I’m not a fan of overly complicated recipes or endless dishes, so I do my best to minimize mine as much as possible. I use as few utensils and accessories as possible because, with a family of six, dishes pile up high and quickly without unnecessary use of additional items. I also don’t have a dishwasher, so using anything ultimately means I must spend time cleaning it by hand. I do want the idea of a dishwasher; if it wasn’t for the expense and the lack of efficient cleaning that they do, I would buy one. However, we live in the real world, and dishwashers are expensive and notoriously bad at cleaning dishes. Plus, most of them couldn’t handle a family load of dishes for a day; I’d be loading and unloading two to three times a day and still doing dishes because some didn’t clean properly, or I’d be pulling out dirty items from the draws and cupboards and having to wash them by hand before I use them. As you can tell, this is my big focus when preparing and cooking food. I must keep the mess minimal. Some apply the clean-as-you-go method, which is excellent, but I think carefully and apply the rules of minimalism. For instance, I use a Pyrex jug to measure every ingredient for a recipe without rinsing the jug and mixing it with one metal or wooden spoon in a single bowl, with no wet and then dry ingredients mixing for me.

Sacrilege, some would say, I am sorry if you are one of those people and find what I have said in any way offensive, but really, it is the only way to minimize dishes. None of this measures out all your ingredient-first nonsense that’s for cooking shows and chefs, not for busy mamas who have to cook dinner, do the dishes, and do a ton of other tasks and projects before sundown.

I know some people prefer to focus on the best outcome for the dish rather than keeping dishes down, but I’d rather try to tick all the boxes and potentially lose a bit of flavor than have a pile of never-ending dishes and a great meal I have no time to eat. This might sound like craziness to the foodie, but I am a busy mama of four with ambition that far extends the kitchen table and requires timely but also tasty meals for my family. I aim to make wholesome and delicious meals from scratch for my family so they will be well-nourished and grow healthy. I also aim to teach them to cook as I cook by modeling the habits and rhythms of the daily meal prep and cooking.

I think this is the most critical part of from-scratch cooking. The why. Why are you doing it? What is important about cooking from scratch for your family?

For me, it is a mixture of modeling for my children and, of course, the countless health benefits, but it’s also the stewardship, the role God wants me to play and live out in my life as a mother and a wife. I steward our table because what I serve on it nurtures my family, serves my husband, and cultivates life-long health practices for my children.

Sourdough and My Take

I love looking at all the artisan breads and slow-rise recipes. I love the time some mamas put into their meals and making sourdough more flavorful, but again, my current season calls for efficiency and timely outcomes that still taste good. I don’t want to force my children to eat cardboard but I also don’t want to spend all my time stretching and kneading dough. I find a happy medium in feeding my starter at the beginning of the day with a very liberal amount of flour to ensure I have more than enough starter to use for the day. That starter can do 1-3 batches of recipes, so I could potentially cook something for each meal of the day. Regularly, I will make one big batch of puff pastry and then use that to make several items that we can all snack on throughout the day. This means I only spend one bulk moment in the kitchen. During that time, I might also put the slow cooker on, have dinner going, and plan for tomorrow’s meals.

We’re not big on planning too much for the week because we like to have flexibility in our meal choices. We ensure we always have key ingredients in the cupboard, fridge, and freezer to ensure we can cook various meals. We have gone through periods and seasons where we favor a flavor or type of food and will cook more of that for a time before we begin to crave new, different, or simpler flavors.

Our Mission

This year, our mission is to cultivate a collection of recipes with local and/or preferably homegrown ingredients. We aim to be more self-sufficient and healthy. Life is more than food; food should give life and not take it away.

Our Mission Why

Current agricultural practices with the use of commercial factories, mono-crops depleting the soil, chemical fertilizers (adding little real, bio-available nutrient), and herbicides and pesticides (that can’t be simply washed off) adding to our toxic load is what is driving our family to this drastic and natural change of getting back to our traditional roots of growing, harvesting and preserving. You simply don’t need to go to a store when you have the perfect environment for life beneath your feet. Of course, not everyone has a backyard or is fortunate enough as we are to live on the 450-acre property, but you’d be amazed at how much a single person can grow in their front yard when they replace their lawn with fruiting and root crops. Let’s face it: lawns are a pain. They’re ornamental, take a ton of upkeep, and give little in return but a little pleasure to look at. Why not get eminence pleasure from looking and enjoying the fruit of the work you do in your garden by growing something you can eat.

I’ve never been much of a green thumb. In fact, I have killed many house and garden plants in my history. The lawn was also something I could never keep alive, not because it was tough to do so but because I honestly couldn’t think of a logical reason to tend to the green stuff that grows like a weed in the front or back yard and needs constant maintenance to keep looking presentable.

When we moved to the homestead, my husband asked if I wanted to put the lawn in, and I laughed, ‘What for?’ I asked him, ‘We have never kept it alive, and our time is better-spent else-wear.’ I am so glad he agreed because after four years of living here and a heck of a lot of character growth on our part we have finally decided to grow our own veggie patch and become producers of what we require to eat. We will stop going to the grocery store this year. I say this with trays of soil full of seeds, raised beds that still need building, and a pretty sad amount of wood chips we got for free from our local council, hap-haphazardly raked over a small portion of the sectioned-off backyard area. Perfect is definitely not something we are going for here.

My husband and eldest son and daughter getting stuck into the layering up of inputs; manure, hay and woodchips.

It all Starts in the Garden

Cooking from scratch starts in the garden. In growing and knowing what it is you are putting into each dish. We are increasingly hearing about soil depletion and veggies lacking any nutritional value, so the only way to combat this with long-term and future benefits is to become a grower. Sourcing locally is a good second option, especially if you know organic, bio-dynamic, and/or regenerative farmers. If you don’t know too much about each of these, I can tell you there is a vast difference in each, and if you find a farmer doing all three, you’ve hit a very rare and life-sustaining goldmine.

You don’t have to start from the garden; you can start from the pantry, the local farmers market, or even the grocery store, but if you’re ready and able to go all the way, join me on this incredible journey and subscribe to follow along.

Check Out These Recipes Next:

• Easy Guide to Start Your Sourdough Journey
• Versatile Sourdough Puff Pastry