Today, we have another very practical talk in Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch. Our Grandmother was an English teacher and Home Ec teacher, so, yes, we are ahead on this a good bit. In our house, we were taught to cook from an early age, even if it was only helping stir or measure ingredients. Cooking from scratch or home cooking is not just a homesteading/prepper/survival skill. Being able to cook for yourself from scratch is a good skill for everyday health and to impress guests.
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A. History of Home Cooking to Store-Bought/Fast Foods
In order to start to Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch you will need to have a little history lesson.
Scratch cooking describes the art of preparing meals from basic ingredients and is also known as homemade cooking. Prior to World War I, nearly everything was homemade and certainly made from scratch. During the war era, canned and frozen foods were developed for military use, but were later more commonplace in civilian stores.
In the 1950’s fast foods and highly processed ready-to-eat meals became much more common. Cake mixes, Swanson ‘tv’ dinners, and other pre-made foods were considered revolutionary and helped busy families get food to the table faster than ever. Since the 50’s foods have become more and more processed with fewer health benefits.
Unfortunately, cooking from scratch is not the norm anymore. There was a time when home economics, including cooking techniques, was part of the curriculum in schools. Families shared recipes and taught one another how to cook from scratch. Nowadays, cooking from scratch is considered artisanal and posh. Rather than learning from family, it takes a bit more effort to learn how to master scratch cooking, but thankfully, there are plenty of tutorials available.
When trying to Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch you need to understand the benefits of home cooking vs the health issues caused by fast foods.
B. Some of the Consequences of Convenience
While there is no doubt the convenience of ready-to-eat foods is a time-saver, the reality is most convenience foods are high in salt, fat, sugar, and a wide range of preservatives. Over time, over consumption of convenience and processed foods has elevated the frequency of obesity, high blood pressure, and a host of other health issues. Today, people are at higher risk for diet-related illnesses and disease than any other time in history.
1. Cooking From Scratch Reduces Illness and Disease
Scratch cooking is one of the easiest ways to reduce the risks of diet-related illnesses like:
• Obesity
• Fatty Liver
• Type II Diabetes
• High blood Pressure
• Heart Disease
• Many Cancers
Since scratch cooking relies on basic ingredients, including whole foods closest to their natural state, there are far fewer preservatives, chemicals, and processes impacting food. Sourcing ingredients helps maximize their benefits making every dish healthier than their processed counterparts. It’s very easy to cook a heart-healthy version of nearly any dish you can imagine, simply by cooking from scratch rather than buying a canned, frozen, or grab-and-go meal.
2. Cooking From Scratch Tastes Better
Your taste buds could be numb from eating too much processed food. In fact, it is common for food companies to add compounds to their foods that activate your brain, making you crave more. This artificial food can diminish your sense of taste over time.
Cooking from scratch allows for real food to taste like, well, real food, which is superior in texture, mouth feel, and overall satisfaction. That is why homemade brownies taste so much better than brownies from a box mix. There’s simply no denying the difference.
If you are ready to Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch, this includes starting your own pantry of staple foods and ingredients.
C. Creating a Scratch-Based Pantry
Cooking from scratch is a fun and healthy way to prepare meals. Scratch cooking consists of pantry staples without all the chemicals and preservatives found in highly processed, ready-to-eat foods.
If you’ve made the choice to try cooking from scratch, you may easily feel overwhelmed by the ingredients of a recipe. What appears to be a long list of items really doesn’t have to be intimidating if your pantry is well stocked with simple basics.
1. Start with the Basics
A scratch-based pantry doesn’t require all that much. Many ingredients are used in a variety of ways making them versatile and budget friendly Here are some tips that focus on the basics.
Start with your favorite foods: Take a moment to consider what your go-to favorites are. From there, review recipes to better understand what ingredients are typical for your favorite foods. If you love confections, you’ll likely want to stock up on staples like flour, sugar, baking soda, and baking powder. If you love hearty soups or stews, you may see ingredients like pasta, rice, broth, or beans. Shop for staples that make sense for your favorite types of dishes.
