I'm a HUGE cranberry fan! Gotta go to the store today! :)

Beth

Beth,

Being the early arrivals, they were high at our store. I'll probably buy a bag or two, and then wait for them to go on sale closer to Thanksgiving!! If I catch them on sale, I'll buy a bunch.

Dawn

I'm waiting for the sweet potatoes to go on sale so I can stock up. Last year found them for $.25/lb. Still almost a dollar a pound here. Next year I think I'll raise my own again.

I don't think we're seeing food, and especially fresh produce, on sale as often this year. Either that, or my timing is off, and I keep missing it.

I've caught a few good produce bargains in the stores this year, but they've been few and far between.

Around here NOTHING has been on sale... honestly. My best grocery store has had packs of veggies for sale for five dollars (about three zukes or some other veggie in a pack)... NOT a bargain. I hate buying veggies in a pack anyway, you don't know if they're good untill you get them home.
We're doing alot of frozen veggies, and canned tomatoes... since I didn't have a good year for squash or tomatoes.
I'm going to the store today, will see what they have.

Beth

Cranberries!! Oh, I love cranberries! I'll be on the lookout next time I hit the store, which will likely be November some time. Hope they're on sale by then.

Diane

Dawn
For the cranberry jalapeno recipe, will the pectin in the cranberry sub for vinegar? I really don't care for the vinegar taste in jalapeno jellies.

Barbara

Barbara,

I think that every cranberry-jalapeno jelly recipe I've ever seen includes vinegar because it is a safety issue--peppers are low acid so you have to add the vinegar (or an approved acidic substitute) to keep the jelly pH high enough to be safe.

If you don't like the vinegar taste, there's a couple of options, although not all that many. You could use apple cider vinegar instead of white vinegar because it generally has a more pleasant flavor. Or, you could substitute some other flavored vinegar like red wine vinegar or white basalmic vinegar.

I also think it would be acceptable, safety-wise, to substitute an equivalent amount of bottled lemon juice for the vinegar, but I do not know if it would be acceptable, flavor-wise.

I found a thread on pepper jellies in the Harvest Forum that addresses the lemon juice/vinegar issue and in it, DigDirt (and others) discuss substituting lemon juice for vinegar, so I linked it below.

I do have a recipe from Ellie Topp's Small Batch Preserving book that only uses 3/4 C. apple cider, which is less than the BBB and NCHFP recipes, so if you want me to post it here, let me know, and I'll be happy to do so.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Lemon in Pepper Jelly

I wait till after Thanksgiving and then I go and speak to the produce manager at the grocery store and ask him if I buy all the cranberries he has left, will he cut me a deal. This is iffy because sometimes there are very few left. One year, though, I bought a lot of bags for about half price.

I like to dehydrate them and then use them in salads, muffins and cookies throughout the year, as "craisins". I just cut them in half, so they'll dry better. I do not add sugar. The craisins that you buy are sweetened.

Fall always makes me think of caramel apples and leaf art.

Years and years ago, when I was in the first grade at Prairie View school, near Chanute, KS, our teacher, Mrs. See, helped us all make "leaf pictures". We collected pretty leaves and spread them out on a sheet of waxed paper. Then scattered on crayon shavings of different colors. Then placed another piece of waxed paper on top, sandwich style. Mrs. See would then run over the whole thing lightly with a warm iron. The crayon pieces would melt into interesting shapes and would stick the waxed paper together and hold in the leaves. I bet lots of you made these too.

I found instructions on the internet about how to make fall "leaf roses". Haven't tried it but here's the link for any of you that are artistic.

Here is a link that might be useful: Making Leaf Roses

Ilene,

It is good that you have a grocery story manager who is willing to "make a deal" on the cranberries that are left over after the holidays. That is increasingly rare nowadays.

Usually somebody around here will have them on sale closer to Thanksgiving, so if I pay attention, I should be able to get them for a better price than what I'm seeing in the grocery store now (which is $2.52 per bag in the produce section at our local WM).

I remember making leaf pictures as a child! (To which my smart-aleck adult son would probably playfully reply "you mean that had leaves back then?" LOL.) I also remember making them with Chris and with my nieces and nephews when they were young children, and with Chris's Cub Scout den when he was that age. That was such a fun thing to do.

I know today's kids love their video games and stuff, but I think we had more fun doing a wider variety of activities back in "the old days".

Dawn

No news about cranberries here, but we went to the pumkin patch. :)

{{gwi:1132924}}

Dawn,
NO cranberries here. Or canned pumpkin! Can you believe the stock guy told me there's a shortage this year? Criminy! So I bought some small pie pumpkins they had out front of the store, and will probly be buying some more before it's all over with. (They have them in pumpkin form, but not in cans? HUH?) Since I didn't have any pumpkins make it this year, I'm relying on store bought... during the fall I really can go thru the pumpkin pureee.

Moni,
Doesn't look like a pumpkin shortage where you're at! GREAT picture!

