Homestead Blog Hop 402
Welcome to the Homestead Blog Hop! Homestead Blog Hop will take place every Wednesday and is for all things homesteading: real food recipes, farm animals, crafts, DIY, how-to’s, gardening, anything...
View ArticleHomestead Blog Hop 403
Welcome to the Homestead Blog Hop! Homestead Blog Hop will take place every Wednesday and is for all things homesteading: real food recipes, farm animals, crafts, DIY, how-to’s, gardening, anything...
View ArticleHoneysuckle Ice Cream
This recipe is based off of the old 2 liter soda and sweetened condensed milk recipe that became popular back in the 70’s but quickly evolved into a full on ice cream recipe when we started adding...
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Honeysuckle Jelly
Oh. My. Goodness. Whether you’ve canned before or not, this is a “must do” this summer. The scent of Honeysuckle spurs magical childhood memories of summers here in the South where honeysuckles are...
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Blueberry Wine
Blueberry season is in full swing in our region and one of our favorite ways to make use of some of our harvest is to turn it into Blueberry Wine. We came across this recipe a couple of years ago and...
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Wild Persimmon – 4 Sweet & Savory Recipes for Fall Festivities
Around here, Persimmons rival the Pumpkin for the title of “Most Versatile Fruit”. Ripening in October, wild persimmons are plentiful and go into everything from bread to jam. Since the prepared...
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Wild Onion or Wild Garlic? A Pictorial Identification Guide
The lines are sometimes blurry when it comes to these two forage foods and the names are often merged so that it’s referred to as just “Wild Onion/Garlic”. Even botanists and seasoned foragers...
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Redbud & Cucumber Tea Sandwiches
The beautiful Eastern Redbud, or Cercis canadensis, blooms in our region as one of the first flowering shrubs of spring. It always blooms just before the Dogwood tree and is often referred to as the...
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Making Lye from Wood Ashes
Turning hardwood ashes into homemade lye for soap or stripping animal hides is really easy and is just as effective as the commercially produced product. There is a difference in the two; homemade...
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Rendering Animal Fat
When I was growing up, my parents and grandparents didn’t let anything go to waste. I remember my mother and paternal grandmother in the kitchen rendering fat, using it to make suet blocks for the...
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Make Your Own Wood Ash Lye Soap
Almost two years have gone by since I originally set out to document our process of making soap from wood ash lye. I’m not always sure where the time goes and I often don’t have anything tangible to...
View ArticleHomestead Lard Soap
In the post Make Your Own Wood Ash Lye Soap we talked about making soap the really, really old fashioned way. The soap in this post is not quite that old fashioned, but is a homestead soap made from...
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Fatwood Fire Starter
Fatwood kindling split into sticks Cross cut section of a small Fatwood stump. Note the golden color of the sap when the piece is held up to the light. Growing up, my Dad was an avid woodsman. He...
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Pine Needle Syrup
Pine syrup can be made in the wintertime from current year needles, but will have a slightly different taste than syrup made from spring cones and tips. Syrup from needles can sometimes have a bolder...
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Sheep Sorrel (Sour Grass)
Growing up, we knew Sheep Sorrel simply as Sour Grass. We chewed on it for its tart, mouth puckering jolt of flavor. Now, we know it has a myriad of other uses. Sour Grass, or Sheep Sorrel, Rumex...
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Violet Flower Jelly
The arrival of spring and all its wonderful blossoms, birds and warm breezes is by far my favorite time of the year. A while back I shared a recipe for Honeysuckle Jelly that is always a big hit...
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Honeysuckle Infused Sweet Tea
Honeysuckle, summertime heat and southern sweet have always gone hand in hand, but when you start combining them in a glass with ice, well now that’s just crazy talk! The subtle honeysuckle flavor is...
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Delicious Daylilies
This time of year is filled with spring buds, sprouting tree leaves and the reemergence of bountiful wild edibles. One of my favorites that isn’t necessarily “wild” is Daylily greens. I tend to...
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Curly Dock Cream Sauce
God has given us so many wild foods that we’ve slowly lost touch with. One that grows abundantly in our area is Curly Dock, Rumex crispus. It grows heartily anywhere it’s given a chance and all parts...
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Wild Plum Sweet Bread
Prunus angustifolia, sometimes known as Chickasaw Plum, Sand Plum or Sandhill Plum, isanother of God’s many gifts of wild food to us. This misshapen, often scraggly looking bushblooms with small white...
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