The eggs are back; we get anywhere from 9-12 a day. The lilacs and elderberries and apple trees and blackberries are starting to poke out leaves. My three year old keeps bringing me fistfuls of daffodils from the giant rock where the former owners buried their dead dog (RIP Daisy Duke).

I call my husband’s grandma while sitting on the front porch. She’s one of the few in-real-life people I know who doesn’t scoff at being called a prepper. The last time we talked on the phone was March of 20201, when I called her and said what do I do?

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Salt and vinegar and white sugar, she had said. Stock up on the things you can’t make and can’t live without. She was the only person I knew who had enough toilet paper that Spring.

When I call her this time, I know the ropes a bit better. My prepper streak is as well established as the grey streak in my hair that showed up between kids three and four. I have salt and sugar and vinegar. But I call her anyways.

What can I do for you, hun? she says.

Grandma, I’m scared, I say. I feel like I can’t do enough and I’m also crazy for doing so much.

You’ll be ok, she says. Remember you’re in the hollow of God’s hand. You’re in better shape than most.

I get the extra jars, the ones I have stashed out in the barn, that my husband rolled his eyes at every time I brought more home. We don’t have money for you to keep buying jars we don’t need, he said with a tinge of annoyance. So I stifled the intuition and stopped buying them. After all, how many jars could we actually need, maybe he was right?

I do the math.

A quart of vegetable per day, grandma said. A quart and a pint just to be safe. She raised four kids on a cop’s salary in the ‘70s, when the garden was quite literally the thing that kept them fed. A pound and a half of meat per day. 5 pounds of flour a week.

I do the math, I count the jars. Vegetables and stock and meat and fruit and jam and tomato season will come and I’ve already gone through 95 pints and it’s only April and it’s not enough.

I’m sorry, my husband says. And I can tell by the look in his eye and the catch in his voice that he means it. I didn’t understand. We’ll find a way to get more.

But I know that if I had bought them diligently, that if I had listened to my gut, it would have been so. much. cheaper. That I’d have enough.

The pastor says don’t worry, things always work out. God provides. And while I do believe in miracles, all the ones I have personally experienced were brought about by women intuitively setting a portion aside so they could give from their abundance when the time was right. I’m done ignoring the still small voice.

I think of every silly thing I’ve bought in the past six months. Did I really need to buy blush? That bottle of Coke? That bag of chips? How many jars could I have bought if I had taken things just a bit more seriously?

But the “what abouts” don’t help anything, they just make me spiral, so I shut it down and can the stock and the turkey and look in the freezer to see what I can put up to make room for the half a pig we’re about to get for cheap.

I text all my friends: Ground beef is on sale for $3.99/lb at Meijer! Don’t forget you can flat pack it in ziplocs for the freezer!

But what I really want to text them is: Please for the love of all that is holy could you just set aside a little bit?? Just have a tiny bit of a plan? I know it’s stressful to think about, I love you, I know your margins are thin, but there is never a guarantee that the status quo will hold. Please stock up.

But nobody listens to Cassandra, because it is so. much. easier. to say, You’re overreacting or It won’t be that bad or It can’t get worse or Things don’t change like that, the grocery store is my pantry.

But it has gotten worse before, we just forget the stories we were told by our grandparents and great grandparents now that they’re mostly gone and can’t remind us. And would we even listen if they were here?

I remember the story grandma told me, that she was never worried because they bought the farm with cash and the pantry was stocked and if the power went out there was a hand-pump well out back. They had what they needed and they were ready for anything. She worked damn hard to make it happen, and they were at ease because of it2.

It was considered prudent to stock up when things were abundant and set aside extra for the fallow seasons. It was considered foolish to assume there would always be more food more water more clothes available on demand in every season. The grasshopper and the ant. The parable of the ten virgins. Our affinity for the Brambly Hedge mice and their well-stocked boroughs. There is a reason these stories are told and repackaged time and time again in our cultural inheritance.

For a long time, I wanted to be a prepper because I was scared (of what, I’m not entirely sure). I have spent years in turmoil, unsure whether I was spending my time wisely or wasting it, and constantly questioning my intuition. But I’m not scared anymore. I’m angry I didn’t trust my gut sooner.

I don’t think the current systems work, and many are splitting at the seams in real-time around us. I want to help break and rebuild the world into something better. I believe and hope with all my might that we can create something sustainable for the generations to follow. It will take an incredible amount of creativity, curiosity, and strength to do so. Big changes are happening all around us, and it is up to us to make sure those changes are for good and not directed by fascists.

And these changes will inevitably mean disruption and discomfort. So, I’m working to build a home and a life ready to gently hold us through it all. I’m rethinking my approach to food, my days, my time, my life in ways I’d never considered before.

Spring is here, filled to the bursting with life and hope and second chances. It’s time to prepare for the season ahead.

This work will always be free…

…but if you would like to support my work financially, I would appreciate it. Every dollar helps my family pay down debt (and acquire enough Mason jars for the year). Thank you to all my paid subscribers and Ko-Fi donors, I literally couldn’t do this without you. <3

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Where I live there are u-pick strawberry farms, and I normally try to visit one during the season. However, the cost of u-pick strawberries has gone up quite a bit in recent years (exceeding $2/lb). This makes purchasing enough berries to can for a whole year’s worth of jam for a family of six cost prohibitive. By taking advantage of the sale, I am able to save a good chunk of money.

This year, I purchased 100 lbs. of strawberries. This is the biggest batch of jam I’ve done in one canning session,. Below you’ll find my exact process and workflow for knocking out this project.

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Day 1: Acquiring Berries & The Set-Up

When I go to buy berries, there are a few things I look out for:

• People will absolutely stop me to ask what I’m doing with all the berries. If I say “I’m making jam” they will say “that’s a lot of jam”. If I say “well, I have four kids”, they’ll give me a good natured laugh and say “well, that makes sense” and be on their way. Every time!!1

• I check each box, top and bottom, to make sure there isn’t mold forming on the berries already. These berries are near the end of their shelf life, so it’s not uncommon to find mold starting.

• The easiest way to checkout is to go through the self-checkout. Most self-checkouts have a little “number of items” counter in the corner of the screen. I can scan one box repeatedly until that number matches the quantity I’m buying.2

Prep the Berries

Once the berries are home, I need to get them ready for canning as fast as possible. Because I was doing around3 100 lbs, I decided to break it up over two days of processing. This meant the night before I washed and trimmed the tops off of half the strawberries. I stored them in a food-grade five gallon bucket on my front porch4. That way, the next day, I could start cooking right away.

Prep Your Kitchen

Canning is a messy, tedious ordeal. I am not one to romanticize it. To make my canning day go smoothly, I always clean my kitchen the night before. In particular, I make sure my counters are cleared, sink is clean/empty, and stovetop is clean.

I doublecheck my materials and tools as well, making sure I have the following:

• Stockpot for cooking jam (is it clean? ready to go?)

• Giant spoon for stirring jam

• Waterbath canner5 (is it clean? jar rack?)

• Jars6 (are the jars uncracked? unchipped?)

• Rings (are they clean? dent free?)

• Brand new lids7

• Jar lifter

• Funnel

• Ladle

• Ruler (for measuring headspace)

• Skewer (for removing bubbles)

• Dish towels (for setting processed jars on top of, cleaning rims, cleaning up spilled water, etc.)

Prep My Life

I spend a good chunk of a canning day on my feet in the kitchen doing math and monitoring a giant pot. I try to make sure all the meals my family needs to eat are made or identified (take-out? freezer meal?) the day before. The absolute last thing I want to do after canning all day is make food.

I also always make sure that I have cold brew prepped in the fridge. I drink coffee everyday. Having it already made and ready to drink gives me one less thing to worry about in the morning.

Day 2, Part 1: Cooking & Canning

For my jam, I use a Ball Blue Book recipe for long-cook jam. The recipe calls for just strawberries and sugar8; it does not require added pectin9. Long-cook jam relies on the fruit/sugar mixture reaching the gel point temperature, so that once it is cool the fruit sets up. This works very well (if you are not increasing the size of your batch) to make a jam that has gelled.

