long off the tree; some can last months and others need to be eaten right away, so watch which apples you have and if they need to be eaten faster than you can eat them, make applesauce with them and can it).
Think long-term when the lowest prices come around. Don’t think just about how much produce your family will eat that week. Think about how much of that item your family eats in a month or a year. Then purchase the amount you need for the year. This will yield the largest savings for your family in the long run.
For many years, I have canned peaches and pears in August. I would buy them at the store when they went on sale and can what my family needed. Our trees were tiny, so I was still buying most of our fruit. (This year I planted a second Early Elberta peach tree in the front yard to provide more peaches for our family in the years to come).
Usually peaches and pears are ripe within a few weeks of one another. In August of 2009, however, they were ripe in the same week. Peaches were on sale for .49 a pound, and pears were .59 a pound. (Prices vary by year and the farmer’s crops; in later years peaches are more and pears have been as low as .25 a pound).
I went to the store on the first day of the sale, which is a Wednesday where I live. I asked the produce manager to order in more boxes of fruit for me. I go the first day of the sale. The delivery came two days later on Friday. When I went it to pick up my delivery, the produce manager helped me by bringing the boxes of fruit to the register. I bagged a few more pounds of peaches as well to add to my total. The boxes are each a specific weight, so the cashier was able to weigh my bagged peaches and type in the weights for the boxed peaches and pears. (I highly recommend having the produce manager write the amount on the box and coming up to the register with you; some stores will question paying for a whole box of fruit and the cashier will wonder about ringing it up, even though they just have to type in the weight and the code. Leaving it in the box helps you avoid bruising).
That day I bought 324 pounds of peaches and 144 pounds of pears. My total was $243.72 for 468 pounds of in-season produce. The receipt said that my savings (over buying that fruit at regular price) was over $1000! The cashier had to get the manager to override it because the savings was so high.
That week I did a lot of canning.
I don’t always can things.
When oranges go on sale, I fill the refrigerator drawers (both of them) and the bottom shelf of the fridge with oranges. (Remember, too, that with 9 people, we eat 9 oranges every time we sit to eat oranges, so a whole bag of oranges doesn’t last long. We were blessed with a second refrigerator/freezer (a side by side) for free last year, so I now fill that with oranges in season, too.) Oranges usually go on sale for .99 a pound, but I look for prices around .35 a pound (that happen only once or twice during orange season) and then I buy half a cart full of oranges.
Earlier this year I found a deal on green peppers at Winco. Wincos prices change daily; that day they actually changed by noon (my mom went back to get some two hours later and they had changed the price). They had green bell peppers for .10 each. That is not a normal sale price for here–that is something amazing that I have never seen before! I bought 65–I spent $6.50.
At home, I washed them, and I cut them into slices. I put a silicone baking mat
Once the slices were frozen, I transferred them to freezer bags. Because they were frozen individually, I can get out just how many I need to throw in a stir fry or to use for fajitas.
I did this same thing earlier this year with broccoli crowns. They were at an amazing price, so I bought half a cart full.
I brought it home and cut it up. I rinsed it and then I blanched it. If you have never blanched vegetables, the process is simple: You drop the vegetables in boiling water for 45 seconds, and then you transfer them to an ice bath (I used a dishpan of ice water next to the stove). When they are cooled, drain them. When they are dry, freeze them individually (i.e., not touching) on the silicone baking mat on a cookie sheet.
If you don’t garden, eating seasonally can seem like a mystery. What are the seasons for different things?
The answer varies by location. Strawberries are is season in Florida in February, in Southern California in March, and in New York in June. I have a large number of readers in Australia who are going to have completely different months for everything. Blackberries ripen in my garden in May, but my readers in England won’t be picking them until fall. Where you live plays a huge part on when items are ripe.
I found a great list here by season that can give you some ideas. Watch the ads in your area, and you’ll come to know when the fruits and vegetables you buy at their peak, which is also when they are at the lowest price.
