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.
Last week I spent a few days filling my freezer with cooked food. I’ve written several times about trying to keep my teenagers fed. It’s never ending. Someone is always asking, “What’s there to eat?” While most people focus on freezer meals, I really focus on freezer snacks. I find that snacks can really make …
I was an teenager before I saw canned potatoes. I was at a friend’s house and her mom was quickly making dinner and I saw her open a can of potatoes and dump them in a pot to heat up. Once they were heated up, she drained the water added salt, pepper, butter and a …
A few weeks ago we went to visit my new nephew and his brothers – oh, and his parents. He’s beautiful by the way, just like his brothers. My oldest nephew is 5 so he and Esther had their first “sleep over”. It was so fun going into the room later that night and seeing …
Fideo with ground beef (fideo con carne) is one of those weeknight dinners that feels like more than the sum of its parts. It’s a one-pot meal built on humble ingredients — ground beef, fideo noodles, tomatoes, and a handful of spices — and it comes together in about 45 minutes. This is the best …
Transform raw kale into an easy and delicious side salad with warm bacon and a citrus dressing. Top with your favorite salad mix-ins, such as tomatoes, feta, seeds and nuts, and dried fruit. We can grow kale almost year round in our climate, so it turns up in many different forms during the week. This …
Every year we forage dewberries which are a wild blackberry that grows in our area. We try to pick enough to last the entire year. We freeze some of the berries and we make a super easy dewberry jam recipe to give as gifts and to enjoy ourselves. This same method can be used to …
Growing up I thought that to make “homemade” vanilla pudding you opened a box, added milk and gave it shake. When I learned that you could make real homemade pudding with staples from your pantry and refrigerator, I was hooked. Once you make homemade vanilla pudding you’ll never go back the boxed stuff again. Ingredients ¼ …
This easy Shepherd’s Pie recipe is the ultimate comfort food — hearty, flavorful, and simple enough for a weeknight dinner. Tender ground beef (or lamb) is layered with vegetables, then topped with creamy mashed potatoes and baked until golden and bubbling. Whether you’re using leftovers, making it ahead to freeze, or preparing it fresh from …
We love Tex/Mex food and homemade chicken enchiladas are at the top of the list. This recipe is really more of a process than an exact recipe and you probably already have all the ingredients in your pantry – the one exception might be corn tortillas. There are tons of recipes for making chicken enchiladas …
My boys have been getting quite a few calls to mow lawns now that the grass is growing again. That means I need more snacks on hand than I need in the winter. I really like to keep a variety of homemade waffles, banana muffins, peanut butter treats and granola bars in the freezer for …
I love the convenience of having canned black beans and other dried beans on hand. However, I don’t like the price of buying canned black beans. So one of the first things I learned to can in my pressure canner was how to can dried beans. Every year I buy dried beans in bulk at …
Homemade vegetable stew can be made with pretty much any vegetables you happen to have on hand. I use a combination of fresh seasonal vegetables, home canned vegetables and dehydrated vegetables to make this use-what-you-have vegetable stew. While I do have a real vegetable stew recipe that I share below in the recipe card, I …
Every winter my children start asking for hot chocolate mix, because you can’t have winter without hot chocolate. This homemade hot chocolate mix comes together very quickly and tastes great. Once the mix is made, you can have rich, tasty hot chocolate by just adding hot water. Although, some members of my family like to …
Lentils and rice is a super quick and frugal recipe that is hearty enough to serve for dinner. This vegetarian recipe is super flavorful with the addition of onions, carrots and a few warming spices. What’s so great about lentils? For starters, they are a nutritional powerhouse. One cup supplies 16 grams of fiber, 17 …
All along the rural roads in Texas there are wild mustang grapes and muscadine grapes that grow. Every summer we go grape hunting and pick enough grapes to make grape jelly and grape juice. Mustang grapes and muscadine grapes are not the same plant, although most of us use the terms interchangeably, but they and other …
Fresh, zesty black bean and corn salsa, also known as Texas caviar, is the perfect appetizer for summer. Filled with garden fresh tomatoes, onions and corn this salsa goes will with fish and pork tacos and just plain chips. In fact, this salsa is so hearty and flavorful that we’ve been known to just eat …
Summer is the time for light meals that are loaded with summer vegetables. It’s also the time basil plants are huge. One of our favorite meals is pesto pasta with summer vegetables. This summer vegetable pesto pasta dish is loaded with garden fresh vegetables such as yellow squash, zucchini, carrots, onions, and tomatoes. Ingredients Enough …
A friend surprised me with a lot of grape tomatoes. Usually when I have too many tomatoes I can them, but grape tomatoes would give me lots of skins in the tomatoes. So, I thought I’d dehydrate them. I love sun dried tomatoes. And while these aren’t quite “sun dried” I think they’ll do nicely. …
Whole wheat flour tortillas come together quickly with just a few ingredients. They are perfect for soft tacos, burritos, wraps, or eating with soups. Probably the “hardest” part of making whole wheat tortillas is rolling them out. And as long as you’re willing to accept the funny shapes that often come out, you’ll be just …
Last week a friend offered us some pumpkins that were left over from her school. I was so excited, especially after our dismal pumpkin harvest this year. So we spent the day cooking, pureeing and freezing pumpkin… and roasting the seeds. (We should have been unpacking but we seem to have lost our momentum) We had …