Homemade extracts are wildly easy to make, not to mention shelf-stable and easy to maintain in perpetuity. Here–a recipe for vanilla extract and some variations for mint and almond flavors.

Being a bride had many, many, many challenges and for us, the registry was one of them, until we decided to include a number of things for our homesteading lifestyle, which we knew we would need one way or another. And boy did our friends show up. Here–a collection of the best homesteading gifts we received as a bride and groom–most of which were not really on our registry at all!

For someone who cooks as much as I do, it may surprise you to learn that I do not love a lot of extra kitchen appliances. But if you don’t have a pressure cooker or you need one and you’ve been stubbornly avoiding the instapot like I was, this may be your sign to get one.

Of all of the joys that the last few years have brought us, making our own stock from leftover bones has been the most consistently satisfying. It’s odd how much joy a carcass can bring in this household. Here's my methodology for having tons of homemade stock throughout the year!

In a world where everyone has thousands of anxieties, I have only one big one: that I'm wasting time. That I'm inefficient. That I should get more done with the time available. It's why I'm so dang efficient, so bent on so many projects, why my brain can easily break down the number of mouse clicks an action will take and swiftly think of a way to cut at least two.

In the spirit of always improving, in making sure that next year is at least incrementally better, I'm taking a look back at the 2022 gardening season and all of my lessons learned.

Canning season is the world’s longest sustained assault on any kitchen. It makes every food-centered holiday look like an itty-bitty baby 5k; it's the ultra of ultramarathons, battering the body of my kitchen for hours and hours and hours and hours. For us, nestled in the Northeast, it lasts from early August to the end of October and involves some sort of prep, cooking, or cleaning almost every day.

You should totally do it.

Here: 4 ways that I prevent this assault from completely ruining my life, and my kitchen.

I bet you thought that all of the exclamation points in this title were happy, joyous, triumphant ones. But I made some solid garden mistakes this year. And although experimentation and growing is always a joy, you can probably re-read those as shouting, exasperated exclamation points. Here’s what happened…

I was once that I am the master of parallel truths. And this is one: I’m quite willing to spend money while also being exceptionally frugal. It’s why I can justify buying a great big house, purely for its acreage, but can’t justify putting expensive garden structures on that acreage. And this is how we found ourselves making Hugelkultur beds in our garden this year, instead of building any sort of raised beds or other garden structures. Was this a good idea? Perhaps...?