When it comes time to pack a lunch for your children this winter, you can put in a lidded container with canned peaches that you purchases for .49 a pound. You can put in oranges several times over a few months with oranges that you purchased on sale. You can make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with homemade jam, or send a turkey salad sandwich with apples that you bought in the fall for .79 a pound and kept for several months in the refrigerator and some sprouts that you grew in your own kitchen that week.
What is ripe where you are at right now? What produce do you buy in large quantities to save money for the year?
Is it a creamy soup? I make a soup after Thanksgiving with wild rice and dark turkey meat and sauerkraut. I have seen people put sausage in instead.
Paula can you please share the sauerkraut soup recipe
I live in the deep south and the humidity is what foils long term potato storage here. Last year for several different weeks Aldi’s had potatoes on sale 10# for $1.00. The first couple of bags I bought were fine since we ate them fairly quickly. The 3rd -6th bag did not fare so well. (I had even gotten an old burlap coffee bag to keep them in so they would be rather flat and air could circulate. No one liked sprouted or almost liquid potatoes) Rather than lose more food inventory, I started researching various ways to preserve them. I tried dehydrating them following several different methods of preparing them. I am linking to the one that worked best for me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8WJGbaF9wQ. Since I am only storing them for one year, I did not bother using oxygen absorbers. I simply used my seal a meal and they have been great. It is also a great space saver in terms of storing them. A 10 pound bag of potatoes becomes little more than one large plastic bag of dehydrated ones. This fall/winter when they are cheap again I plan on getting at least 10 bags. For some of the larger potatoes that were more of a baking size I made twice baked potatoes and froze them. I used this as a guide http://www.southernplate.com/2009/10/loaded-potatoes-make-em-and-freeze-em.html but used minced vidalia onions rather than scallions, which I think are too slimy when frozen and thawed. A potato and a salad became an easy meal. We added leftover chili to a couple of them. Another reason to always save those half cups of leftovers!Both of these methods worked well for very humid climate.
My parents have mentioned a story about my grandmother and her “exploding” canner in the past. That and the one time I used it last year, I ended up with jars that had dented rings afterwards, I assume because the pressure wasn’t right the whole time. Though I was sitting right at the table trying to keep it adjusted properly on our gas stove.
I think my fear of canners goes back to my formative years and being shooed out the kitchen by either grandma and various aunts because “the pressure is on and you kinder go somewheres else.” My mother never used a pressure canner as far as I remember, we did not have one.
I will try this too. We like the “more with less” thought of cooking so often replace meat with something else.
Hi Anne, Thanks for sharing the links. I love the twice baked potato idea! I dehydrate potatoes but haven’t thought to make twice baked and freeze. What a time saver that would be!!
Anne, the sauerkraut soup recipe: In large pan, saute 1 LB. chopped smoked sausage and one chopped large onion, until sausage is browned, about eight minutes. Combine 1/4 c. flour, 1/2 t. dried thyme leaves, and 1/2 t. black pepper. Add to the sausage/onion mixture and brown until mixture bubbles up. Add all at once 3 c. milk and 1 c. half and half, and cook, stirring, until the mixture bubbles up. Add 1, 10 oz. can of sauerkraut, including juice, and bring to a boil. This will thicken. If not tart enough for you, add 1 1/2 T. lemon juice. Add 2 T. finely chopped fresh parsley.
Athanasia, it is creamy. It will seem just milky until you add the sauerkraut. It causes a chemical reaction that does the thickening. See my reply to Anne.
My parents used both the water bath and pressure canning methods. Mother was fearless with the pressure cooker and never had an accident, but I heard of others who had. It always gave me the creeps when the pressure cooker was going in the kitchen and I stayed well clear of it. Plus, the gardening and canning desire gene absolutely skipped a generation with me.
Paula, it kind of sounds similar. I use poultry seasoning. Maybe mine is a WI version what with the wild rice.
