Pertaining to the thread about rising food prices, I thought I'd start one on current prices around tRed meathe country. I went shopping (on my own) yesterday, as
my weekly Tuesday flyer for grocery sales starting every Wed/Sunday seems like
prices were dipping, well, they were, here is a list of prices:

1. Alvocado's/2 for 1.00
2. Cherries/1.49pd.
3. banana's/.49pd.
4. lean beef 80%/1.97 to list a few from both Ralphs and Vons (Safeway).
I buy day old bread (Ralphs) for .99 and freeze it, 12 grain normally
2.99 a loaf.

I just saw a PBS Ohio Farmer's report today. The food prices that will likely rise will be those dependant on corn: poultry and beef. This rise probably will not be seen for a month or 2.

I have extra canning jars on hand and hubby planted about two acres this time. I can preserve my own produce and we have an agreement with a farmer friend of ours who raises organic beef. Her organic 95% lean hamburger goes for all of $2.50 a pound. If corn goes up that much it might go to $3.00 a pound for the meat. Last year she just plain gave us 8 pot roasts because there wasn't room in her freezer.

Cettie, your good to go, no wonder you coook those amazing dinners.
My point was to see just how high prices will go in the next couple of months,
by comparing to what they are now.

Are we going to be comparing apples to apples or apples to oranges?

Lisa - I was chastised recently on the forum for comparing apples and oranges, so I suppose we must compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges. I'm not sure what to do about all the berries. I am also highly concerned about squash. Do you think we should lump all the squash together or should we divide it up according to the type of squash, such as zucchini, butternut, yellow, etc. The squash is weighing heavily on my mind as I had a mixed squash dish for lunch today and it was quite tasty. I think we can put purple and green cabbage together, or at least adjacent to one another. Perhaps all the floppy greens (collards, mustard, kale, spinach and so forth) could be calculated together. What do you have in mind? And who is keeping up with this? And when will we get updates? Are you the person in charge? Is Irene the person in charge? Or is it Techman? Someone needs to make sense of this chaos.

The price of animal based products for my own consumption is of only passing interest as I am running as close as possible to vegan. This is not a matter of personal preference as what I would really like is a good chicken fried steak with a brown, crispy crust smothered in rich, greasy cream gravy and served with homemade hot biscuits (made with lard, of course) and followed by apple pie with vanilla ice cream and caramel sauce. Would I feel guilty? Dream on. But I digress, so sorry.

A matter more pressing than my diet issues is the catastrophic increase in the price of dry cat food. Premium bagged cat food in the large bags has already gone up a couple of dollars a bag. My yard based tomcats, BBob and Ollie, are not cooperating in my plan to control expenses. There are presently at least four litters of kittens here and there around the place and their mamas are keenly vocal and insistent regarding the food flow. I will keep you posted on the cat food if you will keep me posted on the squash. That's provided you are in charge, so let me know your status. Best regards.

MDavisnowell, I hear ya! We have a horse farm and people just drop cats off at the barn. Needless to say... I'm too much of a sucker to shoo them off. We also have 3 older indoor cats. I am also concerned with the cat food prices, they just go up-up-up! By the way, we get all of the barn cats "fixed" so don't even get me started with the vet bills!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/2012 04:29AM by peachgirl.

Yikes, our organic tomato plants are topping out above 7 feet and producing like mad. The jalapenos produing faster that I can absorb them into the fresh diet. Has anyone any experience with freezing salsa?

One of the giant tomato plants and its 6 foot tall cage was blown over in a recent storm and totally wiped out the zuccini plants. (The squash was, ahem, squashed.) However, the tomato plant survived and has been braced with bamboo stakes. We will be the only people around with a zuccini shortage though! I expect to trade tomatoes for squash.

Wouldn't salsa be a good candidate for canning? Cettie and r@iny seem to the be experts there;

If it was me, I would can the salsa.

I'd love to take credit for being an expert - but I'm just a jammer. LOL! I've never branched out into other aspects of canning. I grew up with my mom freezing everything from our garden. Two of my MIL's though are definitely experts - they lined their entire basements (and had shelves built alongside those rickety, wooden, farmhouse basement stairs) with canned goods!



LisaSTL Wrote:
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> Wouldn't salsa be a good candidate for canning?
> Cettie and r@iny seem to the be experts there;

I "think" you can put salsa in a plastic freezer bag, it thaw's in an hour, or can, but seems like so much more work.

Since I'm definitely not a cat person, I'll leave my thread until the cats disappear, and the food comes back.....prices here are so low, (for those that care), interested in seeing how high it goes, that's all folks!!

I have such dreadful memories of canning for days and days on end in August, in an unairconditioned house, that I tend to shudder at the thought. I was hoping that freezing in my vacuum sealed bag gizmo would work.

I would can the salsa, freezing it makes it watery and squishy. Since it's acidic you can do it in hot water bath instead of pressure canning.

We need a thread on how to can, lol.

No thanks, my ex Mother-in-law did enough for 2 lifetimes. Living alone I'll buy my perserves.

I have frozen salsa if it is the pureed type but if you are using small chunks of cut up tomatoes for a pico de gallo I do not think it would freeze well. I agree with Cettie and think it would separate. But the pureed kind you can just stir the liquid back in. I freeze a lot of stuff. Trial and error. Los Angeles just does not feel like a canning city. We have no cellars to put our cans in. No barns with storage areas, no barns without storage areas, no attics either. In fact most of us have no room in our kitchens for large canning equiptment.
But we do have Irene and good prices on produce. California is not part of this countrywide drought and hottest of hot weather. We are on our own drought watch every year but this year although it has not rained much, that just means it rained one day this year instead of two. I just stocked up on cereal at the 4/$10 sale which included a gallon of milk for free! Cereal will probably be increasing in price so I have just enough to last until the prices go up. As for meat, I do not eat it much but I heard that temporarily there will be a glut on the market as farmers who cannot afford to feed their cattle will slaughter them so the price will go down (good if you have a freezer) and then up for the future when there are not enough of them left. Produce like citrus is not from the worst hit part of the country, so I would think comparing apples to oranges would not be a good bet. Apples to pears maybe. Or at least green apples to green pears.

My tomatoes, onions and peppers are also doing well. I like ancho-chili catsup, cocktail sauce, and chow chow (all keep about a month in the fridge) Fried green tomatoes, once or twice. Fresh Bloody Mary's are awesome.

Chopped tomatoes don't freeze well. If you puree salsa/tomato sauces and reduce them, they will freeze better. My first year of canning was kinda fun. Three or four years of that and it was a total drudge. That was the end of canning for me.

dried salsa?... i know you can dry tomatoes... they work pretty well... if canning is no good and freezing doesnt work then you could try that... not sure about the jalapenos... the machines are about the size of a microwave...

here it depends on where you go... prices on meat varies so much... meh... and i rarely buy fresh produce... i like my vitamins... so much cheaper...

i do notice that things are falling off the 99 cent/dollar/value menus at fast food resteraunts like flys...

*shakes fist at a world that forces him to spend more than a dollar on a sandwich*