Monthly Goals Update: February, 2022

Here's something I haven't done in years:  A monthly goal update!

When it comes to monthly goals, I'm a week down on time and didn't get QUITE as much done as I'd hoped to get done.  Life gets in the way, as they say.  But, I did check a few things off of my list, so let's get to those!

1.  I canned some beans!

Okay, so I canned what Adzuki beans I had (1 lb) and it ended up being exactly four pints.  But, overall, I was happy to get that done as pressure canning things for 75 minutes...it takes a while *laugh*.

I'm hoping to work on getting some other types of beans canned this week, such as pinto and black beans, but we'll see how far I get.

2.  I canned the frozen cranberries!

I made the cranberries into "Cranberry Orange Relish" which really was just a fancy way of saying cranberry orange sauce, but that's okay.  This recipe actually ended up being tasty and a bit different.  I normally would just can plain cranberry sauce if I had cranberries left over that I had to use up.  But, I also had an orange in the fridge that I wanted to use up.  So, I took the zest from the orange and then cut the orange up and the daughter and I split the orange segments for a snack while I was waiting for the canner to heat up.

I was even able to use a couple of tablespoons of the ginormous bottle of rum we have in the recipe.  The alcohol cooked out quickly and I have to say if I had to do it again I doubt I would use the alcohol at all.  It really didn't add anything to the recipe, I feel.  The cranberry orange flavor kind of overpowered anything the rum might have added to the flavor.

I used this recipe, but I halved it as I only had one bag of cranberries to use up (although I did keep the zest of one orange instead of doing a half...it lent a very nice orange flavor to the sauce).  It worked well and I ended up with four 8 oz. jelly jars full of the cranberry orange sauce to use with various meat dishes later on :).

3.  I started to budget out for the Subscribe and Save order.

We were paid last week and I made sure to put 1/2 of the Subscribe and Save order budget into a separate spot so that I'd have it for when I needed it later.

4.  I started to reorganize the pantry to accommodate new food storage.

I started to empty out the one set of pantry shelves that doesn't hold canning racks and the plan is to start reorganizing things so that everything I make will fit in the pantry well and be SEEN so that nothing goes to waste.  We'll see how well that works out.

This week's goals:

1.  Reorganize the fridge freezer to see if I can fit the ice cream bowl in it in preparation for making home made ice cream for daughter's birthday.

2.  Make plan for Valentine's Day and figure out what we are going to dip in the fondue and what treats we will make for it.

3.  Try to fix work outfit for son.

4.  Can more beans.

5.  Make sugar cookie dough and freeze.

6.  Continue to work on pantry and get things put away.

7.  Reorganize the son's room (I'll talk more on that necessity later).

 And there you go folks.  Some of the things I've gotten done and the goals I would like to accomplish this week.  Hope things are going well for you as well!