With cooking from scratch, you do not have to break the bank buying ingredients. Just start somewhere and add more later. Begin with the staples you know you’ll use most. Rather than buying pancake mix, purchase the staples you’ll need to make your own homemade pancakes. You’ll find that many ingredients can be used in several different ways. In this case, the same ingredients can be used for biscuits, waffles, pie crust, and other homemade foods.
2. Proper Storage of Supplies
Invest in proper storage: Staples for scratch cooking generally have a shorter shelf life than highly processed foods. Ensure your staples last by investing in air-tight storage containers and reading labels to be certain you are storing your ingredients and your homemade food items in the proper way. If you are buying in bulk, you will want to separate and preserve your ingredients. A freezer is always a fast way to store, however, it is not the only way. Most ingredients can be canned, dehydrated, or vacuum pack your supplies into smaller, more usable sizes. There are a variety of small home gadgets to help with this.
3. Experiment with Ingredients
Play around with ingredients: Once you get a feel for scratch cooking, you can easily play around with the variety in your staples. Try buying a variety of flours, oils, vinegars, or items like dried beans, lentils, or spices. There are some staples that must be included to get the correct finished product, but you can combine or leave some to your taste. It is easy to make meals that cater to special requirements or diets when you cook from scratch.
4. Always Hit the Sales
Take advantage of sales: Did you know many staples go on drastic sales during certain times of the year? Nostalgia brings out the chef in many people during the holidays, and many items like sugar, flour, nuts, canned vegetables, and other goods can be found at reduced prices. Take advantage of the sales to stock up on staples you can use year-round. Many staples can be frozen or stored in a cool, dry place for long periods of time.
Building your scratch-based pantry is easy, just begin with a few simple ingredients and get used to grabbing them over packaged items. Before long, your confidence will grow along with your pantry.
Do not just buy it because it is on sale. It will only waste money and space if you are buying and storing ingredients that you plain out do not like and will never use. Be sure it is something you can and will use before you buy it but sales are a great way to get stocked up quickly.
Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch does not have to be hard, use the resources available to you.
D. Resources for Simple and Fun Scratch Cooking
If you did not grow up in a scratch-based family, you may have no idea where to learn to separate an egg or sift a cup of flour. Scratch cooking relies on healthy ingredients coupled with easy cooking techniques that produce healthy homemade dishes. If scratch cooking is new for you, there are plenty of resources that can help.
1. Hit the Books
These days many people do not ever pick up a real book. We are not talking about e-books we mean real hard backed paper books. Our Grandmother had many cook books, as she was a Home Ec teacher. You would not believe what you can find in old books. Old books have recipes that are specifically made to be basic so anyone can make them but also to include ingredients that the average person would already have on hand.
As we have mentioned several times before, we have an old cookbook that we love and use all the time. That book has everything in it from simple eggs to full-blown fancy desserts and everything in between. Cookbooks come in all kinds of themes and food styles, so you can get a book that will show you how to cook specific foods. Into Mexican food or Old English food? There is a cookbook for that.
So get a book and read it. Any good cookbook will have pictures and step-by-step directions to help you learn and get the recipe right.
2. Social Media
Social media definitely gets a bad rap when it comes to content. You can not believe everything you see on social media, that is for sure. There is plenty of mind-numbing content floating around that can be “iffy”. But social media can open up a whole new world when it comes to homemade cooking.
Platforms like Pinterest make it easy to find recipes, learn techniques, and source useful information, making scratch cooking simple. YouTube is an excellent resource for learning everything from how to find ingredients and how to put them together. You can even subscribe to your favorite channels. Instagram is a great way to find like-minded content creators who share the ins and outs, tips and tricks of scratch cooking. Many times you can build relationships online and become part of a scratch cooking tribe.