When I make jam, I don’t do multiple small batches. I measure my fruit and sugar at the appropriate ratio and cook it all at once. This means, my jam is less likely to hit gel point temperature before it starts to take on a caramelized flavor. This does not make the final product unsafe, the strawberries are still highly acidic. It does, however, mean the final product is a softer preserve. This is something I prefer in my strawberry jam, and the depth of flavor from the long cook time is unbeatable.

However, if you want a traditional, gelled jam you will want to avoid multiplying the recipe size and may prefer using a pectin recipe.

Measuring the Berries & Sugar

To get the appropriate ratio of berries to sugar, I first mash the berries. I cheat on this step and use an immersion blender to roughly chop the berries10. I have tried mashing dozens of pounds of strawberries with a potato masher before and it is NOT FUN.

Once the berries are mashed or blended, I measure them out into my stock pot. When I’m doing a huge quantity of jam like this, I literally tally how many cups of berries I’ve put into the pot as I go. There is nothing worse than getting halfway through measuring the berries, getting interrupted, and losing count.

After I know how many cups of berries I’m working with, I calculate how much sugar I need to add. For each batch, I ended up with 48 cups of berries, meaning I needed 36 cups of sugar11. I measure out my sugar into a bowl and then dump it into my pot (again, because I do not want to lose count and then question how much sugar I’ve added to the berries!!).

Stir and Cook It Down

Once I have my berries and sugar measured, I do my best to mix them up in my stockpot. This is an upper body workout, as I’m trying to combine a viscous mixture with a powder and it weighs upwards of 50 pounds. In a giant pot. On my stovetop. I stir this as much as I can manage before turning on the heat, so I can brace my arm against the top of the pot to get leverage.

Now listen carefully, the most important thing about long-cook jam is:

DO NOT OVERFILL YOUR STOCK POT. PLEASE. DO NOT DO IT.

When the berry/sugar mixture is cooking, as it starts to get hot, it will create a LOT of bright pink foam before settling into a nice simmer. This foam will bubble up a LOT, like A GOOD SIX INCHES, unless you are standing there fussing over it, stirring constantly. The first time you make long-cook jam, try to give yourself extra headroom in your stockpot until you get a sense of the stages of the jam.

Once the foam starts to form, I scoop it off. This foam can’t go into the jars and needs to be removed. I scoop it off carefully into a separate bowl or pot to be disposed of.

After the foam is removed, the jam should settle into a nice simmer. I stir it quite often to prevent burning the jam to the bottom of my pot. If you are new to making huge quantities, I highly recommend you get an extra long paddle for stirring. Before I got one, I would constantly singe my forearm on the edge of the pot.

To check whether the jam is ready to put in jars, I scoop out a tiny spoonful and drop it on a plate. Then, I swipe my finger through it. If it doesn’t immediately run together, it’s ready. I also taste the jam. Because I am scaling up the batch size, sometimes the jam begins to take on a caramelized taste before it reaches the ideal gel point. When this happens, I opt for canning a runnier jam over a more caramelized flavor. This is a personal preference, and does not impact the safety of the jam.

Fill the Jars & Process

There are hundreds of great tutorials on beginner canning out there that will give the basics in regards to safety and terminology. One thing that can get missed, however, is setting up a workflow in your kitchen that makes canning manageable instead of frustrating. That’s what I’m going to focus on here.

After I have scooped the foam off my jam and it is starting to reduce, but before it is at the gelling point, I fill my waterbath canner and start heating it up to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, I turn it off until I’m ready to start filling jars. Filling and heating that much water takes a good chunk of time. It is much quicker to bring a hot pot of water to a boil than a room temperature pot of water to a boil. You do not want to be sitting around with a giant stock pot of jam ready to go waiting for your canner to come up to temp.

Next, I wash my jars for the first round of jam. Even if the jars look clean, I still give them a good scrub with soap and hot water. My waterbath canner can hold eight pints, but for each round I always prep ten jars. That way, if I drop a jar or notice a scratch, chip, etc. I don’t have to stop everything to prep an extra jar or run a partial canner load.

Once all my jars are washed, I rinse my sink out thoroughly, plug it, place my clean jars in it, and fill the jars/sink with the hottest water my tap provides. The jam I am filling these jars with is hot. You do not want to put hot jam into a cold jar. This can result in cracks or broken jars12. The jars stay in the hot water until immediately before they are filled.13

After the jam is ready, I remove each jar from the sink using my jar lifter and dump the hot water inside it back into the sink. I don’t drain the sink, in case I need to snag some hot water to add to my waterbath canner to fully cover the jars. I set the clean, empty jars on the counter to the left of my stove. The stockpot of jam is on the front left burner and the waterbath canner is on the front right.

To fill the jars, I use a funnel and ladle. I typically fill them to the bottom of the funnel. Then, I scoop a cup or two of jam into a glass pyrex pourable measuring cup. Using a ruler and the pourable measuring cup, I measure and fill to the appropriate headspace (for this recipe 1/4”). I run a wooden skewer around the inside of the jar to remove any bubbles and doublecheck my headspace. Any leftover jam in the measuring cup gets dumped back into the stockpot to stay warm. Again, hot jam into hot jars into a hot waterbath canner.

It is important to wipe the rims of the jars clean before placing the lids and rings. I use a damp paper towel or rag for this step. Then, I place the lids14 and screw the rings on fingertip tight. You do not want to crank the rings on super tight!! In the canning process, the air in the jar needs to escape to create the seal between the lid and the jar!!!!

Once the jars are full, wiped down, and closed, I carefully lift each jar and place it in the hot waterbath canner. At this point the canner should be hot, but NOT boiling. The jars should be placed on the jar rack, fully submerged under at least 1” of water, and not touching each other.

After all jars are placed, I put the lid on the canner and bring it to a rolling boil. The processing time DOES NOT START until the canner has hit a rolling boil and a rolling boil must be maintained the entire time, or the processing time needs to be restarted.15

I set a timer for the processing time (in this case, 15 minutes). Once the processing time is finished, I turn off the burner and remove the lid. The jars sit in the canner for at least five minutes before I carefully remove them with my jar lifter and set them on a clean towel. I place my jars on a towel directly to the right of my waterbath canner. DO NOT touch the jars for 12 hours. I know it’s tempting, but moving the jars around prematurely can screw up the seals. Make sure everyone in your household knows that they DO NOT TOUCH THE JARS. They will likely start to make little popping noises as the lids seal up. THIS IS A GOOD THING. It is the sound of success!

There is normally a little bit of jam leftover. DO NOT process a partially filled jar. Instead, eat the jam. Store the jam in your fridge. Add it to yogurt. Make a cake with it. Just don’t give yourself botulism over a single cup of jam, please.

Find a Rhythm

When doing multiple rounds of jars in the waterbath canner, as required when you decide it’s a great idea to process fifty pounds of strawberries all at once, you need to get into a rhythm. Here’s mine.

After I place my first round of filled jars in the canner and turn up the heat, I immediately start washing my second round of jars and fill them with hot water (periodically peeking at the waterbath to make sure I set my timer once it hits a rolling boil). I start filling the second round of jars with jam when the first round’s processing time is complete but before they’re out of the canner. Once the second round of jars is full of jam and ready to go, then I remove the first round from the canner and place them on the towel. The second round of jars then goes into the canner, I doublecheck the water level, and the whole process begins again for round three.

Day 2, Part 2: The Set-Up (Again)

Once all the jars have been processed, I need to reset my kitchen for the next day. All of the Set-up from Day 1 needs to happen again, plus I need to wash all the dishes I just used to make the jam. I dump the water out of my waterbath canner and give it a good rinse as well.

I also need to wash and cut my second 50 lbs. of berries.16

Day 3: Cooking, Canning, & Clean-Up

Day 3 looks an awful lot like Day 2! I start my jam pot bubbling away first thing. Then, I put away my jars from the previous day. At this point, they have been sitting for twelve hours (roughly). It’s time to test the seals.

First, I look at the jars. If the center of the lid is depressed17, it is likely sealed. Then I remove the jar ring and pick the jar up off the counter by the lid18. If the jar is sealed properly, the lid will stay attached. If the jar has not sealed, the contents can be dumped, reheated, refilled, and reprocessed with a new lid OR it can be stored in the fridge.