Thanks, Anne. I just moved from Maine (the potato capital – I grew 200 pounds of them each year and they kept all year) to South Carolina, where I can’t keep a 5-lb. bag without them sprouting or going bad. (Let’s not even discuss the fact that I can’t get them to grow here yet!) I dehydrated a bunch last year – it worked out well. I’m going to try your twice-baked & frozen idea.
Thank you very much Paula! I will be trying this soon.
Do any of you ladies have suggestions of how to keep your deep freeze (chest style) organized? ACK! Mine is so unorganized that I can’t find things I know are in there, and it just seems like a black hole of food .
Even in my large top-of-fridge freezer, I use organizer baskets. Just two wire freezer baskets from Lowe’s, but they help a lot. In a chest freezer, you might try a couple of those wire coated “shelf” organizers, with baskets under them, or plastic milk crates that stack, etc. I use lots of these in my closets, too.
Skipped my mother also. Said she did enough growing up for a lifetime. My father was a city boy, they moved a lot due to their mission. Often we were in an apartment. But she always had at least a tomato plant and a pepper. She still does at her retirement apartment. When she canned jam back then we still just put the paraffin on to seal the hot jars.
and keep a list of contents. cross off and add to list as things used and replenished.
Formerly I had a chest freezer and used plastic milk crates as organizers. All the blue ones were fruits and veggies and the red ones were meat, fish and poultry. Everything else was in pink crates I found at the dollar store. I am one of those flat pack freezer type people so the bottoms of the crates were filled with flat packages of frozen veggies or fruits. On top of them i packed the bags vertically so I could just flip through them to find what I wanted.I could fit 2 layers of milk crates and 1 layer of the smaller pink crates deep. Any empty space was filled with loaves of bread or frozen water bottles It worked pretty well. Now I have an upright freezer and still have not figured out exactly how to organize it best.
Dollar stores are a good source of cheap plastic organizers, some small enough to put two side by side on a shelf in an upright freezer. Or at least one container on a shelf, with other goods stacked beside it.
Great idea to color-code things! Thanks.
I know this will show my true ignorance. I am trying to get into this frugal lifestyle more than I am especially with the foods “in season.” So my question is, How do I know what fruits / vegetables are in season? I know when strawberries and peaches and okra are “in.” Is there a link you have that can tell me specifically for my area? We have several church friends who have provided us with Okra this summer. So blessed and appreciative of that.
Brandy has a wealth of info on her website as well as this blog. If you are looking for more info, you can google “USDA What’s in season this season.” Quite a bit of info there. While you are looking through your sale flyers at any given time during the year, the “in season” fruits and veggies are usually the ones with the best sales.
Where do you get all those canning jars? Do you buy new lids each time or reusable? I am finding the cost of jars cost-prohibitive.
I have a lot of jars that didn’t cost me anything! If you let people know that you are looking for canning jars, you may be blessed with jars from older women whose children are grown who are no longer canning. I have accumulated many jars like that. I have a friend who found several dozen jars at a garage sale for me for a very low price. My mom then found several dozen more at garage sales. I later found a dozen and the others I have bought new, gradually adding to my supply. I have been canning for 10 years now. The cost of jars is only in the beginning, but then it is a cost you don’t have to have.Tattler reusable lids are quite expensive, but then you don’t have to keep buying them, so it may be something that you want to do for some of your lids.There are usually some coupons online for lids in June (there have been the last couple of years) that you can print and use for lids. Sometimes there are coupons for pectin.Wide-mouth jars are more expensive than regular mouth jars–both to purchase and for the lids, so if you can in regular mouth jars it will cost you less. I have a combination of both, but I reach for the regular mouth jars first.Start with a couple dozen jars the first year and then add to it. But get the word out. It might take a while, but there are jars out there from women who are no longer canning.
The link I gave you in the article above can give you some great information, and Susan’s information in the comment below is helpful as well.