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This week The 4 Moms of 35+ Kids are discussing food preservation.
For a large family, finding a big sale on a favorite food is both exciting and challenging.
I usually try to buy enough of the item to feed our family immediately and enough to freeze, can, or store in the pantry without clearing the shelves. I want to leave enough for others to enjoy while thinking of my family’s immediate needs and in the days to come.
One option for preserving foods is canning.
In this How to Can Strawberry Jam tutorial, I show step by step photos of the canning process.
You can find canning basics for preserving all kinds of food, which can come in very handy if you have an abundance of garden produce or find a sale on perishable foods.
If you have extra freezer space, another way to preserve food is freezing.
If you know how to flash freeze, you can preserve bananas and other foods, like I did when I made these frozen chocolate banana pops with bananas I found on sale for only $1 a bag. I bought several bags and set to work preserving them before they went bad.
One way NOT to preserve food is to leave a 25 pound bag of flour in the sack it came in so it can get wet and moldy when there is a water leak in the room it is stored in. I definitely need to invest in some large food grade storage containers to put my bulk staple items in.
Do you buy sale items in bulk? Do you have food preservation tips to add? Help us out and leave them in the comments!
And then check out what the rest of my 4 Moms team shares about food preservation:
Other posts in this series
- How to Easily Cut Homemade Bread
- The 4 Moms Head to Church With 35 Kids
- 4 Moms Answer Reader Questions
- 4 Moms Teach History
- 4 Moms Eat Inexpensively While Traveling
- How To Keep Kids Still and Quiet During Worship
- 4 Moms Answer Reader Questions
- 4 Moms Reveal Where Babies Come From
- Summertime Company Meals
- How to Lose Baby Weight
- Large Family Moms Answer Your Questions
- 4 Moms Choose a Church
- Favorite Naptime or Bedtime Read Aloud Books
- Homeschooling a Child With Learning Differences
- 4 Moms Picnic Linky
- 4 Moms Announce a Book Club!
- Teaching Children Diligence
- 4 Moms Discuss Lunch Menus {Linky}
- 4 Moms Interview Kim Brenneman, Author of Large Family Logistics
- 4 Moms Discuss "Large Family Logistics"
- 4 Moms Discuss Managing the Week ~ Large Family Logistics
- 4 Moms Review Chapters 28 - 47 in Large Family Logistics
- 4 Moms Finish Reviewing "Large Family Logistics"
- The 4 Moms Keep Our Patience in the Midst of Chaos
- 4 Moms Pack a Lunch
- 4 Moms Discuss Memorizing {and 2 GIVEAWAYS}
- Keeping Up With Housework in the Midst of Homeschooling
- 4 Moms Tackle Large Projects
- 4 Moms Q & A
- Food Storage For Large Families
- Best Vehicle For a Large Family
- 4 Moms Celebrate Thanksgiving
- Preparing Children to Deal With Differing Beliefs
- Favorite Holiday Recipe {Linky}
- 4 Moms of 35 Kids Go Christmas Shopping
- 4 Moms of 35 Kids Answer Reader Questions
- How Do You Organize ALL Those Clothes?
- 4 Moms Q&A
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- 4 Moms Share Favorite Desserts
- 4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Questions
- 4 Moms Discuss Storing Keepsakes
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- 4 Moms Q&A Time
- Large Family Moms Homeschool Through Chronic Illness and Pregnancy
- Large Family Moms Serve Leftovers
- Favorite Frugal Tips of Large Family Moms
- How Do Large Family Moms Manage Everything? {4 Moms Q&A}
- Homeschooling Through Bad Attitudes
- Teaching Children to Cook
- How Did Large Family Moms Know They Could Handle a Large Family?
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- Favorite Freezer Meals
- 4 Moms of 35+ Kids Discuss Dating and Courtship
- How Do You Manage the Home While Nursing a Baby?
- How to Begin Homeschooling With a 5 Year Old
- How Do Large Families Handle Older Children Disciplining the Younger Children?
- 4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Reader Questions
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- Favorite Fruit Recipes {LINKY}
- 4 Moms Discuss First Weeks With a New Baby
- 4 Moms Answer Questions About Sharing, Boys, College, and MORE!
- 4 Moms Handle Different Standards Between Husband and Wife
- Kids and Electronics - What Age and How Much is Too Much? {4 Moms}
- 4 Moms Discuss Food Preservation
- 4 Moms Discuss Laundry, Labor, and Clothes Management
- Large Families Keep Up With Technology
- Giving Food as Gifts
- 4 Moms Answer Questions About Christmas
- Quick and Easy Christmas Crafts
- Quick and Easy Holiday Recipes
- 4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Questions on Preschool, Homeschooling with a Newborn, and More
- On Encouraging Self Sufficiency in Children
- 4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Questions
- 4 Moms Answer Reader Questions
- 4 Moms Talk Buddy System, Dinner Recipes, Hand-Me-Downs, and Sharing
- 4 Moms Q&A - Birthdays, Switching Seasonal Clothes, and Grieving a Stillborn Baby
- 4 Moms Discuss Difficult News Stories, Naptime, and Sleeping Through the Night
- 4 Moms Answer Questions About Personal Space, 15 Passenger Vans, and Dawdling
- 4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Questions About Seating Arrangements, Snacks, and Books
- 4 Moms Answer Questions About Sharing, Church, and Extreme Honesty
{ 3 comments }
If you’re looking for an inexpensive food-grade container for those 25 lb bags of flour/sugar/etc – my local Sam’s Club bakery gets their frostings in large plastic pails. I asked at the bakery and they gave me two of them for free. My huge bags of flour/sugar can go right in there, they seal tight, and are food grade.
Several years ago we bought some 5 gallon buckets from Pleasant Hill Grain – easy to find – but here’s the best thing — they come with screw on lids!!! Yes, incredibly convenient plus they stay sealed tight. So we store flour in there that we buy in bulk, in addition to rice, cornmeal, etc. What a blessing – I can’t believe more places don’t carry this.
A deep freeze is definitely one of the best purchases you can make for a large family – ours is chock full of a zillion different things that we’ve bought in bulk when we find a good sale. Now if I could just stay organized enough to remember what’s at the bottom of that freezer….
I was actually thinking of approaching a local donut shop and asking for some of their five gallon buckets for my food storage needs. They get fondant and icing in them.