After testing the seals, I wash the jars19. LEAVE THE RINGS OFF WHEN STORING SEALED JARS. The point of the ring is to hold the lid in place during the canning process. If you leave the ring on, it can create a false seal in your pantry, and that can result in unsafe food. Tightening a ring onto a sealed lid can also potentially damage the seal, again causing unsafe food. BE SAFE.

Once the jars are dry, I label my lids with a Sharpie. I write what is in the jar and the month/year it was canned. This helps me keep track of what needs to get used up first. For home canned goods, it’s recommended you use them within two years of canning20.

And after all of those steps, I can finally, FINALLY put the finished jars in my pantry.

Now you may recall that at this point there are fifty more pounds of berries and sugar currently sitting in my jam pot boiling away. The entire process from Day 2 gets repeated.

The Numbers

After reading all of that, you may be wondering, is this actually worth it??21 So here’s some math for you!

I bought 100 lbs. of strawberries at $0.99/lb. My kids ate a solid ten pounds of them22, so we’ll call it 90 lbs.

Strawberries:

90 lbs. x $0.99 = $89.10

For each batch of jam, I wound up with 48 cups of crushed strawberries, which means I used 36 cups of sugar. Since I did two batches, I used 72 cups of sugar total. I used Pioneer white granulated sugar, which costs about $0.35 per cup23.

Sugar:

72 cups x $0.35 = $25.20

I did not need to purchase jars or rings. I used off brand lids from my local Amish store. 156 lids cost me $26.25, or $0.17 apiece. I ended up with 46 pints of jam, meaning I used 46 lids.

Lids:

46 x $0.17 = $7.82

To get the total cost per pint, we need to combine the cost of the berries, sugar, and lids, then divide by the total number of pints (46). To make comparing to store bought jams easier, we will also need to calculate the cost per ounce (by dividing our cost per pint by 16 oz.) as well as the total number of ounces made (the total number of pints multiplied by 16 oz.).

Total Cost of Homemade Jam:

$89.10 + $25.20 + $7.82 = $122.12

Total Cost per Pint:

($89.10 + $25.20 + $7.82) / 46 = $2.65

Total Cost per Ounce:

$2.65 / 16 oz. = $0.17

Total Number of Ounces Made:

46 pints x 16 oz. = 736 oz.

A 30 oz. jar of Great Value Strawberry Preserves from Wal-Mart costs $3.74 (or $0.117/oz.). However, because Great Value adds high fructose corn syrup to their jam, the jam I make is more comparable in quality to something like Bonne Maman, which is $6.28 for a 13 oz. jar (or $0.483/oz.).

Great Value Strawberry Preserves:

736 oz. x $0.117 = $86.11

Smuckers Strawberry Jam:

736 oz. x $0.154 = $113.34

Bonne Maman Strawberry Preserves:

736 oz. x $0.483 = $355.49

My Homemade Strawberry Jam:

(As calculated above) = $122.12

This is where each person needs to decide for themselves what is and is not worth the effort. If I had to buy jam from the store, I would likely buy the Great Value brand jam. It is significantly lower quality, high fructose corn syrup is used instead of real sugar, but the price point is actually cheaper than my homemade jam. Smuckers also uses high fructose corn syrup in their product, so in terms of quality, it wouldn’t be worth the extra money to jump to a name brand jam unless I could skip all the way up to something like Bonne Maman (which uses real sugar). There is no way I could afford to regularly buy my family something as expensive as Bonne Maman.

However, by doing all this work, I can significantly increase the quality of the food my family is eating to something comparable to the Bonne Maman preserves with a much smaller price increase. When comparing based on quality, and not just price, I am coming out quite a ways ahead.

Throughout this process I have also put up enough strawberry jam to last my family roughly a year24. This means that if there are supply chain issues or price jumps, we are insulated from them for a period of time. This insulation gives me a chance to find a new source for berries OR find a cheaper jam replacement that meets our needs.

What About the Monetary Value of My Time?

One of the most common red herring arguments against batch canning like this is the concept that if I were to assign an hourly wage to the labor I’m doing, my jam would be way more expensive than even the Bonne Maman preserves, making this work not worth the effort. I say this is a red herring because, while that would increase the price of the jam, it doesn’t take into account the context I’m making it in.

I have four kids, which means I can’t afford to work. I’ve written about this before here. Making jam is something I can do while my kids are around, meaning I’m not paying for childcare. It is also something I can do from home at my own pace. I am able to arrange my life around this kind of work in a way I can’t with a traditional job. That context makes the dollars-per-hour argument fall short. I couldn’t earn enough money at a traditional job (once things like childcare costs are accounted for) to buy things like high quality jam on a regular basis. But I am able to use my time at home to make it.

For me, the quality increase I am able to provide my family and the insulation from supply chain shocks, combined with the flexible nature of the work, make all this fuss worth it.

This Work Will Always Be Free…

…however, if you have found this helpful and would like to support me monetarily, consider becoming a paid subscriber or contributing a tip on my Ko-Fi page! There will be lots more projects, pantry chat, and rambling to look forward to this summer. Thank you to all my paid subscribers and supporters, you make this work sustainable and I couldn’t do it without you.

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And, A Question for You, Dear Reader!

As someone who is constantly doing 30 things at once, I watch a lot of YouTube videos in the background to pick up tips and tricks, learn new skills, etc. My brother has offered to help me edit video, if I choose to go down that path. For things like canning and other big projects, I think that could be a really helpful tool!

But before I put in the work (and buy a microphone), I wanted to ask you all first:

23

A cup of sugar weighs approximately 7 oz.

A 25 lb. bag (or, 400 oz.) of Pioneer sugar costs me $19.99 at Meijer.

To Calculate Cups in a 25 lb. Bag:

400 oz. / 7 oz. = 57 cups (approximately)

To Calculate Cost per Cup:

$19.99 / 57 cups = $0.35

And I am angry. Deep in my bones rage. I have always felt things deeply, and in the past this has been counted among my many faults. But if I have learned anything in my 33 years of existence it is that the times I have neglected the still, small voice in my chest I have always regretted it.

So for my birthday, please indulge me for a moment, as I share with you how I’m really feeling these days.

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I should be able to go to sleep and trust my phone alerts will go off in time for me to get to the basement with my kids. I shouldn’t be worried about tornadoes in March, the month where for years growing up it would snow on my birthday and then one year it suddenly stopped. I shouldn’t be counting rain boots and packing a go-bag for the basement. My children should be able to go to bed without wondering if I’ll be waking them up in a few hours to go sit on upside down buckets in the dark by the chest freezer. This is something my tax dollars were meant to prevent. Instead, they’re squandered on violence.

They say there’s a war going on and I see more bombs falling through the little glass screen in my hand and I want to shatter it all. They whisper there might be a draft and I look at my three young boys and rage rises in my gut. Every boy who could get called up is my baby in that moment. Throwing mud and kicking a soccer ball and bringing me a rock and saying “I found this for you” and settling in my arms when I sing “You Are My Sunshine” for the 700th time. They are children still, they don’t deserve what we’re going to do to them.

But we don’t care about the children, now do we? Because if we did, we would do something. If we did, we wouldn’t all be seeing millions and millions of pages with black bars across the names we need to see and the names we should be protecting exposed for the world to scorn. There would be consequences when horrific things are done to girls around the world, in secret rooms and behind closed doors in gilded mansions that have been advertised as paradise but are actually hell on earth. The system would collapse if justice was served? Then let it fall. I will stand shoulder to shoulder with every other parent in this godforsaken country and tear it down brick by brick, bare handed, if that’s what it takes to bring peace to those babies.

And when I say I want peace for all babies, I mean all. And maybe I’m being too literal, because when I say I want peace and shelter and safety for all humans, I mean all humans, including the ones that you love and specifically the ones that you hate and especially the ones you are afraid of. And when you inevitably what-about-me, I’ll hold my ground, because peace and shelter and safety aren’t finite, they are a right, and offering that right to all doesn’t take anything away from you and your children, but it does save someone else’s.

