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.
Yep, I’m aware that those are NOT dandelions on the strawberry dandelion cake. Dandelions are hard to find around here so we decorated with nasturtiums instead. But the flavored syrup is made with dandelions. This cake is bursting with strawberry flavor and the subtle honey-like sweetness of dandelion syrup. This is a no-too-sweet cake which …
Having a cheesecake bar is a great dessert option when you’re hosting a large crowd. The cheesecakes can be made ahead of time and frozen until being served which makes the day of the party go much smoother. Serving dessert to a crowd can be a challenge some times, especially if you’re serving a full …
Right now we’re eating quite a bit of swiss chard and kale. Chard and kale are great because they grow year round here and they are my “filler” vegetables. And right now we’re needing that filler as we no longer have any broccoli or cabbage growing and the green beans and summer squash isn’t producing …
We love sourdough bread but I’ve been a little intimidated to try to make it. The whole thing about having to feed the starter regularly or you’ll kill it has always been a little bit to much responsibility for me. Goodness, I have kids to feed each day, I certainly don’t need the pressure of keeping a …
Last week I found myself with extra milk on hand. Apparently, I ordered 6 gallons not our usual 4 gallons from the co-op. Gabriel has been wanting me to make spinach lasagna and I’ve been wanting to try my hand at homemade ricotta cheese for a while. Perfect opportunity. So we pulled out Homemade Pantry …
Kenyan samosas are fun to make and freeze very well. They’re so versatile, you can use whatever ground meat and vegetables you happen to have. Just make sure to make extra for snacking on later. We have some dear friends who moved here about 10 years ago from Kenya. To say that their friendship has …
Our family isn’t much of a cake eating family. But brownies, oh, we can put some serious hurt on a pan of brownies. Over the years we’ve looked high and low for a gooey homemade brownie recipe. And through a lot of trial and error we finally have one. The key to this recipe is …
If you’ve been hanging out with us for very long, you’ve probably realized that we mainly cook from scratch. But we’re also not food purists. Occasionally we’ll eat processed foods and we go out to eat at times. But for the most part we try to avoid processed foods. And sometimes that’s hard to do. …
Being from the South I grew up on tea…sweet tea. In fact, I remember having sweet tea available daily but rarely drinking those fruit flavored drinks. I was an adult before I knew there was any kind of tea besides sweet tea (ok, so I knew about unsweet tea but didn’t know anyone who actually …
Being from Texas, Mexican pinto beans are a staple in our home. We serve them with cornbread for a simple dinner, mash them to make bean burritos for lunch or a snack, and serve them as a side dish to help fill hungry bellies. I like to make a big pot of beans and freeze …
This post was originally published in June 2011. A while back I made a great creamy chicken recipe in the crockpot and I loved it. However, I love black beans and most of my family does not. Now, just because my family doesn’t love something doesn’t mean I don’t still make it. You know, because …
There are few meals more comforting than a pot of homemade chicken and dumplings simmering on the stove. This is the kind of food that fills the kitchen with warmth, feeds a family well, and turns an ordinary day into something special. This chicken and dumplings recipe is simple, hearty, and made from scratch using …
Josiah has been gone for almost two months…how can that be? Almost daily, Esther asks if it’s been almost four months yet. Apparently time doesn’t fly as quickly when you are six as when you are….much older than six. We’ve been Skyping with Josiah on the weekends and it’s been really fun. We’re all curious …
Many years ago, I canned about 30 quarts of pear chutney. I had never tried pear chutney, in fact I had never even heard the word “chutney” before that day. But our pear tree was producing a bumper crop that year and I decided it would be fun to try something new. {ahem} No one liked it…not …
This baked French toast casserole is the easiest way to feed a crowd for breakfast or brunch — prep it the night before, bake it in the morning, and enjoy a golden, custardy dish with no fuss. With just a few simple ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen, you can create an …
We kicked off July 4th weekend by going blueberry picking . Yes, we have blueberry bushes but they are not producing. Last year fire ants got into the pots and destroyed the roots. We bought new plants but they are still young. Normally, we would just go without but because of all the rain we …
Preserving tomatoes is a summer tradition in many homes. But preserving tomatoes can be more than spaghetti sauce and salsa. There are so many ways of preserving tomatoes and really, you need to do what is best for your family. Because I’m pretty simple, I mainly can tomatoes with onions and garlic and dehydrate tomatoes …
Fruit crisp, or fruit crumble, makes a delightful dessert or breakfast. In this four ingredient fruit crisp recipe I’ll show you how to use whatever fruit you have on hand – fresh, frozen, dehydrated, or canned. For years we picked peaches for my Mother’s Day gift. We didn’t always go on Mother’s Day, but that …
It seems to be feast or famine with cucumbers at our little homestead. Some years I just cannot get them to produce at all and other years I’m wondering what in the world we’re going to do with them all. We’re in a feasting year this year. Normally that would be a good thing but …
One of our goals this year was to add more herbs to our garden for both culinary and medicinal uses. Many times those uses overlap. The thing with herbs is that they do not grow year round outside (even in zone 9) and they are not always ready at the same time complimentary vegetables are …