Eggs in the Freezer?

I have always been told that you cannot freeze eggs. Lo and behold.... ta da.... The Truth!

A - freaking - mazing.

Why didn't anyone tell me about this sooner? This information would have been useful when eggs were on sale at Fred Meyer last week for $0.97 a dozen. Had I known, I would have bought a LOT more than six dozen. I would have scrambled them and frozen them in ice cube trays, which would have equated to about 1 egg, and then popped them out and put them in freezer bags for up to a YEAR! Think of all the money I could have saved...

Also, good to know if/when we get chickens.

Local Family Co-Op?

I've heard of homeschool co-ops, and farmer co-ops, but how cool would be if there were a way or place where I could connect with other local families who are interested in providing their families with healthy, homemade and as much as possible homegrown goods?

I'm sure this isn't an original idea. I, for example, am getting pretty good at baking bread. I just started my first ever seeds for my first ever vegetable garden, so I can't say yet how that will go, but if the bamboo plant in my office is any indication the farmers' market won't be losing my business this year. I would love to have chickens, but I don't really have the time to devote to that right now, or the space for that matter. I have tried canning and quilting, neither of which seem to come easily or naturally to me and yet I try because I like to know whats in my food and yada yada yada.

What if I could find five or six other families who like homemade bread made with home ground flour, but don't have the time, equipment, or desire. Instead maybe these other families have fruit trees, or chickens, or a large vegetable garden, or raise meat, or have diary cows. So for giving me X lbs of apples X times a year you and your family would get X loaves of bread year round. Not a bad deal if you ask me.

Rather than spending my weekends clipping coupons, running from store to store to store looking for the best deals I could spend my time baking bread, which I already do and thoroughly enjoy. In return I could get farm fresh eggs, organic local produce - some maybe even processed and canned already, meat that is not pumped full of hormones, fresh milk, and who knows what else. The possibilities are truly endless.

Has anyone ever tried and succeeded (or failed) at this? I don't even know where or how I might go about getting connected to the right kind of people for this kind of project, but I think it could be a fantastic blessings through these hard times.

Trimming the Fruitless Branches

We do not have fruit trees and the closest thing I have to a green thumb is the broccoli stuck between my teeth. Nonetheless with spring and all of it's symbolic newness I have decided to spring clean my life by trimming my fruitless branches. I have finally, after a year of insisting that this is not the case, decided that I am too busy. I work part time, substitute teach when jobs are available, am in a women's Bible study, a marriage class, a couple's Bible study, church, gym 3-4x a week, training for my first real race, volunteer commitments, my fair share of the household responsibilities, and school testing fast approaching (which I should be studying for right now.)

Greg isn't any less busy. He's going to school full time, doing the GI Joe thing when duty calls, and is starting his new job (Praise God!). We are lucky if we get one evening a week at home together that resembles anything remotely like relaxation and I'm just sick of running the rat race. That's why we left California... for a slower pace of living and a much higher quality of life. Well will someone please tell me when having a "high quality of life" meant being the busiest?

Looking ahead to the summer and all of the days at the lake, bbq's with friends, hiking, gardening, and the list of other things we'd like to do just don't seem possible with what we're currently juggling. There may be more hours of daylight, but there are still only 24 hours in a day. So on to my point: I am trimming the fruitless branches in my life. There are things I am doing right now that, no matter how much I enjoy them, are not bearing any "fruit." These branches need to be trimmed so that my energy can be applied to other areas of my life that are bearing "fruit."

I hope that someday I will look back at my tree and feel like I made good choices.

Canning Catastrophe

My pressure canner and I aren't getting along very well. I bought it used on Craigslist and it seems to be in perfect working order so I can only assume that we have an operator error on our hands. I'm about ready to throw the canner in the garbage, so any advice or encouragement is welcome!

First let me update you on the vegetable soup I made a week or two ago: The flavor of the broth was delicious, a few of the cans lost enough liquid that I believe some could be called a vegetable stew, and the vegetables were such mush that there was absolutely no texture at all. Not entirely enjoyable, but edible. In the USDA book it says to hot pack, so does that mean I could fill the jars with my veggies and then just pour the hot broth over the top, would that help with the sogginess?

I canned dried black beans this weekend following the USDA guidelines to a T. I did one canner load of pints with no problems. Several of them did lose from 1/2 to 1 inch of liquid, but I figured that some of that was due in part to absorption as the beans cooked. When I did my second canner load I decided to do quarts. This time I increased my liquid:bean ratio by a good amount hoping to compensate for absorption. I processed them as directed (90 min. @ 15#) and 4 of the 6 in the load did not seal and some appeared to have lost ALL of their liquid. Of the cans that didn't seal were both wide mouth and regular, so I know it's not my lids. I wiped them before putting the lids on, as I always do, so I have no idea what went wrong. The cans sat out on the counter overnight, so I don't know if they're still good or not. I have absolutely no desire to try to reprocess them and even if I did wouldn't they be so overcooked that the nutrients, flavor and texture would pretty much be destroyed? What can I do with them in the meantime? Can I bring them back to a boil and then freeze them? Make chili and try to can that? I keep thinking that if I threw them out it'd only be $2 or $3 and that doesn't bother me nearly as much as throwing away an entire Sunday afternoon. I think Costco will be getting my bean business back.