It does not matter where those people are from. It does not matter who those people are. They are a person, imageo dei, a human being, and they deserve to be treated with respect and dignity. It does not matter what they have done, they are Christ in prison and I will visit. They are Christ starving in rags asking to be fed, and I will feed them. They are the Christ child fleeing the king to avoid certain death, and I will offer shelter. They are Christ asking to talk on the road to Emmaus, seeking to help us understand, and I will listen.

You are afraid, but you are afraid of the wrong thing. You do not fear God. Not nearly enough. You’re scared of monsters creeping in the shadows, but it’s all an illusion projected on the cave walls. You forfeit your soul for a false sense of safety pedophiles in too-big-shoes promised you. You have relinquished the bedrock of your belief, the love of your brother, and for what! You were promised dominion of the world, and you fell for it! You have lost the one thing that mattered!

You fear Death, when you should fear the one who has defeated it. You cling to pride and power, when you should flee them. You have slowly strangled the faith that was planted within you, as you let false teachers sow fear and retribution in your heart. You have lost everything you once claimed was most important.

And so, today, on the eve of my 33rd birthday, I am molten with anger.

But I will continue to wrestle with the demon of despair and subdue it. I will not relinquish that little bird named Hope. I will not give in. Not yet.

Because I know the ending.

God is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgement seat, and I know with every fiber of my being that He will not find fault in someone for feeding too many people or sheltering too many strangers or preventing missiles from launching. I have many, many faults but standing up for my brothers and sisters, my children and yours, in the face of ever increasing evil is not one of them.

So let God arise, let His enemies be scattered. And when He does, then you will realize the fear you should have had all along.

So when was the last time you looked admiringly at your butter stash on your freezer shelf? Or checked to see how much oil you have on hand? When stocking your pantry, the importance of cooking fat is hard to understate, so below I’ll talk about the types of fat I keep on hand and which ones I keep around in larger quantities.

But first, hello friends! I’ve been writing about this topic sporadically for a year or so now, and whenever something big happens on the world stage (war, anyone?) a steady trickle of new people arrive. If that’s you, welcome! Here’s a summary of some posts you should read before you get into my love of lard below.

I highly recommend you read these to have a better understanding of my pantry philosophy and recommendations! My biggest hope is that I can encourage you to buy the things that make sense for you and your family, not just a random list of things that will “save your life” or “keep for 25 years” or whatever the current gimmick is.

• Pantry Rules, pt. 1: Well They’re More Like “Guidelines” Really…

• Pantry Rules, pt. 2: Big Goals in Small Spaces

• Getting Started on Pantry Planning

• Pantry Rules, pt. 3: How to Use It All

• What to Buy & How Much to Pay: Customizable Grocery Price and Pantry Staple Suggestions

• Actually, You Do Need to Think About Your Canning Goals in January

• The Pantry List: Almost Every Recipe I Share Can Be Made Using This List

All of my work is paywall free, but your financial support is appreciated! Paid subscribers get access to the Dispatches of a Feral Housewife Recipe Box, where you’ll find illustrated-by-me, downloadable recipe cards for all my past recipes! If you can’t commit to a monthly or annual subscription, but would like to support me financially, you can do so at my ko-fi page.

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Now that you’re caught up on old posts and we have the administrative stuff out of the way, let’s goooooooo!

General Storage Advice

Oils and fat are susceptible to going rancid if exposed to light and heat. This is why good olive oil comes in a dark glass container, for example. To maximize shelf-life, store cooking fats in a cool, dark place. Do not store them directly next to your stove!! If you want to keep some handy by your stove, the best option is to decant oil or fat into a small container for ease of use and keep the big container in a cabinet far from the heat.

Animal fats like lard or tallow, if properly rendered, can be stored at room temperature. If you’re concerned you won’t get through them before they turn rancid, you can freeze them. Butter stores incredibly well in the freezer, as well.

Types of Fat

There are seven types of fat I keep on hand at all times2:

• Canola Oil

• Olive Oil

• Avocado Oil

• Coconut Oil

• Sesame Oil

• Butter

• Lard

This does not mean I only have these fats on hand. I have some tallow kicking around my freezer at the moment and some vegan butter substitute in the fridge. However, the seven listed above are the ones I keep stocked up on because they’re my most regularly used. To reiterate from an earlier post, the goal of a pantry isn’t to restrict what you eat OR to stock up on everything you might want to eat. The goal is to stock up on the most versatile products you reach for often.

Canola Oil

The workhorse vegetable oil, with a shelf life measured in years, features heavily in my pantry. While not my favorite, it’s cost effective. I use this for baking, frying, and making sauces like toum or mayonnaise. It’s also my back-up. If other fats get too expensive, my back stock will get us through.

Olive Oil

Despite its ubiquitousness in online recipes, I don’t keep a lot of olive oil on hand in my kitchen. Olive oil does not have a long shelf life. In fact, some estimates from 2014 claimed as much as 70% of the olive oil currently on grocery store shelves is fusty or rancid3. Once you hear those numbers, and taste the cheap olive oil again, it’s a hard reality to ignore.

I typically keep a full bottle and an open bottle of olive oil on hand at all times. This mostly gets used for vegan cooking, salad dressings, bread, pizza crust, and hummus. I try to keep a higher quality, organic olive oil on hand when I’m able to afford it. Quality really does matter for this one. (For most cooking recipes that call for olive oil, I end up substituting an animal fat.)

Avocado Oil

At Costco, you can get decently priced organic avocado oil. Higher quality olive oil often has a distinct flavor, so I use avocado oil when I’m looking for an oil that is more neutral in flavor but is higher quality than canola oil. The main thing I use avocado oil for is making fancy mayonnaise. (I live in the Midwest, so mayonnaise is a very important thing.) I only keep a bottle or two on hand.

Coconut Oil

As I’ve mentioned, I’m Eastern Orthodox, which means that for about half the year we typically fast from meat, dairy, and most other animal products4. That means, no butter for baking. And while vegan butter substitutes like Earth Balance work well enough, as a child who grew up in an Imperial margarine house I can’t get over the ick of fake butter5.

There are three dessert recipes I turn to when I need to make a vegan treat: chocolate cake6, coconut cake, and chocolate chip cookies7. Two of them call for coconut oil as the fat. As established in the footnotes, cookies are essential!!

Coconut oil is also incredibly useful for other things besides eating, however. It’s hydrating, and can be used in a pinch as a nipple butter for nursing moms, oil to help get cradle cap off a baby’s scalp, or lip balm for very dry lips.

Sesame Oil

I’m going to say something controversial: I cook my stir fries and fried rice in sesame oil. I know it’s technically wrong. I know it diminishes the flavor of the oil. However, I am highly limited on what I can get in the grocery store in regards to Asian ingredients, and sesame oil gives those dishes the distinct American-Chinese-restaurant vibe my family enjoys.

I am once again going to stress that there is absolutely nothing authentic about the stir fry and fried rice dishes I make. They are loosely inspired by American Chinese restaurant food, and are predominantly a way for me to use up leftover vegetables. There is a place and space for authentic, thoughtful food that is a beautiful encapsulation of a cultural moment. There is also a place and space for getting something quick, delicious, and potentially heretical on the table in 30 minutes. Both can be true, and necessary, without negating the other.

Butter

We eat an obscene amount of butter. The last time I went to Costco I bought twelve pounds of butter, and I’m not sure it will last us the month.

Baking is the biggest culprit when it comes to my gratuitous butter usage. A single batch of pie crust? One full stick of butter. Cookies? Two full sticks. Double-batch of biscuits? Two full sticks. Cake, pancakes, bread, crackers, everything calls for butter. And that’s before you even get to cooking! Roux, chicken pot pie filling, scrambled eggs, rice pudding, the list is endless.

Every year just before the holiday sales kick-off, grocery stores quietly discount the good butter to make room for new stock before baking season. When this happens, I can get the Land O’ Lakes butter for cheaper than store brand. I buy as much as I can afford to, and stack the boxes on a shelf in my freezer. Butter is perfectly shaped and packaged to stack like neat little Legos, and keeps for a year (or longer)8 when frozen. If you’re worried about odor transfer, you can always seal the boxes in a freezer bag to be safe.

