Cooking from scratch has been passed down for generations in my family. My great-grandparents were homesteaders during some of the hardest, leanest times. While modern convenience can be great at times, there is tremendous value to knowing how to cook from scratch. My parents and grandparents taught me the importance and the joy of cooking starting at a young age. My mom learned from her parents and her grandparents as well. My young children already help me bake and cook from scratch on a regular basis. Learning to fuel your body with real, whole foods is invaluable and can lead to a healthier lifestyle over all. The best part is you can still eat delicious foods and tasty treats, but you get to control the ingredients.
We have created this website, and corresponding cookbook, to help you get started on your cooking from scratch journey. We are by no means “food bloggers”, we are just a mother and daughter who think there is value to learning from those who came before us. If you’re looking for gourmet cooking, you will not find that here, but you will find easy delicious recipes for everyday life. Many homestead kitchen skills are being lost in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Modern convenience has often trumped healthy cooking. Our hope for this website is to bring back to life recipes from the past while also sharing many of our favorite, easy, from scratch recipes with you.
While cooking from scratch has certainly evolved from the way my great grandparents (and those before them) cooked on their homesteads, there is still something special to be said for having a recipe passed down for generations that I share with my children, and hope they will one day share it with theirs.
Many of the recipes on this website will be written in a way that everyone can use them whether you have an active homestead, dream of having your own, or maybe you just enjoy cooking, but your ingredients come from the store. For example, the recipe ingredient amounts written as “15 ounces” allow you to use either a 15 ounce can from the store, a pint of home-canned food or measure it out and cook it fresh!
Aside from enjoying the recipes, my hope is that you will be inspired to take a step back, enjoy cooking from scratch, and let the smell of homestead scratch cooking fill your home.
– Michelle Fraser