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Homestead Recipes
In the homestead recipes category, you’ll find all my recipes for nourishing meals, sweet treats, fermenting, preserving, and homemade pantry staples.
Wholesome ingredients, 100% from scratch. No white flours, no refined sugar, no weird additives. Recipes that work on or off the grid.
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How to make pasta without a pasta machine
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Making pasta at home is easier and cheaper than you may think. In this post I’ll share my method and thoughts on homemade pasta, and how to make pasta without a pasta machine. Why make pasta at home? Dry pasta is pretty much empty calories, wrapped up in plastic. Homemade egg pasta is a really tasty way to eat eggs that even picky eaters enjoy, and because it’s so rich in nutrition from the eggs, sauces can be really simple…
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How to cook with tallow, how to render it, how to store it (and why)
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Cook with tallow: Tallow as a reliable, local, stable cooking fat Many events in recent years have caused me reflect on the expectations of the industrial food system and modern lifestyles, and how rewarding it is to return to simpler ways. Olive oil is in short supply this year, and this offers another opportunity to create better alternatives for cooking that can be produced on a homestead or by local farmers. Most of the olive oil in supermarkets is adulterated…
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Simple crustless cheesecake
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Simple Baked Cheesecake Cheesecake is one of my favourite foods, but not something I used to make very often until I created this recipe. The recipe I’m sharing today is from A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen, and could not be simpler. It features the easiest cheese to make at home – a simple whole milk ricotta. Or you can use whatever soft cheese you have around the house, as long as it is drained well and is not too…
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Homemade French Onion Soup
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The secret to a great French onion soup is the quality of the bone broth – it should be lovingly made at home from beef bones which have been first roasted to create extra flavour before being slowly simmered for 24 hours or longer, or until the broth is so infused with flavour and minerals that it smells delicious on its own when hot, and sets like a jelly when cold. Allowing plenty of time for the onions to slowly…
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How to Make Yoghurt Off The Grid
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How to make yoghurt Yoghurt with a taste similar to what we might find in a grocery shop was something I gave up on for a long time. I made only room temperature viili for years, thinking that a good Greek or Bulgarian style of yoghurt was beyond me. At some point I decided I preferred the taste of this style of yoghurt enough to find ways to make it work, and now I make yoghurts far tastier and healthier…
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German one pot beef and vegetable stew
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This hearty German one pot beef and vegetable stew, based on the German dish Pichelsteiner, is my favourite meal to make with beef osso bucco (sliced bone-in beef shin). The meat is first seared, and then slow cooked with the vegetables to tender perfection. The onions melt into the broth as the meat falls off the bone to form a sturdy broth that is full of deep flavour from simple, natural ingredients. A meal to savour and enjoy again and…
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Simple Flapjacks
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Flapjacks is a bit of a confusing name for this delicious slice. Some people use that word for pancakes, and other people know all about this delicious crunchy oaty buttery treat. This has been a favourite recipe for many years. At picnics it disappears very quickly, at my market stall I get complaints if I do not bring it along. When I want to make something really quick and simple for a treat, this is often what I turn to.…
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Pickled Garlic Scapes
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When growing garlic, the flower stalks (also called garlic scapes) are removed soon after they appear, to direct the plant’s energy towards growing a bigger bulb. These garlic scapes are really tasty, and I use them in any recipe that normally calls for garlic. They can also be pickled or fermented to preserve them for later. This recipe uses the ‘hot jar, hot lid, upside down’ method that is used in many parts of Europe and Australia. If you live…
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Quinces: How to prepare, cook, and preserve them
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Quinces are an easily-grown fruit that’s often ignored in modern diets. Not many people know how to properly prepare them, and they can seem a bit fiddly and slow to cook compared to other fruits. I think it’s definitely worth learning to prepare and cook quince – they are like no other fruit, and there’s something deeply warming about the way they taste on a cold autumn day. My favourite way to cook them is to slowly simmer them in…
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Easy ways to preserve tomatoes off the grid
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How to preserve tomatoes off the grid In A Year in an Off-Grid Kitchen I included recipes for five of my favourite ways to preserve tomatoes with water bath canning – as rustic tomato passata, tomatoes in brine, pizza sauce, salsa, and tomato relish. I’ve recently tried a couple of different methods that I’d like to share here. These are excellent methods for preserving tomatoes without electricity or canning. Fermented tomatoes I’ve been intrigued about fermenting tomatoes for a while,…
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How to make rustic tomato passata
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Rustic tomato passata: An easier way to bottle tomatoes This year I did something I’d been thinking about for a long time. I bottled our entire tomato supply for the year… I’d delayed this in the past due to annoying finicky instructions that insist on peeling the tomatoes, removing seeds, putting them through an expensive single-purpose gadget, and all kinds of stuff, but in the end I thought it was about time I tried this myself, using nothing more than…
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Curing Bacon and Ham without Nitrates
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How to cure pork without nitrates There are two ways of curing whole pieces of meat – a salty brine, or just plain salt. I will share recipes for both. Which method to choose – brine cure vs plain salt Brine-cured meats are preserved for a shorter time, and also are ready to eat sooner. We chose to cure one leg of ham in the brine, to be boiled for our midwinter feast, and we cured the side bacon in…
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