Lard

Everyone sings the praises of tallow9, but I LOVE LARD. I cannot stress to you enough how lovely lard is!! You can cut down on your butter usage in baking by replacing some of it with lard (it makes for very flaky pie crust!!). You can use it to grease your pan, sweat onions, sear meat, and deep fry tortillas into chips. And, best of all, it’s significantly cheaper than butter!!

You can buy lard at pretty much any grocery store in the baking aisle. I also buy it from our local Amish store in big, bulk-sized plastic clamshells. And, if you know someone butchering a pig, ask them for the fat to render your own lard! It’s super easy and rewarding!!

Bacon Fat + Other Residual Fats

If you find yourself cooking bacon, you can save your bacon fat for cooking eggs, sweating onions, and a whole host of other things! Everyone has a different method. I typically let the fat cool slightly, then strain it through a cheese cloth/funnel into a glass jar to store in the fridge. You can use the same method to save the fat from cooking ground beef.

When making stock or broth, you can save the fat that congeals on top once it is cooled for cooking as well. I don’t normally do this, because I prefer to keep the fat in the stock, but if I’m canning I’ll skim the fat and save it.

Don’t Panic

Take a deep breath, before you buy anything, and try to clear your mind. What fats does your family actually need on hand? Where can you get them cheapest? How much can you actually afford to get right now? Remember, your pantry is a buffer not a panacea. Approach it strategically and without going into debt.

And at the end of the day? You’ve got this. You know your family better than anyone else and you are uniquely equipped to help see them through whatever happens next. I believe in you, friends.

Thanks for reading! Here is a list of potentially-on-deck pantry posts. Subscribe if you want these to show up in your inbox in the near future!

• Top Shelf: Vinegars & Alcohol in the Pantry

• Spices & Salt: Keeping Things Interesting

• Dehydrated Foods: It’s More Than Just Orange Slices

• The Big Four: Long-Term Storage Rules

• Baking More Than Just Bread: Categories to Consider

• Nuts, Seeds, Butters: A Complicated Storage Situation

• Grains: The Ultimate Filler

• Beans: What I Keep and How I Store Them

• Shelf of Shame: Why You Should Have a Shelf of Convenience Food

• Canning: When Is It Worth It and How to Not Die

• Freezing Food: What Is Even In There?

• Why You Should Be a Couponer: Paper Goods, Cleaning Supplies, & Toiletries

• $40 Grocery Challenge: My Bare Minimum Grocery List

• The Kitchen Equipment Edition: Essentials and the Back-Up Team

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I am not someone who goes on about the evils of processed food (accessibility and moderation are two important nuances that get ignored by most people who take a hardline stance on the subject2). And while I love a good baking or cooking challenge, I don’t have time for labor intensive, just-for-fun projects at the moment. So why, you might be asking, did I make cheese crackers for my kids’ lunchboxes on a random weeknight last week?

Not purity, not pleasure, but a secret third thing: my pantry.

My pantry is my pride and joy. Nothing makes me happier than keeping it well stocked. I literally can’t shut up about it. One of the main reasons that I keep it so well stocked is so that, if I forget to buy a snack for lunchboxes or someone comes over for dinner or I can’t get to the grocery store because of snow, I don’t have to worry about whether I can whip something up.

I homeschool my kids, and we choose to send them to a relatively pricey co-op one full day a week. This is something we’ve had to work hard to make happen, but it has been incredibly beneficial for them. However, it does require they have two snacks and a packed lunch for co-op day. Which is stressful if you live in an ingredients-only-don’t-have-extra-money-for-snacks household AND you grew up eating budget-packed-lunches3. Speaking from experience, no one wants to be the kid with the lunch that sticks out.

When it came time for me to pack my kids’ lunches last week, and I needed to include snacks, there wasn’t any other option. It had to come from The Pantry List. I had made regular crackers not too long ago (to go with hummus for a fast lunch), and I figured cheese crackers were something I could wing that I knew my kids would eat4. I hadn’t made them before, so I started experimenting with what I had, and YOU KNOW WHAT?? They actually aren’t that hard to make5 and I got multiple requests for a recipe. So if you were one of those people, this post is for you!

Below you’ll find my free recipe for cheese crackers! If you would like access to a printable, illustrated recipe card (designed by me!!!) become a paid subscriber. You’ll get access to the Dispatches of a Feral Housewife Recipe Box, which is an index of all my previously shared recipes and contains all my printable recipe cards. If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you so much for the support! I couldn’t do this work without you! <3

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Cheese Crackers Recipe

Ingredients:

• 4 Tbsp. butter

• 2 Tbsp. olive oil

• 2 cups AP flour

• 1 tsp. salt6

• 2 cups shredded cheddar

• 1/2 cup milk

• flaky salt, for sprinkling on top

1.// Preheat your oven to 400*F.

2.// Process the butter, oil, flour, and salt in your food processor until the texture resembles sand. Scrape down the sides, add the cheese, and do it again. I used white cheddar, which is why the cheese looks invisible here, but regular cheddar works! Use what you have!!

3.// While the processor is running, slowly add the milk. The dough will clump together and resemble the texture of play-doh.

4.// This recipe makes enough for two cookie sheets worth of crackers, so divide your dough in half and knead it once or twice to bring it together.

5.// Dust a piece of parchment paper that will fit on your cookie sheet with flour and roll the dough out7 on that piece of parchment paper. It makes transferring the crackers a lot easier! Roll the dough out as thin as you can without exceeding the approximate size of your cookie sheet8.

6.// Cut your crackers in approximately rectangular shapes. I used a little pasta cutting wheel I got for Christmas one year9. You could use a pizza cutter or a knife. DO NOT STRESS ABOUT PERFECT SQUARES. YOU ARE NOT A FACTORY OR A ROBOT.

7.// You do, however, need to stress about making sure you stab every cracker. (I outsourced this step to my 9yo.) If you do not stab the crackers they will puff up like little balloons, which tastes fine but is not the textural experience we’re going for here.

8.// Top them with flaky salt if you have it. When you’re making copycats of processed foods, you almost always need to add more salt than you think, and those little salt crystals on the outside of the cracker are an important part of the experience!!

9.// Slide the parchment paper onto your cookie sheet and bake the crackers for about 12-14 minutes. Your bake time is going to vary, depending on how thick you rolled your dough, so keep that in mind! Thicker takes longer!! These taste good straight out of the oven, but they crisp up and taste exactly like they came out of a red cardboard box if you let them cool to room temperature.

Truly, the hardest part about these is stabbing each cracker and waiting for them to cool. Mostly because I am an impatient person. Let me know if you make them!!

This work and all my recipes will always be free! However, paid subscribers get access to a simplified, printable recipe card (designed and illustrated by me!!) over in the Dispatches of a Feral Housewife Recipe Box! I will send a message to the paid subscriber chat later this evening once the cheese cracker recipe card is uploaded! If you would like to support me financially, consider becoming a paid subscriber or donating at my ko-fi page.

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Thanks for being here and for all the support, friends. This has been a wild journey and I’m so glad you’re here. I think the best is yet to come. <3

Thank you so much for being a paid subscriber! Your financial support is what allows me to keep making recipes, having fun, and growing as a writer. I couldn’t do it without you. <3

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Read more

The recipes and food I share here are all things I actually feed my family. This means they’re almost all completely cookable from the pantry list below. I’m not legalistic about this, and I absolutely buy a one-off ingredient on occasion. I like to have fun cooking! But I am also on a budget, which means I typically stick pretty close to the essentials.

To some of you, this list is going to seem really long and to others this list will seem really short. I’ve shared about my pantry philosophy in depth before, but to recap, I focus on versatility and shelf-stability. This means if there is a week where the grocery budget needs to get tightened up to cover an unexpected bill or vehicle repair or sick day, I can make do with what is on hand (and if I do need to buy something, it’s normally from the Fridge or Countertop section of The Pantry List).

But first, hello friends! I’ve been writing about this topic sporadically for a year or so now, and whenever something big happens on the world stage (war, anyone?) a steady trickle of new people arrive. If that’s you, welcome! Here’s a summary of some posts you should read before you get into my love of lard below.

I highly recommend you read these to have a better understanding of my pantry philosophy and recommendations! My biggest hope is that I can encourage you to buy the things that make sense for you and your family, not just a random list of things that will “save your life” or “keep for 25 years” or whatever the current gimmick is.

