After I wrote The Top 10 Cookbooks Every Homesteader Needs In Their Kitchen I kept stumbling upon more wonderful cookbooks! I knew I needed to add to this list of cookbooks on cooking from scratch, with real garden and farm ingredients!
Cooking from scratch can feel like a learning curve at first, which is why I like to have cookbooks on my shelf that help me on my journey. Cookbooks that make me feel overwhelmed and like a failure do not have a place in my kitchen!
These are cookbooks I enjoy. They make cooking fun, enjoyable, and also versatile! Plus, the best part of these cookbooks is they focus on real ingredients that you can grab from the farmer’s market or right out of the garden in your front yard!
Let me share them with you…
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This is one of the cookbooks on cooking from scratch that I fell in love with. It is a huge book with so much incredible information on making food from scratch, and even growing and raising the produce yourself!
Here are just some of the topics covered: dairy products, preserving, fermenting, meat and fish, sourdough, raw foods, cooking with children, raising chickens, owning dairy cows and pigs, foraging, making personal care products, herbalism, and natural dyes.
If you want to start diving into a healthier lifestyle and love the things that homesteaders are doing, then you need to grab this book right away! It is full of recipes and also helpful information. This is one of the cookbooks that will be sitting on my shelf for years and years to come.
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Check it out on Amazon here!
At first, I picked this book up thinking it was just about how to freeze my garden produce better. Little did I know that it also included so many fantastic recipes!
It also has lots of tips on how to use frozen produce in recipes, because some things because much wetter and squishier. I love that it breaks down how to freeze things properly first, but then it also goes deep into each fruit or veggie.
For example, it will give tips on how to freeze apples, then share some apple recipes, and then explain technicalities like how long your frozen apples will be good for. All the common fruits and veggies are categorized, making this book a quick and easy reference to have on your shelf.
I love that this is one of the cookbooks on cooking from scratch that seems so simple yet so useful in everyday life!
Check it out on Amazon here!
When most of us think about cooking from scratch we don’t right away think about fermenting things. However, fermented vegetables are something we all need to add more of to our diet for healthy gut bacteria to flourish!
I have just slowly been diving into the world of fermentation. It was never something I experienced growing up, at least not at home. We would have store-bought sauerkraut here and there perhaps, but I was completely clueless to the taste of “pickled” anything!
This book is a fabulous guide on fermenting every single vegetable you can think of! It is an all-encompassing guide, and if you feel overwhelmed by fermentation in the slightest, then grab this book to help you overcome the fears, doubts, and questions you wonder about.
I am looking forward to fermenting more things from the cookbooks on cooking from scratch like this one!
Check it out on Amazon here!
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The Baker Creek Seed Company is a wonderful source of heirloom seeds. I love to purchase from them every year to grow wonderful crops in my garden!
I recently read their book The Heirloom Life Gardener and loved hearing about how they source their seeds and then continue saving them for generations. At the end of the book, they had some recipes and I noticed this cookbook of theirs as well.
The Baker Creek Vegan Cookbook has traditional ways to cook, preserve, and eat the harvest – which is exactly what cooking from scratch is! Their recipes are so unique because they contain so many heirloom products, most of which just can’t be found at your local grocery store!
However, the whole cookbook has easy-to-read pages and directions to follow, you will be sure to find a few favorite recipes for your family throughout each gardening season!
Check it out on Amazon here!
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I love that this is one of the cookbooks on cooking from scratch that lays a foundation for what your pantry should look like. The beginning of this cookbook talks about essential pantry ingredients and tools you need to make cooking from scratch easy and fun!
The reason most people don’t cook from scratch more often is simply that they are uneducated. They don’t know what ingredients to grow, preserve, or shop for. They also don’t know how to even cook those ingredients sometimes!
I love that this cookbook makes eating healthy both approachable and delicious! You don’t need a diet plan to change your life, just a real food, raw ingredient pantry!
I challenge you to start cooking some of the recipes in this cookbook and see how fantastic they taste. I have a feeling your energy will return and you will have no desire to go back to cheap, unhealthy convenience meals again.
Check it out on Amazon here!
This cookbook is simply beautiful. I feel like I am reading something straight out of my grandmother’s cupboard. When I say this book will make you want to eat garden fresh vegetables, I mean it!
This is one of the cookbooks on cooking from scratch that is broken down by seasons. This makes it easy to eat food that is currently growing and in season. You can go to the farmer’s market and then come home and make the meal on the page in front of you. Or perhaps you just walk out your backdoor and cook the ingredients you just handpicked from your garden!
The recipes in this book are fun and intriguing, like “vegetable-packed mac and cheese with popcorn topping” or “candied fennel and fried lemons.” This is a cookbook to keep you on your toes and enjoying the process of eating the harvest!
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Check it out on Amazon here!
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A Year In An Off-Grid Kitchen: Homestead Kitchen Skills And Real Food Recipes For Resilient Health by Kate Downham
Part of knowing how to cook from scratch is knowing how to make your ingredients, such as cheese, butter, and bread. Another part of it is knowing how to cook with the food you store in bulk or preserve.
Tough times will happen and it’s important to be prepared. I love this cookbook because it brings us back to cooking and making food before so many modern conveniences filled our homes and kitchens.
These recipes are the basics of cooking from scratch! One day we hope to be living off-grid, and I love that these recipes will never fail me.
Check it on Amazon here!
Which of these cookbooks on cooking from scratch will you be trying out first? They have all benefited me in numerous ways, and I hope they do the same for you!
Let me know in the comments below and thanks for reading!
Kelsey at GoodPointGrandma
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