How I stocked up for winter

Lately I have felt a bit like a squirrel gathering up what feels like a mountain of food for the winter. But at the end of the day, stocking up like this saves money, allows us to eat healthier conveniently, and keeps us organic for cheap.

- we have piles of red tomatoes from our summer garden in the garage, on the counters, boiling on the stove to be turned into pasta and pizza sauce to be canned

- I have washed and chopped about 100 pounds of organic pears, peaches and nectarines. Some are in the freezer ready to provide the fresh taste of a yummy soft fruit, mid-winter (for a fraction of the cost).

-I have a couple of 20 pound boxes of organic fuji apples waiting to be turned into applesauce, dehydrated for apple chips, or just eaten!

- our dehydrator is constantly whirring with herbs from the garden, pears, peaches, nectarines, fruit leathers, and tomatoes slowly dehydrating for easy winter storage

- 25 pound bags of organic brown rice and rolled oats are quietly waiting in 5 gallon buckets in the garage (http://www.azurestandard.com/)

- basil, turned into pesto, is conveniently frozen in quart size Ziplock bags and stacked neatly like books on a bookshelf in the freezer

-our 1/4 of an organic, free-range, grain fed cow should be ready any day to provide the bulk of our meat for the winter

-10 pounds each of organic lentils, green peas, white navy beans adorn the pantry along with 25 pounds of organic pinto beans (we love our refried beans!) await future winter stews

-5 pounds each of organic quinoa, bulger wheat, barley, long grain brown rice, and millet as well as 25 pounds of rice pasta sit next to the beans waiting to be matched up with their bean partner for a complete protein meal

- all winter I will still be able to get our raw goat milk to make our ricotta cheese and for drinking (I will post my recipe for making your own cheese in a future post coming soon!) as well as free range chicken eggs from a local farm

-5 pounds of sunflower seeds and 5 pounds of wheat germ

- I plan to start up my sprouting rotation for fresh and organic, enzyme rich green sprouts for the winter (I have broccoli seed, alfalfa seed, mung bean, chia seed, flax, and lentils stocked up to sprout).

Storing up saves money and allows us to remain organic. I didn't spend $2.99/pound on organic peaches and nectarines but stocked up when I could get them for $15 per 20 pound box. We grew about 150 pounds of tomatoes to stock the pantry with organic pasta and pizza sauces, stewed tomatoes, and ketchup. Basil is bursting with life from the sun of August in late summer, so we harvested it all up and turned it into pesto for future dinners.

You get the idea. Eating organic is not an option for us. It turned my husband's inherited disease of psoriasis from debilitating to non existent as eating organic has cleaned up his liver and allowed his body to take care of the psoriasis. It turned around the virus I caught that debilitated me for 2 years (Epstein Barr which can lead into Chronic Fatigue syndrom or mono). It has allowed us to rarely catch a cold - our systems our clean and getting cleaner as I learn more and do more - and able to combat the virus and bacteria mayhem outside our doors.

Eating whole foods that are organic are one of the key ways we have gone from sick and tired to vibrant and healthy. We now play outside instead of wait for our names to be called for our next doctor visit.