• Pantry Rules, pt. 1: Well They’re More Like “Guidelines” Really…

• Pantry Rules, pt. 2: Big Goals in Small Spaces

• Getting Started on Pantry Planning

• Pantry Rules, pt. 3: How to Use It All

• What to Buy & How Much to Pay: Customizable Grocery Price and Pantry Staple Suggestions

• Actually, You Do Need to Think About Your Canning Goals in January

• The Pantry List: Almost Every Recipe I Share Can Be Made Using This List

All of my work is paywall free, but your financial support is appreciated! Paid subscribers get access to the Dispatches of a Feral Housewife Recipe Box, where you’ll find illustrated-by-me, downloadable recipe cards for all my past recipes! If you can’t commit to a monthly or annual subscription, but would like to support me financially, you can do so at my ko-fi page.

Subscribe now

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Now that you’re caught up on old posts and we have the administrative stuff out of the way, let’s goooooooo!

The Pantry List

Here is the printable version of The Pantry List in an easy-to-skim format. Below that, I’ve included some more detailed information on some of the things in each section. Feel free to print this off, cross things out, or add your own staples! This list is what works for how my family eats. Don’t treat it like a checklist, treat it as a jumping off point for your own pantry list.

As always, let me know if you have any questions!

Mypantrystaples

2.64MB ∙ PDF file

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Thanks for reading! This work will always be free, but if you would like to support my newsletter financially you can become a paid subscriber or donate over on my ko-fi page! I appreciate your support more than I can say. <3

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Flours + Grains

I am not the type of person who has lots of specialty flours. I don’t even use bread flour for my bread. All Purpose Flour has served me well, it’s easy to get, and it keeps for a really long time. I do have wheat berries and a grain mill, but this is not the season for me to be messing around with that!!

In case you missed it, I wrote a love letter to Old Fashioned Oats.

White rice keeps longer than brown rice.

Popcorn makes a really, really easy snack for a crowd and can be made to accommodate a variety of health issues and diets! And it’s cheap! I pop it on the stove in a big pot, add salt and butter (or oil), and it’s good to go.

Barley is my go-to for beefing up soups and salads. It adds texture and protein. I prefer farro, but pearl barley is significantly cheaper.

Corn tortillas are my go-to for tacos, quesadillas, or frying up tortilla chips. Yes, I could make them myself, but they’re cheap and keep awhile so I just buy them.

Baking

Cream of tartar can be combined with baking soda to make a baking powder in a pinch, with less concern about expiration dates. (Your baking powder will expire if you don’t use it fast enough!)

I use beef gelatin to make jello for my kids. It’s also an easy way to sneak a little extra protein into things, if you’re strategic about the texture situation.

I buy Mexican vanilla extract from my local Amish feed store for $10 a liter (that’s not a typo). If you live near an Amish store and haven’t checked it out yet, you should! ( wrote a piece about his experience at one out West you might find fun.)

I am not picky about my chocolate chips. However, this year I managed to score Dove chocolate on sale post-Halloween for cheaper than a bag of chocolate chips (per ounce) and that has been getting chopped up for cookies! Get creative where you source stuff!!

Marshmallows are FUN and we are allowed to have FUN in our pantries, it doesn’t all have to be utilitarian!! We use them in hot chocolate and as a fun snack.

Sweeteners

I have a giant Vittles Vault of white sugar on hand at all times. I use it for baking, but the main reason I keep such a large quantity on hand is for canning jams and fruits. This is one of the few ingredients I pay a little extra for, and I try to buy the Pioneer Sugar brand because it’s made in Michigan.

I don’t keep brown sugar around anymore, I just add molasses to the wet ingredients in a recipe. I got my molasses in a gallon jug from the Amish store for $11.35.

I bought a five gallon bucket of honey and I’m still working through it! It has crystallized at this point, so I scoop it out with an ice cream scooper when I need some.

Nuts + Seeds + Dried Fruit

Peanuts, almonds, chia seeds, flax seeds, hemp hearts, and shredded coconut all find their way into granola around here. They also frequently end up in oatmeal, french toast bakes, and other baked goods I’m trying to up in protein.

I always buy smooth, natural peanut butter. It’s more versatile. Once it’s opened and stirred, I store it in the fridge to keep the oil from re-separating.

Powdered peanut butter goes in oatmeal, baked goods, and anything else I’m ok with tasting like peanut butter. I use this instead of a protein powder, because processed protein powders give me the creeps2.

Having tahini on hand means I can make hummus or vegan chocolate chip cookies any time I want, and those are both VERY IMPORTANT.

Look, I love dried cranberries, but they are SO expensive compared to raisins!! And raisins are great! I know you all will roast me in the comments for this, but I don’t care, I love them!

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Canned Fruits + Vegetables

Applesauce makes a great snack (especially topped with a little cinnamon), but it’s also great in baked goods (see my recent pancake recipe!!). It can also work as an egg substitute in a pinch.

My family goes through a lot, and I mean a LOT, of jam. I use it in baked goods, to sweeten yogurt, and in sandwiches.

Lemon juice is essentially for canning, salty lemonade, and finishing out soups. For non-canning recipes, I really like the Sicilian Lemon Juice in the green glass bottle from Costco. It’s not expensive, and tastes way better.

Lime juice is essential for quick slaws, salads, and drinks. I always make a quick cabbage slaw with lime juice and salt for tacos instead of using lettuce!

Fruit juice is shelf stable, a great bribery tool treat, and makes two ingredient jello so easy! Kids like jello, and if the only ingredients are 100% juice and 100% beef gelatin, there’s no reason to be concerned how much of it they eat!!

Coconut milk is great for soups, curries, this particular mind blowingly good vegan coconut cake, and many other things. I’m an Eastern Orthodox Christian, so a good chunk of the year we are fasting (no meat, dairy, eggs, alcohol). While I personally have not been fasting recently (because I keep having babies and nursing them) when we have friends over who are I make meals that meet the dietary requirements! That means plant-based!

Canned pumpkin is underrated in baked goods. I have a baked oatmeal recipe, a pancake recipe, and (someday I will share) my muffin recipe. I’m obsessed with custard pumpkin pie. I’m working on incorporating it more into savory dishes. Always stock up and buy it on sale in the fall!

When I say I keep cans of green beans in the pantry, I need you to understand that they’re homegrown ones. If you don’t can your own, you may want to stock up on frozen instead. These get dumped in soups, pot pies, and green bean casserole.

Sweet corn in a can is underrated. It tastes great, really truly, and can be dumped into potato soup (or other soups), served as a side with butter, pot pies, fill out a jar of salsa, added to casseroles, truly the list is endless! It goes on sale in the fall around here for around $0.50 a can.

I use a lot of tomato products. I typically stock up on whole tomatoes, and use my immersion blender to get them to the texture I want. However, I keep some jars of sauce on hand for convenience. Tomato juice gets used in chilis, Midwest goulash, pot roast, and beef stew.

Dill pickles come in a $7 gallon jug from Walmart. They make a phenomenal snack, perk up tuna sandwiches, get put on other kinds of sandwiches, and also I’m from Michigan. I think I’d get run out of town if I didn’t have pickles around!!

Everyone needs struggle meals on hand, and condensed soup is the go-to for me in that area. Casseroles are pure magic in January, when everyone is hungry but also sick, and you need a simple dinner.

Legumes + Canned Meat

Black beans are for tacos, garbanzo beans are for hummus and curries, cannelini beans are for pasta salads, kidney beans are for chili, green lentils are for sloppy lentil sandwiches, red/yellow lentils are for dal, and all legumes find their way into soup eventually. I keep some canned on hand for emergencies and a lot of dried for when I remember to plan ahead.

I make my own stock, and I always use bones in it, so I make sure to have vegan bouillon on hand just in case. I also keep Better Than Bouillon on hand in other flavors, for when I need just a little bit of stock and don’t want to crack open a whole jar3.

Seasonings

Yes, this list is long!! Because if you’re using a few ingredients in a lot of ways, you need to spice things up somehow! Most of these are pretty straightforward seasonings, if you have questions about any in particular just let me know, but for sake of space I’m just highlighting a couple!

