We're saving up for winter like this squirrel, photo by Clara S.

Jeremy and I have been attempting to freeze as many of our fruits and vegetables that we aren’t going to eat right away as possible so we will have them this winter.  So far I’ve frozen some strawberries for our breakfast smoothies, some sugar snap peas because our CSA gave us a ton of them, and some greens.  When I took a canning class a couple of months ago, they told us about the National Center for Home Food Preservation’s website, and it has been a great source of information for me.  It tells you exactly how to go about freezing something so it will last the longest with the greatest quality.  It also tells the best way to heat things up, along with information on drying, canning, etc.

We’ve  also been trying to think of ideas for casseroles, soups, etc., to freeze for the winter.  So far with the spring and early summer vegetables we really haven’t thought of much.  But for later summer vegetables, we want to freeze pesto, tomato sauce, tomato soup, chili, stir fry vegetables, veggies for fajitas, vegetable lasagna, and a couple of other soups we like to make frequently.  We were wondering about other people and if you freeze things in the summer for the winter, and if so what you freeze.  We could use some good ideas!

Jeremy was doing some internet research a few weeks ago on Eat Wild, right before we purchased our new freezer and came across Sun Prairie Beef, which is located in Yuma, CO.  They provide grass fed, free range beef to the Denver and Boulder metro area.  And they are running a sale on the last of their meat for the season.  We ordered an ecomony box which included some of the lesser quality meats but was only $112.45 for 25 lbs of meat.  They also have a roast only box which is 25 lbs spare ribs or roast for $99.95.

They offer several pick up locations around the metro area, and we drove down to Denver to pick ours up one night.  We’ve since had the spare ribs which Jeremy braised, and top round roast which we grilled and added to some udon noodles.  Both were delicious, and Jeremy says he likes it better than Lasater Beef where we usually buy our grass fed beef (they have since raised their prices and become less affordable).

I just checked Sun Prairie’s website and it looks like they still have 1 economy box and 3 roast boxes in stock.  If you live in the area, it might be worth trying!  We were very happy with the whole experience and will probably be buying from them again in the future.