Prepped Living Blog

We love barbecue sauce, but dislike having to choose between an affordable sauce that has high fructose corn syrup or one that is more expensive but uses a better sweetener option. One of my goals this year was to can more sauces since we go through them so quickly.  In the past, we have canned Asian plum sauce, which we enjoy with meat, veggies, and rice or with Asian noodles. If you read this blog on a regular basis, you know we recently tried a cherry bbq sauce recipe that we like, but I didn't have enough to fill a canner. This past week we were again invited to our friends' house to pick cherries. They had invited several people over to pick, but with a loaded tree and not enough people interested, the cherries were still plentiful and about to get overripe.  In a short amount of time, I filled my two small buckets. I ended up with ten pounds of cherries.  I was excited to have enough for a double batch of the cherry barbecue sauce. I pitted six pounds for the sauce ...

Orange mint is one of my favorites both for tea and lemon mint water. Thankfully, our orange mint plant grew well this year and today was the day to harvest. We made lemon mint water then filled the dehydrator. Since there was still some left, I tied the rest of the mint into a bundle to hang in the attic.  I am hoping to get one more harvest off the plant before winter. Late last week, our good friends and neighbors invited us over to pick cherries from their very loaded tree. We ended up with about four pounds (which hardly put a dent in the amount on the tree), so we decided to try a new recipe: cherry barbecue sauce.  I initially wanted to can the barbecue sauce, but since our stove is not working properly, we will give a jar to each of our daughters and keep the remaining jars in the refrigerator to use in the next week or so. It looks like barbecue beef is on the menu! 

Our eldest daughter got married this past Saturday, which is the reason for my recent absence on the blog. It was a lovely summer wedding.  The bride and bridesmaids wore flower crowns and the groom and groomsmen wore kilts (a nod to the groom's Scottish heritage and a tradition in his family). It was wonderful to see the family and friends of both families who traveled to the area to support the bride and groom. While preparing for a wedding does not typically fall into the realm of self-sufficiency and preparedness, many of the principles for accomplishing any preparedness task without breaking the bank apply. Check the website  later this week where I will post tips on prepping for a wedding (or any other event). 

With an upcoming family wedding for which to prepare, the past week has been busy. Wedding preparations have included making and freezing cake pops and learning how to make flower crowns for the bridesmaids. This has been a wonderful year so far for weddings. We have been invited to four weddings between April and July.  We have one more special wedding to go and then our 2023 wedding season will draw to a close. The Fourth of July was nice and warm. We had a lovely time with family and friends. Outside of that, I have spent my free time this past week preserving cherries, picking serviceberries, drying herbs, and tending to the garden. Serviceberries  - The serviceberries are ripening, so I have been picking every day or two for the last week.  They do not all ripen at once and since the birds love them as much as we do, I try to pick what I can when I can before the birds eat them all. The first day I picked I probably only got three cups. As the season has worn on, the...