Eating off the land, from scratch recipes, preserving food, and other fun kitchen tips.
If the idea of making your own sourdough starter sounds complicated – it is absolutely not! You only need two ingredients, water and flour… but you do have to wait at least a week for it to finish fermenting. Sourdough works for most people on a gluten free diet regardless of the type of flour … Read more
Potatoes have been a staple crop for centuries. Thankfully, they are an inexpensive and easy to grow vegetables that consistently produces a bumper crop. But, storing the potatoes so they do not rot and are both good and safe to eat for the winter and spring (until a new crop can be harvested) is a … Read more
There’s nothing that quite says fall like fresh apple cider. Every fall we gather together and pick apples on our homestead. We drag the old cider press out of the barn, brush the cobwebs off and clean it up so that we can make our very own apple cider. Everyone gets involved from the oldest … Read more
If you’re a homesteader, preserving food is an absolutely essential skill. If you want to live a sustainable, low-cost lifestyle, you need to be able to optimize the foods you grow, harvest, hunt, forage or buy, so you have a healthy, low-cost supply on hand during cold weather, or during tough times when food is … Read more
Milk is a staple for every kitchen, it is used for so many different things from drinking to cooking many different foods. Milk needs to be kept in a refrigerator unless it has been canned to be shelf stable. You can process any type of milk that you have be it store bought, raw cow’s … Read more
This simple oxtail soup recipe is a classic recipe in Chinese culture and actually finds its roots in Russia. It tends to be brothier and lighter than the Western versions of oxtail soup, and also contains many nutrients and lots of flavor. It takes about two hours to make. Check out some other oxtail soup … Read more
This bread is so versatile it can be baked up as bread, used as biscuits, or made into pizza dough. What comes through is the flavor of the herbs making it ideal for a meze platter with prosciutto, olives, roasted peppers, pesto, and parmesan cheese. A fun trick for the herbed bread is to roll … Read more
This classic oxtail soup recipe, beloved by the Scottish, is easy to make and even easier to enjoy. This is one of those dishes you start in the morning so it will be fall apart tender, ready for the evening meal. If you’re short on time or space, this soup can even be made in … Read more
For those who want to avoid dairy for reasons varying from allergies to ethical concerns, making your own rice milk provides an inexpensive and readily available alternative. It is also good to know how to do this in order to prep for survival when you won’t have access to fresh dairy milk. In relation to … Read more
If you’re a homesteader, preserving the foods you grow and harvest is extremely important. Preserved foods enable you to ensure you have enough supplies on hand during the winter, when your homestead will likely be less productive. While food preservation techniques like root cellars, canning and smoking are popular options to store the food you … Read more
If you’re in a hurry and don’t have a lot of time for kneading bread, you may prefer this Artisan bread recipe. I like it because it has only 4 ingredients and I don’t have to take the time to knead the dough. We use it often when we need some bread and perhaps don’ … Read more
As a little kid, I was not fond of trying new vegetables – a reluctance that I believe many of us share. However, parsnips were never even an item on our dinner table because they weren’t part of our standard rotation of vegetables. We pretty much stuck to the classics – green beans, carrots, corn, … Read more
Is there anything better than the sweet taste of fresh carrots? I don’t think so. Except, perhaps, the taste of fresh carrots that you’ve just harvested from your own garden. This year, I harvested over a hundred pounds of carrots grown in just two small raised beds in my backyard. I’ve never grown that many … Read more
There is a great sale at the market, or you had a lot of leftovers, maybe you have too many roosters or some hens that are finished, what do you do? Why you get busy canning chicken of course. Your family and your wallet will thank you later. There is nothing quite as good as … Read more
In our household Christmas was associated with Scottish relatives bringing across beautifully packaged traditional shortbread, when they came to stay with the cousins in South Africa. My mom would get busy in the kitchen preparing the shortbread, according to the way her great aunt from Edinburgh had taught her. What makes Scottish shortbread different to … Read more
Another popular recipe from Hawaii, this oxtail soup recipe includes a hearty base and plenty of braised meat. It is generally served with ramen noodles as well as fried garlic chips, but you can, of course, serve it anyway you like – as long as there is plenty of it!