Food and Pantry

How to Cook Chicken Feet: A Homesteader’s Guide From Cleaning to Plate

The first time I saved the feet on butchering day, I wasn't sure what I would do with them. For years I had tossed them into the scrap bucket...

How to Make Fermented Hot Sauce: My Step-by-Step Homestead Method

Every year my pepper plants outproduce every plan I ever made for them. I can only eat so many salsas and stir-fries before the crisper drawer...

Canning Spaghetti Sauce the Safe Way: A Complete Guide

Every August my counter disappears under a mountain of tomatoes, and every August I make the same batch of spaghetti sauce to can for winter. It...

The Fresh Egg Test – A Homesteader’s Guide to Checking Egg Age

I collect eggs from my own hens almost every day, and I still test a batch before I bake with it. Not because I think my girls are laying bad eggs,...

How Long to Cook Corned Beef in a Slow Cooker

Corned beef shows up on my table every spring, usually alongside potatoes and carrots I pulled out of the root cellar over winter. It's a tough,...

How to Tell If Ground Beef Is Bad: A Homesteader’s Guide

Why Ground Beef Spoils Faster Than a Steak I learned this the hard way years ago, keeping ground beef in the fridge the same length of time I kept a...

Mylar Bags for Food Storage – Everything I’ve Learned Doing This Myself

Why I Went All In on Mylar I stored food in plain plastic bags and buckets for years before I ever touched a mylar bag, and honestly, I thought the...

25 Ways to Save the Garden Glut Before It Rots

You know the drill… One week you're waiting for the garden to finally do something, and the next you've got more zucchini, tomatoes, beans, and...

How Long Do Fresh Eggs Last?

Every spring when my hens hit their laying stride, I end up with more eggs than my egg cups know what to do with. The question I get asked most by...

Food Storage Bags – The Complete Guide for Every Job on the Homestead

I have a drawer in my kitchen that used to be a junk drawer, and now it is entirely dedicated to bags. Freezer bags, vacuum bags, paper bags, mesh...

Canning Carrots – The Complete Guide

Carrots store well in a root cellar for months on their own, so why can them at all? Because canned carrots are ready to dump straight into a soup...

Deer Jerky Recipe – The Safe Way to Turn Venison Into Trail-Ready Jerky

A good deer season leaves you with more venison than your freezer really wants to hold, and jerky is one of the best ways to turn that surplus into...

Homemade Kefir – A Complete Beginner’s Guide

The first jar of kefir grains I ever got came in a small ziplock bag from a woman at my local farmers market, handed over like she was passing along...

Homemade Almond Milk Recipe – How to Make It From Scratch

I switched to making my own almond milk years ago, after doing the math on how much a carton of the store bought stuff was costing me every week for...

Fermented Pickles – The Complete Guide

There are pickles, and then there are fermented pickles, and once you have made a real batch of the second kind, the jarred stuff from the grocery...

The Right Way to Preserve Vegetables in Oil

You probably saw a recipe online for garlic in olive oil. Maybe it was on Pinterest or on some pretty-looking blog with beautiful photos. The recipe...

How Long Does Ground Beef Last in the Fridge?

Raw ground beef holds up in the fridge for 1 to 2 days after purchase, according to the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service. Cooked ground beef...

How to Make Homemade Greek Yogurt

Yogurt is good food. In fact, it’s ranked as one of the superfoods. It’s an excellent source of protein, calcium, phosphorus, Vitamin B12, and B2....

Sauerkraut Soup – The Best Way to Use Up a Homestead Kraut Harvest

Every fall, homesteaders end up with the same happy problem: a crock, a bucket, or a shelf full of jars packed with sauerkraut and no plan for using...