What do you mean that’s not from scratch?

Welcome to my journey of making “everything” from scratch. If you haven’t read My Story, go ahead and hop on over there to see what led me to create The Homestead Education. If you have read it, then you know that my husband’s health is what changed our diet.

The dilemma

I had to find a way to make an all-natural, healthy, and from-scratch diet. This diet had to not only be sustainable for my husband (he really likes his food) but that my children would actually eat. I mean I had no intentions of becoming a short order cook. Everyone in the house was not going to get a separate meal. However, I have been blessed with a group of easy eaters, so there is little need to hide vegetables in kid-friendly foods. Although, they are still children, so vegetable hiding definitely lands on my agenda from time to time.

Looking for answers

I began by scavenging across the web and every book I could get my hands on. I tried looking at fad diets, homestead planners, Pinterest posts, and health food books.

The first thing that I realized was that there are very few “normal” recipes in circulation. I mean how often do you whip up some Tamarind Chutney? Honestly, I had to look up what Tamarind is (by the way, it’s the fruit of an African evergreen tree). So, if you’re a busy mom like me, I assume you’re looking for something more subdued. Perhaps you’re looking for a meatloaf that the kids won’t sneak to the dog under the table. Maybe you just need a weekday breakfast that doesn’t have sugar listed as the first ingredient.

The next thing that I noticed is that our mother’s version of cooking from scratch needs to be broken down even one step further. All those ingredients that go in your favorite recipes shouldn’t have anything that you need to open. This was an eye-opener.

Sorting the pile

I spent a couple of weeks feeling incredibly overwhelmed by the concept of making my everyday staples from scratch. I had always prided myself on making homemade meals for my family. Turns out that I was purchasing too many things prepackaged. Now, even though my goal is to make everything from scratch, I’ll tell you right now, I will not be milking Betsy the Cow at 5 o’clock every morning (edit: 6 years later, and her name is Bailey, and we milk at 8AM). I will *not continue to buy milk from the supermarket. On the other hand, my eggs are way better when they come from my girls in the coop.

As I began to really decide what was feasible to do in our situation, I ran into my final dilemma. There is not a single resource that I could find where all of this information was in one place.

I sat down and made a plan!

There are so many families out there that want to see their kids, and themselves eat foods that they know where the ingredients come from, that want fewer preservatives, and don’t want to live in the kitchen. So, I decided to put all the recipes and information that I have found and continue to gather in one place. That way, I could help other busy moms get started on their journey toward not asking themselves, “What do you mean that’s not from scratch?”

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