Beth

Beth,

The cranberries have been at the Wal-Mart in Gainesville, TX, approximately 25 miles south of us since last week. However, they had not yet arrivesd at the Wal-Mart north of us in Ardmore, OK, approximately 25 miles north of us, as of yesterday...or maybe it was the day before that when we were there. So, I guess they aren't everywhere yet.

The pumpkin shortage is because of the weather. I understand the crop was about one-third less than usual, and the canned pumpkin should be arriving in stores soon. I understand some people have been in a panic thinking that maybe they won't be able to have their pumpkin pies. Do you suppose it hasn't occurred to them that they can buy a winter squash, like butternut for example, cook it, puree it and make their own pumpkin pie?

The problem for commercial canneries is that they cannot process the winter squash for "pumpkin" puree until it arrives and it has a really long growing season AND ripens slowly in abnormally cool and cloudy weather, so I guess a lot of what is still in the stores was canned last year. This year the canned supplies from the previous years started running out before they had more ripe ones to can. I know the cans of this year's crops are expected to be in stores soon....so, buy 'em when you see 'em.

I haven't noticed a lack of pumpkin puree' on the shelves here, and bought some about a month ago.

Dawn

Well I'm grabbing what I can when I see it... my little guy loves pumpkin muffins with raisins and pecans. This morning on one of my parenting sites in a cooking group they were talking about not finding pumpkin in their stores and WOMEN WERE PANICKING! LOL! This makes me want to go ahead and get some more of those little pie pumpkins and another butternut squash (only fifty cents a pound, I can afford that). DH said that Lowe's had some pie pumpkins in front of their store last night, gonna see how much those are compared to WalMart. AND if I just run into a brick wall on the pumpkin puree, we'll be having sweet potato pie for Thanksgiving!

Oh, he also said that Lowe's had all their Christmas stuff up here too. I guess Lowe's jumps right into the Christmas season, since fall doesn't bring a whole lot of customers? Strange to see tho.

Well, I'm off to warm up my kitchen and try making some bread again! Wish me luck! :)

Beth

Ilene, I went to school near Chanute, too. My dad's side were teachers in that area.

Plenty of canned pumpkin around here. I just bought a flat earlier this month.

My daughter told me two months ago that she needed to make applesauce this year so I told her to wait until she saw a sale on apples in the groceries since I no longer have dozens of bushels each fall. Last week she called and said that a local store had 10# of Missouri Red Delicious for 5.99 and she planned to buy 30#.

So today was apple sauce day for us. Made 16 pints all together. Used 25# of the apples. It was fair. Not as good as the stuff I made from the Winesaps, Arkansas Blacks and Yellow Delicious that we grew, but definitly worth the effort.

Beth,

I specifically checked today, and all 3 stores we went into had canned pumpkin, so maybe the shortages are worse in some places than in others?

I hope you told the panicking women they can use just about any winter squash in pumpkin pie and no one can tell the difference. All the stores here are just full of the new crop of winter squash of all kinds.

Our Lowe's has had all their Christmas stuff up for weeks, and I noticed on Sunday that Home Depot does too. So far, our Wal-Mart only has the wrapping paper and decorations, but no trees up and decorated....yet.

Diane, it is amazing how many people here have lived in/near similar places!

Dawn

The pumpkin shot was near Moriarty in New Mexico. DIdn't look like a shortage there.

Moni

owiebrian, do you know where Leanna is? Our farm was very near to that very small community. I was born in Iola and my grandmother lived there until her death. My other grandparents lived in Chanute till they died. I had aunts Evelyn Camp Cook and Marjorie Hockett who lived all their lives in Chanute. And an aunt Vivian Morris who lived in Iola most of her life.

We had 80 acres and it was mom and dad's dream farm. But they couldn't make it work. Dad went to work on an oil rig, the oil rig moved to Oklahoma. The move was traumatic. Our farm dog was frightened by all the cars that drove the highway in front of our house in town and one night disappeared. We always thought he tried to find his way home. My mother was really never the same after having to give up her dream. And the school, where kids came screaming down the stairs toward me when the bell rang, scared me half to death as a transplanted first grader. As if it wasn't enough that my new teacher was a skinny little woman with a long nose and red rouge circles on her cheeks. She always wore black dresses and I thought she was a witch. Literally.

I go to Iola now and then because they have such a great genealogy library. I always feel so much at home being there.

Oh, Ilene, what a story! That teacher would have scared the wits right out of me.

Looking up Leanna right now because it doesn't ring a bell... Oh, yeah, right there by Chanute.

I lived in Altoona as a kid and the Neodesha as an adult for a couple of years, then Erie for a bit. Do you know the McCuistion name? That's my dad's side and there were all around the area.

Diane

I couldn't find any canned pumpkin in our Walmart today. Usually they have it out with the holiday baking supplies in an aisle, but not today.

Ilene, my neighbor is from Chanute and her brother still lives there (and in a travel trailer). Her name is Norma and I think her brother's name is Fred Thompson. His wife is JoAnn and I think she was a school teacher but I don't know in what town. I know they still have a home there. Their sister lives in Altoona.