3. Take a Class
Scratch cooking has become more popular than ever, and it’s easy to find classes to learn a variety of cooking styles. From making homemade bread to the perfect pasta, look for classes at local culinary schools, restaurants, or on the events page of your social media. Many cooking classes can be taken online from the comfort of your own kitchen. More advanced cooking will need to be in person, but that can wait until you have grown your confidence by learning the basics at home.
4. Blogs and Podcasts
Want to learn about cooking on the fly? Try listening to a cooking podcast while you commute or exercise. Follow bloggers who share their cooking experiences, tips, and techniques online.
5. Subscribe and save
Subscription meal services cater to scratch cooking and make it incredibly easy by providing high-quality, portioned ingredients with step-by-step cooking instructions. It’s an easy way to become familiar with ingredients and cooking techniques with little waste or risk. This is a more expensive option, but if you are just trying to get your feet under you to start cooking from scratch, this may be a good option for you.
6. Farm to fork experiences
If you live in a rural or suburban area, consider a farm-to-fork experience. Many artisan farmers and ranchers offer classes or experiences that showcase their foods. Oftentimes, you can purchase directly from a farm for the highest quality meats, dairy, fruits, and vegetables.
7. Find a farmer’s market
Farmer’s markets are becoming more popular than ever. They are a great way to source incredibly fresh ingredients at rock bottom prices. Food co-ops are also an amazing way to get access to a wide variety of foods you may not find in the grocery store. Don’t pass up great foods like honey, fresh nuts, jams, and jellies for your pantry too.
Being able to cook off-grid is also a great addition to your cooking-from-scratch skills. But that is a whole different level of self-sufficiency and a talk for another time.
We have put together a Building a Smokehouse Checklist to help you on this journey. This is a general checklist and tips that you may need to tweak to fit your exact needs. Keep in mind every situation will be different so the needs may be a bit different as well. Feel free to download the PDF, print out, and use these pages for yourself.
This is a four-page Building a Smokehouse Checklist.
One important reason to Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch is saving money.
E. Money-Saving Tips
Cooking from scratch may seem intimidating and expensive at first glance. Storing a wide variety of ingredients in your pantry may not seem very budget friendly, but in actuality scratch cooking costs are a fraction of what packaged, ready-to-eat and take-out meals add up to.
Saving money may not be your first reason for cooking from scratch, but it is a great by-product. In fact, you’d be amazed at how much money you can save every year.
Some foods can save you hundreds of dollars a year- A loaf of artisan bread can cost anywhere from $5.00 to $10.00 depending on where you buy it. The same loaf can be homemade for well under $1.00, plus there are no unwanted and unnecessary preservatives in your bread.
1. Herbs and Spices
Growing herbs and spices is easy and can be done anywhere. Fresh herbs can be difficult to find and cost a lot for what you get. Growing your own herbs is easy and requires very little space. A little window box of your favorite herbs will not only give you fresh ingredients, but it will add some color to your room. And do not forget, live plants help clean the air.
Again, you can buy in bulk and process your own herbs and spices to use later. Dried herbs and spices will last a long time if stored properly. Herbs and spices can be used to flavor foods, but also to make healthy drinks. Many herbs and spices have medical properties, so they can do double duty in your home apothecary
2. Gadgets and Tools
You don’t need expensive gadgets- There are a lot of bright shiny objects out there vying for your attention, but you don’t need a bunch of appliances cluttering your counters to be an effective scratch cook. As you build your skills you will gravitate to the tools you need to make scratch cooking easier and fun.
For the homesteader/prepper/survivalist and anyone else for that matter, it would be good to have a stash of hand-operated tools in case the electricity goes out. Hand tools are powdered by old fashioned “elbo grease” so power outages are not a problem.
3. Healthy Ingredient Swaps or How-to-Make It
There are swaps or how-to-make-it for nearly everything. Thanks to the web, you can easily find a swap for ingredients you may be out of. Need powdered sugar? A quick online search can help you discover how whipping granulated sugar in a blender transforms it into powdered sugar. Many swaps can save you time, a trip to the store, and are cheaper in the long run.
