A Well Stocked Kitchen

Doing laundry tonight in the basement, I was admiring my shelves of canned goods.  It's exciting to me to be able to feed my family with so much home grown, local organic foods that have been prepared and canned or frozen by us.  In our home we try and reduce our waste so an added bonus about home canning is the reusing of the jars instead of the throwing out of the store bought cans.  Also our glass jars definitely aren't coated with BPA like almost ALL of the cans from the store.

So here is the inventory of our preserved foods.  I wish I had a count of each item, but I have forgotten how many we put up when we did.  I hope my efforts will last for the year but I know some things will run out and need to be replaced with food from my grocery store.

Frozen:

• 1/4 side of beef from a 4H cow (we do this every year and it always lasts just about a year)
• several whole chickens & various cut up ones including a bag of chicken necks, gross 
• 30 quart-sized bags of sweet corn
• 7 quart-sized bags of blackberries
• 17 quart-sized bags of blueberries
• pint-sized bags of strawberries cut up with sugar added
• 25 pounds of asparagus in gallon-sized bags

Canned:

• 15 pint jars of peaches
• 8 pint jars of pears
• 36 pint jars of applesauce
• both quart and pint jars of green beans (lots and lots)
• 10 pint jars of dill pickles
• 7 pint jars of pickle relish
• 22 pint jars of salsa
• 9 quart jars of whole tomatoes (wish I had 5 times this amount)
• 5 pint jars of butternut squash
• 7 quart jars of chicken soup

Stored:

• Carrots
• Onions (quickly running out)

I just wonder how much money all of this is saving us.  I know it's healthier and more environmentally friendly, but those aren't measurable.  If I get bored one day (unlikely) and have some time on my hands (never happens) I will try and figure the dollar figure of savings out.