On this podcast episode, I’m joined by author, homesteader, blogger, and creator of the Heritage Cooking Crash Course, Jill Winger as we chat about her journey into homesteading, some of the things she is doing on her homestead, and heritage cooking.
Listen To The Podcast
Listen and Subscribe On Your Favorite Podcast Player
Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Amazon Music | Pandora | Pocket Casts | Castbox | Anchor | YouTube | RSS | Get Ad-Free On Patreon
The Modern Homesteading Podcast, Episode 118 – March 31, 2019 – Homesteading and Heritage Cooking With Guest Jill Winger.
Homestead Updates:
- Finally got all the trees pruned.
- Helped my homesteading friends finish up their cattle panel greenhouse.
- Planting even more tomatoes.
- Replacing deck boards, building another garden bed, and general repair and maintenance.
- Just purchased another compost bin.
Main Topic:
Homesteading and Heritage Cooking With Guest Jill Winger
Jill Winger is the founder of The Prairie Homestead, an online space with over one million monthly visits dedicated to helping people learn how to grow their own food and take a break from the rat race, regardless of where they live.
Her practical and authentic style of teaching and storytelling has won the hearts of over 500,000 homesteaders across social media who look to her for advice and reassurance in creating from-scratch meals, tending chickens, making simple DIY products, and growing their first garden.
Jill has been featured in Urban Farm magazine, Farm & Ranch Living magazine, HuffPost, and Buzzfeed, and is the author of the upcoming The Prairie Homestead Cookbook (2019). She resides on the Wyoming prairie with her husband, three children, and more farm animals than she can count.
Jill and I Discuss:
- Jill’s journey into homesteading
- A little about her homestead and the things she is doing
- The importance of cooking from scratch
- Her cookbook.
- Skill-building advice for new homesteaders.
My thought on some of the benefits of cooking from scratch?
Healthy Eating
For me, this is the number one reason to cook from scratch. It’s important to know what you’re putting in your body and when you buy prepackaged food the reality is you just don’t know. Food that comes in boxes, bags and cans usually has a smorgasbord of things in it for flavor, color, and preservation.
Better Taste
Sometimes you don’t even realize this is the case when you first start cooking from scratch because our palates are so adjusted to prepackaged foods that they have to adjust to truly enjoy the natural flavors.
Cheaper
Usually, you’ll spend far less growing or even buying organic and preparing your own food than eating take-out and convenience dishes.
Revives Lost and Dying skills
Cooking from scratch sadly is becoming a lost skill in most families. I know I’m only one generation removed from it and didn’t know how to do it when I started growing my own food.
Self Sufficiency
When you’re able to prepare food from start to finish, you demonstrate a powerful model of resourcefulness that puts you in a position of supplying your own needs.
Supports Ethical Choices
When you decide what you’re putting into the meal you’re preparing you can make ethical choices about not supporting unethical practices when it comes to raising animals, spraying chemicals, unfair trade, and questionable agrarian labor practices. Instead, you can choose to support local businesses that practice ethical standards that you believe in.
Promotes Less Waste
Cooking from scratch produces less trash because everything you’re buying isn’t coming wrapped in plastic or put in a bag, box, or can. This of course in return means a lifestyle of less waste which is better for the planet and the lives of future generations.
Good For Family and Friend Relations
If you are married and have children or single with roommates, gathering in the kitchen to prepare a meal and then sit down and eat that meal together can be one of the best things you can do together. Breaking bread at home with friends and family helps you relax, rejuvenate and reconnect and cooking from scratch tends to promote this kind of environment.
Promotes Emotional Balance
There is something emotionally or maybe even spiritually satisfying about the entire process of growing and or buying ingredients, gathering them together, and engaging with your food as you put your meal together and then sit down to eat it. It is something that is hard to explain to someone who has never experienced the feeling before but it’s there and it’s satisfying and healthy.
Resources:
- From Jill Winger, the creator of the award-winning blog “The Prairie”
- Find her family’s favorites, like maple-glazed pork chops, butternut Alfredo…
- Also includes 17 bonus recipes for pantry staples, like sour cream, salt rubs…
Last update on 2024-07-26 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
Homestead Recipe Of The Week:
Fermented Lemonade
This week’s recipe comes in from Alyssa Olson from the blog thesheepshed.com
“Odd as I am sure it will appear to some, I can think of no better form of personal involvement in the cure of the environment than that of gardening. A person who is growing a garden, if he is growing it organically, is improving a piece of the world. He is producing something to eat, which makes him somewhat independent of the grocery business, but he is also enlarging, for himself, the meaning of food and the pleasure of eating.” Wendell Berry