If you do not want to use corn starch, for a carb low diet, swap to Arrowroot powder instead. Allergic to eggs? No problem, there are substitutes for that too.
There are swaps for keto diet ingredients, low-carb, glucose-free, and many more. You just need to do some research to find out what will work for you.
4. Make it your way
You can do what you want. The best thing about cooking from scratch is being creative and making foods that suit your personal taste. Hate garlic? Leave it out of your dishes. Love dill? Add as much as you like to your favorite recipe. Cooking from scratch gives you all the power. If you are being budget minded, you can easily omit costly ingredients and modify a recipe with things you have on hand.
If you are doing large batches you can split up the recipe and make part one way and part another way. Want to make a cake but need one vanilla and one chocolate? Make the vanilla batter, half it and add chocolate to one bowl and not the other. There you have two smaller cakes in different flavors.
5. Short-Order Cooking
You’ll save money in unexpected ways. Having ingredients on hand means you can whip up a meal without having to go to the store. A family friend stops by, and you need a quick finger food or dessert? No problem, you already have ingredients on hand. The kids come home from school starving and bring friends? No worries, you have stuff to whip up a healthy meal for them. too.
6. Stock Up Intentionally
Being intentional when you shop will help you avoid impulse buying altogether. By shopping sales and stocking up, you can avoid the fluctuating prices at the store and reduce your overall monthly food budget.
Buying seasonally saves a lot of money. Buying fresh fruits and veggies seasonally will save you money in the long run. Freezing them can make them available all year long, and you won’t be paying higher prices at the store.
Starting a garden at home can make it possible to trade fresh fruits and veggies or food products with others for things you need or want.
You can co-op with other scratch cooks. Combine your efforts with other people to buy in bulk or trade with one another.
Try making jam and trading with someone for farm-fresh eggs. Bake bread and trade loaves for tomatoes, basil, and other veggies.
The possibilities are endless when you can grow or make things that others can not or do not.
7. Plan Those Meals
Meal planning is key. Assessing what you have on hand and planning meals around your staples will keep you from unnecessary spending and food waste. You can also cook in bulk and freeze meals for use later in the month.
If you know you will be having a party or church eating, buy what you need ahead of time when you find it on sale. This way you can go ahead and make the meal, freeze it and have it ready when you need to pull it out.
If you think you just can not cook here are some tips and trick to help you Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch.
F. Tips and Tricks that Make Scratch Cooking Easier for Those Who Can’t Cook
If you do not possess the skills you would like to have to cook from scratch, you may feel frustrated in the kitchen. Surprisingly, many people do not grow up with the culinary experiences that boost their confidence in the kitchen. Even if you aren’t sure how to boil water, you can learn to cook from scratch. Here are some tips to help you in your cooking from scratch journey.
1. Tip: Start with the basics. If you are new to preparing meals from scratch, start small and master a skill set. Try mastering the perfect scrambled eggs or a batch of your favorite cookies. The skills you learn to make something simple will also translate when you begin to cook more complicated meals.
2. Tip: Take a class. Whether in person or through the university of YouTube, there are unlimited ways to learn cooking techniques. Take a class or watch videos and follow along to get some hands-on experience. The zillion cooking shows on tv can be a great place to start, although, many of these are to highlight fancy stuff.
3. Tip: Get curious. Sometimes knowing why is helpful. Understanding why there are certain processes, like creaming butter and sugar, or why yeast needs warm water to activate, can help you better understand the steps you need to perfect a recipe. This can help you avoid mistakes and shortcuts that could lead to flopped outcomes.
4. Tip: Invest in your tools. As with anything, having the right tools makes all the difference. Investing in a set of quality pans, bakeware, and knives can transform your cooking experience and the outcomes of your meals. Remember, not all shinny objects are what they claim to be. Find the simplest tools that do what you need them to. No need to jump off the deep end and buy every kitchen tool you find.