I keep ancho chili powder around because it has a smokier, slower burn. Chipotle chili powder is sharper and more up front.

The only reason I keep parsley around is for homemade ranch dressing! Otherwise I’m not a fan.

I use the Goya Sazon for orange rice and quick taco salad. It’s the one prepackaged seasoning blend I keep around. It’s good to have old reliable, convenience foods on hand when you have kids!!

I buy discounted fresh mushrooms and run them through my dehydrator. These get added to stocks, soups, and pasta sauces.

In the summer, I dehydrate cherry tomatoes and add them to everything in the colder months. Sauces, soups, salads, you name it!

Dried chives are the difference between good potatoes and GREAT potatoes. My daughter requests that I add “the green things” to mashed potatoes now, every time. And while dry isn’t as great as fresh, they hold up better than you’d think!

Vinegars + Sauces

I am proud to claim the unpopular belief that white vinegar is better than apple cider vinegar. (Again, feel free to yell at me in the comments.) Maybe it’s the lifelong obsession with dill pickles, maybe it’s all the homecanned pickles I’ve eaten growing up (which use white vinegar to ensure acid content). Maybe I’m just boring. But I stand by it. I keep multiple gallons of this stuff on hand for cleaning, canning, and cooking purposes.

I do, however, keep some ACV around. This is for salad dressings and I also throw a good couple tablespoons in my stock as it’s simmering!

Balsamic vinegar belongs in strawberry shortcake, pasta sauce, brussel sprouts, and many other things. It’s a lot more versatile than it gets credit for!

Rice wine vinegar and soy sauce are the back bone of any Asian inspired dishes I make. Forgive me, there is nothing authentic about these dishes, because I live in rural Michigan: think fried rice, stir fries, or the Midwest classic egg-roll-in-a-bowl.

Worcestershire sauce is for anything beef related (and I also add it to my green bean casserole, shhhhh!).

Mayonnaise ends up in everything. Cake4, salads, dressings, sandwiches, chicken tenders, literally anything and everything! It’s essential!!!!

Hot sauce is a very personal thing. I adore El Pato (I’m a wimp), Cholula (for sweet heat), and Frank’s (because that’s my godson’s favorite). There are other various hot sauces floating around the pantry at various times as tastes change, but these three are the ones I always come back to.

Chipotle in adobo goes in any long-cooked pork roast. HUGE flavor boost for a tiny price tag!

You will notice salsa is missing from this list. That is because most of the time, if we’re eating salsa, I’m making it fresh in the summer from garden ingredients! I’ll occasionally buy it for a snack in the off season, but it’s a sometimes food.

Fats + Oils

Coconut oil is an essential ingredient in my vegan chocolate chip cookie recipe, so while I don’t keep copious amounts of it around, it is always on hand.

When I make my own mayonnaise, I prefer to use avocado oil. I don’t do it often, because it’s expensive, but I like to have it on hand for Special Occasions.

Someday I will write a love letter to lard. In the mean time, just know that I keep it on hand for frying, pie crusts, cooking, and pretty much everything else because it’s cheaper than butter!!!!!!!!!!!

Freezers

When I’m making a meal, I normally start with protein, and that normally means meat. I have many recipes that, for my family of six, rely on around 1-1.5lbs of meat for the entire meal. I tend to rely more on grains, dairy, and carbs to help fill out a meal. So while my starting point is normally a meat, that doesn’t mean it’s the heaviest presence on the plate.

My family is not a fish family, but I do try to keep salmon and/or shrimp in the freezer for special feast days (like Annunciation! Palm Sunday! St. Herman’s Feast Day!). I also randomly get a craving for salmon about once a month that nothing but salmon will satisfy, so I buy it when I see it on sale!

Shredded cheese freezes well! And my family eats a LOT of cheese. I keep sharp cheddar, parmesan, and mozzarella (or Monterey Jack) around for various situations. There is not room to detail all the ways I use cheese in my house in this piece, maybe some day I’ll expound on it!!

Butter also freezes well, and it comes in these nice, neat, little rectangular prisms that stack beautifully on a shelf. I stock up around the holidays when it goes on sale, and I will not tell you how much butter we go through in a week because it’s…excessive. Let’s just say if you’re baking most things from scratch and have an aversion to nonstick spray, you use a lot of sticks of butter.

Whole coffee beans will keep well for a year when frozen! Literally this saved my ass a few weeks ago, when I thought I was out while being snowed in, and I found a Costco sized bag of beans in the back of my freezer!! If you are a coffee drinker, keep some on hand, just in case. I put the bag in a ziploc freezer bag, just in case smells are an issue.

My kids are picky about their veggies, but the ones they like they’ll eat without question. Which means we eat a LOT of peas and broccoli! Both are great in stir fries, pastas, as a side, in casseroles, literally endless options.

Discount bakery bread is my saving grace for a quick meal. I use bagels for pizzas and quick breakfasts. The full sized Italian or French loaves5 make a 9x13 french toast bake or savory bread pudding. They thaw super quickly, dice up well, and taste great for less than a cheap sandwich loaf!

Fridge + Countertop

If things are financially tight, these are the things I reach for at the grocery store on a weekly basis to make the pantry work for me. I always have these on hand.

You will notice yogurt is missing from this list, because I make it!

Sour cream can be used for baking, cooking, and as a condiment. I always buy the giant tub of it!

Cabbage, potatoes, apples, and onions all keep for a long time, which is why I gravitate towards them in my meals. They are also all quite cost effective!

Do Not Be Legalistic About This List!!

There are things on this list that I may drop in five years or ingredients I add because my family suddenly falls in love with them. There are seasons where I use something everyday and others where I don’t use it for weeks. You might not like the way I cook, and use a whole other variety of ingredients instead. The beauty of a pantry is, it’s YOURS! Make it what you want it to be!!

Thanks for reading! This work will always be free, but if you would like to support my newsletter financially you can become a paid subscriber or donate over on my ko-fi page! I appreciate your support more than I can say. <3

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This year, I think False Spring is a beautiful gift.

Every winter I suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. By the time January rolls around, I feel like I’m in a never ending trance. Not quite asleep, not quite awake, just shuffling through the days. Add to that the absolute shitshow that was the start of our 20261, and you can imagine my mental state.

The problem with SAD is that, like many other flavors of depression, you can’t force yourself to be motivated to do things you logically know will pay off long-term. I know that if I get up earlier my day would run smoother, but I can’t make myself get up out of bed in the dark. I know that taking the time to scrub that fresh toothpaste my kid just squirted on the bathroom mirror now will save me time later, but the same kid is also now throwing themself on the floor in protest of bedtime and I don’t have it in me to do both. I know that garden season is coming so I need to start my onions, but I can’t find the energy to pull the shelves out of the basement or wipe down the grow lights.

And then, halfway through the month of February, there is that brief moment. The sun shows its face and the snow melts and you can walk outside without a jacket or hat. Maple taps start appearing on trees, and as the sap runs you can feel the blood in your veins pumping, too. Each morning starts a little earlier. Each sunset is a little later. And you remember what it’s like to breathe again. It’s just enough relief to give you hope.

Next week, the weather will dip back below freezing and the sky will be overcast again, but for me winter’s spell has been broken. I remember what it’s like to stand with my face in the sun, and that can’t be taken away from me again (at least not until next January).

The buds are forming. I can see the grass, even if only for a moment. In a few weeks the crocuses no one remembers planting will blanket the world, signaling the beginning of that glorious, riotous, untamable Spring. The daffodils and tulips will arrive on my dead mother’s birthday as they do every year. The lilacs will follow not long after that, causing me to drive with the windows down, distracted by their scent. Wave after wave of life is coming, nothing can stop it. I can feel it in my bones.

False Spring gives me the gift of memory, waking me from my SAD state. It gives me the motivation to slowly pull out the seeds from their drawers. To plant the onions now, so I can harvest them midsummer. To count the jars and make the plans so my pantry shelves can be replenished. To look at what’s coming with anticipation and excitement again.

And most importantly, just like the trees and bulbs and grass waking up around me, this False Spring slowly, gently, coaxes me back to life. We survived another Winter, and it’s great to be alive.

