Self-reliance often means making more of your own food and preserving the food you grow yourself. Browse this section of Homestead How-to to learn how to become more self-reliant in the kitchen! Articles include cooking from scratch, canning, preserving, and using your garden produce to its fullest potential!
Canning the food you harvest is an excellent way to boost your self-reliance. Canning is one method for preserving food from the garden season to last year-round. Canned food does not have to be refrigerated or frozen, so it does not require electricity to keep. …
Beet greens should be cut off your beets when harvested in order to help your root veggies last longer. But don’t throw away your beet greens! There are many wonderful ways to use these greens. In fact, beet greens are one of my favorite leafy …
Washing and storing lettuce property is essential to keeping it fresh and long-lasting. This is especially true when you pick lettuce from your own garden! Here we share a few simple steps to ensuring that your fresh-picked lettuce (or spinach) will last for at least …
Freezing strawberries is quite easy, but there are a few tips that ensure success and your future enjoyment! Strawberry season has arrived in Vermont, and like every other year we plan to pick at least 5 or 6 gallons of these delicious berries while the …
Radishes are one of the first vegetables ready for harvest in a late spring (or fall) garden. This makes them particularly exciting. But for some, the excitement of that beautiful red radish harvest is lessened when they can’t figure out what to do with radishes! …
Homemade yogurt is delicious, nutritious, and a great step toward self-reliance. It also saves a lot on packaging waste! Did you know that you can use your Instant Pot to make an awesome batch of yogurt? We love this method because it is reliable, easy, …
Making your own flour at home is a great option to save money, be more self-reliant, and add variety to your baked goods. Freshly ground flour adds unique textures and flavors to bread. You can also vary the texture of your ground flour to add …
Fiddlehead ferns are a sure sign of spring in my adopted Vermont home. Ambitious foragers head out into the woods to find the perfect spot to harvest fiddleheads, then they sell them to local grocery stores and farm stands. Those those of us coming out …
No-knead bread recipes are an easy solution for at-home bread-making. They require very little “hands-on” time and almost always produce a great loaf. Using simple ingredients and just a few tools, you too can become a bread-maker. Making your own bread is a great step …
This is going to be a short post. Because re-growing scallions at home is easy. It saves money, and it works in a pinch when you know you won’t be going to the store or harvesting more scallions soon. I don’t need to make you …