However, there is nothing worse than finally getting that perfect whip and cook for an omelet then have it stick to a crappy pan. So, do invest in a good quality set of basic tools to start with. You can always go up in tools as your skills improve.
5. Tip: Don’t skimp on spices. Spices don’t have to be expensive. Invest in the widest variety and highest quality spices your budget allows. Try to cultivate a collection of spices over time and understand their important contribution to scratch cooking.
If you have a home apothecary, you will already have many herbs and spices on hand. If you learn the medical uses for these, then you can apply them to your cooking. Adding a few herbs and spices can enhance not only the flavor of your foods but ad beneficial medical properties as well. Cinnamon, black pepper, and Turmeric are all known to help in digestion. Peppermint can help with bad breath and breathing issues. As we have said many times before, do your research, find out what plants do what, and how to properly use them. This will add wonderful flavor options to your cooking and health benefits.
6. Tip: Schedule Time for cooking. Experienced scratch cooks can whip up a meal or treat in no time, but it takes time to master scratch cooking. Be sure to make room in your schedule to cook. Try setting aside time on the weekend to practice baking or cooking in bulk for the week ahead. If you plan on making dinner, be sure to give yourself ample time for prepping and cook time prior to your dinner time.
Consider what you want to feed your family for the next week. Make a plan and lay out the ingredients. Now, how much of the week’s meals can be made ahead and frozen? You will find that most meals or even parts of meals can be made ahead and put into the freezer to pull out and warm up when needed.
Practice making cookies, cakes, pies, and all that stuff when you have the leisure to laugh at the “ugly cookies” and fallen cakes. They are still good to eat, but you would not want to take them to the church bake sale.
Another aspect of Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch is learning what is safe and healthy to cook for your pets.
G. Cooking for Your Pets
Something that many people forget when it comes to home cooking is their pets. Senior, weak, or injured pets can benefit from a good home-cooked meal just as much as sick people can. For a pet who has had surgery or is a starvation case, a good home meal may be what they need to get them back on their feet and possibly gain their trust. Of course, as with introducing any new food to pets, you will want to add a bit at a time slowly over a period of a few days or weeks to avoid making the dog sicker. Also, there are some people foods that pets can not eat, which will make them sick, so be sure you know what pets can and can not eat.
But by and large pet will gain the same health and comfort benefits from a home cooked meal that people will.
If your pet is on a special diet, research it and find out if you can make home meals to match. You may find that even with having to buy the extra ingredients for your “pet diner” you will still save money verses buying special food from the pet store.
We have a crock pot that we put on at night before bed. Our dogs get a scoop of homemade food on top of their dog food almost everyday. Rice, beans, Quinose, and many vegetables are good for pets and they do love the extra attention and care.
Cooking for scratch is about confidence. Confidence in your knowledge of the ingredients, and confidence in your abilities.
Cooking from scratch is a habit, and like all habits, it becomes easier with time and experience. Focus on cooking things you enjoy and don’t rush yourself to be an expert when you are just starting out. Leave room for mistakes, but also take time to celebrate your successes.
No matter if the cake falls or the cookies burn, you learned something from the attempt. And most of the time, a fallen cake makes for a great pancake supper or crumble for a chocolate moose.
We hope you have enjoyed this talk on Be Prepared: Learn to Cook From Scratch. Start off small and build on what you know and what you have. As this is most homesteading, prepper/survival issues, this is a long-term-game skill. Do not rush into it and try to get it all at once, that rarely works. Carefully consider what is most important for you to learn and master first and start there and you will be on your way to providing healthy, tasty meals for your family.
If you are interested in some of our other talks, please see the ones below.
Be prepared with a Survival Community
Methods for Preserving the Harvest
Homemade Fire-Resistant Cement Recipe
Thank you for visiting, and please come again for another edition of Out Standing in the Field.
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