The kitchen is where simple living comes to life. It’s where home cooking meets food preservation—where you turn garden harvests and pantry staples into nourishing meals for your family. In this space, you’ll find from-scratch recipes made with whole ingredients, along with trusted techniques for preserving food through canning, fermenting, dehydrating, and freezing. Whether you’re making soup from fresh vegetables, putting up jam, or planning a pantry that supports your values, these resources will help you slow down, cook with purpose, and make the most of every ingredient. Because feeding your people well doesn’t have to be complicated—it just has to be real.
Most canning recipes have salt listed as an ingredient and usually it’s listed as canning salt or pickling salt. This often leads to a lot questions such as….What’s the difference between canning salt and regular salt? Are canning salt and pickling salt the same thing? Can I use regular table salt instead of canning salt? …
Whenever I’m asked what I do with the extra eggs we get from our hens, I always say that we first freeze enough to make it through the winter. The other person usually looks confused and then says, “Can you freeze eggs?” Yes, you can freeze eggs. In fact there are several ways of freezing …
No matter how much succession planting I try to do, our melons all seem to ripen about the same time. It’s fantastic to be able to eat as much watermelon as you want day after day but we also like to enjoy watermelon more than just one month out of the year. Watermelon sorbet is …
I know what you’re thinking….”Cucumber Lime sorbet???”….Yes, and it’s really, really good. Sorbet is traditionally served as a palate cleanser but we eat it as a dessert or as a treat on a hot summer afternoon. This sorbet recipe combines the refreshing flavor of cucumbers with the tang of lime to create a sorbet that …
Canning carrots is an easy and versatile way to preserve the harvest at the end of the season and stock your pantry. Canned carrots are a little soft, but the flavor is fantastic – pressure canning carrots seems to intensify the carrot’s flavor. Like all low acid foods, a pressure canner is required to safely can …
There are several tricks for making kale chips that are crispy and not soggy or scorched. Let’s explore those tricks so you can make all kinds of tasty kale chip variations. How to make crispy kale chips 1. Start with clean, fresh kale. For kale chips, it’s best to use kale that is fresh and …
What is the best way to freeze fresh basil to retain the flavor and color? We put all the the popular and not-so-popular methods to the test and came up the easiest and best way of freezing basil. Personally, my very favorite way to freeze basil is in the form of basil pesto. We go …
At the end of the summer when the garden is overflowing with basil, it’s the perfect time to start drying basil to stock your pantry. Fortunately, you don’t need any special equipment to dry basil. Let’s chat about the different methods of drying basil – air dry, dehydrator, oven method, microwave and air fryer – …
I’ve been thinking a lot about food security lately and what that truly means in our modern world. Up until very recently, people HAD to think ahead and make a plan for eating year round regardless of their climate. Now we can just pop into the grocery store and buy anything we want, in or …
Fig season is short, although it does come twice a year, so be sure to preserve figs while you can. Figs can be canned, frozen, pickled, dehydrated and even fermented! Fig season is season is something to celebrate. Like mulberries, figs don’t ship well which makes it hard to find fresh figs for sale. In …
During the summer Mustang grapes grow all over our area. Mustang grapes are similar to muscadine grapes. We use these tart grapes to make grape jelly and juice, of course, but we also use them to make grape jam. Grape jam is usually made with whole grapes that have been seeded but I prefer to …
When you make home canned soups you end up with a meal in a jar instead of ingredients to make a meal. Canning soup at home helps you be better prepared for emergencies and for busy weeknight dinners. A friend recently told me that someone told her, “You can only can soups at home using …
This sausage, potato and kale soup is an adaptation of Olive Garden’s “Zuppa Toscana” soup. I love making soups but when I can adapt them for canning it’s even better. Keeping hearty, home canned soups on hand as saved more weeknight meals than I’d like to admit. The Ultimate Guide to Preserving Vegetables has step …
Traditionally fermented pickles are easy to make and full of probiotic goodness for your gut. These pickles are usually known as sour pickles. They aren’t canned and there’s no vinegar. Every summer we make jar after jar of these naturally pickled cucumbers to preserve for the year. We make whole dill pickles, spears and pickle …
It is possible to grow enough food to feed your family even if you live on a small piece of property. Maybe not 100% of your fruit and vegetable needs but, honestly, I don’t know anyone who grows 100% of their food. This is a really long article, so you might want to grab a …
Mulberries grow in many climates and are often considered a nuisance. Put these tasty berries to use and treat your family to something they cannot get at the grocery store! These tasty mulberry recipes will help you get started. What are Mulberries? Mulberries are small, usually dark but sometimes white, berries that grow on a …
Homemade cakes are easy to make and they’re all make pretty much the same way. You need some kind of flour, sweetener, fat, liquid, leavening agent, and maybe an egg or two – that’s it. Here is a list of super easy homemade cake recipes that use staples from your pantry. Some of these recipes …
Shortbread cookies are a super versatile and easy to make cookie using just a few pantry staples. These grapefruit shortbread cookies are a fun twist on the classic buttery cookie. I’ve been making the same shortbread recipe for most of my adult life (a long time) and I love it. It’s buttery and not very …
Simple syrups are a great way to add flavor to drinks, yogurt, pancakes, ice cream, or as a grenadine substitute, really anything that needs a little something. My current favorite simple syrup is hibiscus syrup, made with the calyx of hibiscus sabdariffa, also known as Roselle and Jamaican sorrel. To make hibiscus syrup you just …
I think most people instinctively know how to plan meals, but we’ve got so many apps and systems available to us that we assume it can’t really be as easy as writing down what meals we want to eat for the week or month and then making sure we have the food to cook those …