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Pancakes, Two Ways!!

It’s Pancake Tuesday!!!!! These pancakes are fluffy, sweet without a ton of added sugar, and rely on mostly pantry staples2. A batch makes about 32 pancakes. If that sounds like too many for you, you can always freeze some for a rushed morning in the future (or half the recipe)

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs

• 3 cups milk

• 1 can of pumpkin puree

• 1/3 cup maple syrup

• 2 tsp. vanilla

• 4 tsp. cinnamon

• 2 Tbsp. baking powder

• 2 tsp. baking soda

• 1 tsp. salt

• 4 cups flour

• 6 Tbsp. butter, melted

• 1 heaping cup chocolate chips or chunks

Directions:

1. Combine eggs, milk, pumpkin puree, maple syrup, and vanilla in a large bowl.

2. Sprinkle cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 cup of flour on top and give it a good stir.3

3. Add remaining 3 cups of flour and stir. Then add melted butter, and stir until all combined.

4. Add chocolate chips and combine.

5. Use a 1/4 cup measure to pour batter onto a hot, greased griddle and cook as you would normal pancakes.

Cardamom Applesauce Pancakes

Ingredients:

• 4 eggs

• 3 cups milk

• 1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce

• 1/4 cup maple syrup

• 2 tsp. vanilla

• 3 tsp. cinnamon

• 1 tsp. cardamom

• 2 Tbsp. baking powder

• 2 tsp. baking soda

• 1 tsp. salt

• 4 cups flour

• 6 Tbsp. butter, melted

• 1 heaping cup diced apple, about one large apple4

Directions:

1. Combine eggs, milk, applesauce, maple syrup, and vanilla in a large bowl.

2. Sprinkle cinnamon, cardamom, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and 1 cup of flour on top and give it a good stir.

3. Add remaining 3 cups of flour and stir. Then add melted butter, and stir until all combined.

4. Add apple chunks and combine.

5. Use a 1/4 cup measure to pour batter onto a hot, greased griddle and cook as you would normal pancakes.

I spend most of my waking hours, especially in the winter, standing at the kitchen counter next to the stove. Our house is drafty, so I turn the oven on as much as possible, soaking up the warmth like a cat in a sun patch. Giant pots of broth bubbling, dutch ovens of beans simmering away, slow cooked meat braising, and (of course) endlessly baking.

My youngest has, for a few months now, developed the habit of inserting himself at my feet between me and the cabinets when I’m standing at the counter. There he’s able to play his favorite game: open the cabinet into mom’s shin bones and break out all the pots and pans.

He also demands tribute, of course. Whenever I sneak a taste of something, or he spies an ingredient he likes, his little hand shoots up to the edge of the counter with an impertinent squawk, asking for me to share. Slices of banana (his favorite), chocolate chips, a fingerful of batter, all make their way down to his perch by my feet. He knows where the good stuff is.

But he’s not the first. I remember his older siblings at that age.

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His sister, now almost nine, sitting next to the pancake mixing bowl on the counter in our first apartment in Grand Rapids, cracking eggs with the intensity and care only an almost two year old can muster. His six year old brother, the one who was walking at nine months, who would stand right at my hip until I relented and gave him the mixing spoon. His other brother, now three, who from the first moment he could walk sprinted to the kitchen at the sound of the coffee grinder to help (and sneak in a cup of milk seasoned with coffee).

The thing about bananas is, I never remember how fast they ripen. One minute they’re perfectly ripe, and I promise I’ll eat it tomorrow for breakfast. But then I forget in the rush to get out the door and the rush to get the kids dressed and in the rush to get the dishes washed. I’ll get to it tomorrow.

But bananas don’t keep, and neither do babies. I find myself rushing, rushing, rushing them. Go to bed, please hurry up, let me tie your shoes for you, let’s go. Tomorrow we’ll go slower, I tell myself. And then I forget.

It is so hard to remember, as the days fly by, that the baby at my feet was once a completely different baby; one who now is up to my chin and occasionally steals my clothes and has a birthday this month. How has it been nine years?

In her early days, I struggled to stay present. When you look at pictures of me from those years, you can see it in my eyes: it was taking all I had to survive. There is a nagging guilt (particularly sharp in February, the month that made me a mom) that I have missed so much. That I’m still missing so much and falling behind.

The other day a friend told me that I look radiant and alive. That I look like I’m happy. And I can feel it in my bones. My life hasn’t gotten easier, but I have gotten softer. I roll with the punches and am no longer consumed by anxiety if something breaks. And trust me, many, many things have broken me open over the past year.

Maybe bananas and babies don’t keep, but maybe I also wasn’t ready to soak in those moments nine years ago. Maybe I can look back at the new mom who was with gentleness and forgiveness and say It’s ok, you’ll make it through. It’ll get better. It’ll be worth it.

And maybe I’m not falling behind, the opportunities have just changed. I can connect with my daughter in new ways: the books she reads, braiding her hair, letting her cook while I supervise. Instead of dwelling on what could have been, I can focus on what can be here now, in this moment.

I will always feel a twinge of guilt for all the moments I missed while in survival mode, but maybe today is the day we make banana bread out of what could have been left to rot. Maybe today is the day we try again.

Thank you so much for reading! Below you’ll fine a recipe for banana bread that I hope you love. This content will always be free, but if you would like to support me financially consider becoming a paid subscriber or donating at my ko-fi page! I am also rolling out a new perk for paid subscribers below the recipe, so scroll down for a sneak peek!

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Banana Bread Recipe

Notes:

This recipe makes a very full 9in x 5in pan. I had no issues with spillage in the oven, but consider putting a cookie sheet on the rack below just in case your pan is slightly smaller than mine.

This recipe is less sweet than my usual banana bread, and is best served with something like this sweet maple butter!

Ingredients:

• butter, for greasing pan and serving

• 2 2/3 cups flour

• 1 cup sugar

• 3 tsp baking powder

• 3/4 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

• 1 1/2 cups mashed bananas (about four medium bananas)

• 1/2 cup milk

• 1/2 cup melted butter

• 3 eggs

• 3 Tbsp molasses

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350*F. Grease a 9in x 5in loaf pan.

2. Combine 1 1/3 cups of the flour with the sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg.

3. Add the bananas, milk, and melted butter. Mix on low until combined, then on high for two minutes. (This is called reverse creaming and is what gives the banana bread it’s beautiful texture.)

4. Add molasses and eggs, mixing after each addition.

5. Add remaining 1 1/3 cups flour and mix well.

6. Pour into prepared loaf pan. Bake for 1hr 20min. (A toothpick inserted in middle should come out clean.)

7. Let it cool some before cutting into it, and top each slice with enough butter you can see your teethmarks after the first bite.

Printable Recipe Card!

While my posts and content here will always remain free for everyone, I am going to start including a printable recipe card for paid subscribers! This 4in x 6in card, designed by me, gives you the opportunity to easily print a concise version of the recipe for your box or binder.

In order to keep comments open, I will be dropping the JPEG file in the subscriber chat! Please check your messages for the file.

Thank you to all my paid subscribers, I appreciate you! <3

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For this, I simply cannot stand! Henceforth, I will lay out the reasons you need more oatmeal in your life.

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Instant Oats

When I buy oats, I get a 50lb bag of old-fashioned oats from our local Amish store. After prepping it for storage1, I blitz some in the food processor, pulsing it 6 or so times. This gives you instant oatmeal. I store it in glass half-gallon jars for days I just can’t deal with making breakfast.

The absolute best thing about instant oats is that you are able to make exactly the correct amount of portions, because you’re prepping them in the bowl they will be served in. If a child decides that they hate oatmeal, you’ve only wasted one serving. If a child decides they are starving and ask for thirds, it takes less than a minute to make them another bowl. No scrubbing a pot, no leftovers, no hungry kids. The perfect easy-morning trifecta.

To cook instant oats, I do a 1:1 ratio of oats to boiling water. Just pour the water on top of the oats and let it sit until they soak up the water. Add syrup, jam, chocolate chips, peanut butter, Nutella, or any combination of things that sounds good!

Oatmeal as Filler

There are many, MANY recipes for oat bread that substitute a portion of the flour for oatmeal or oat flour2. Not only does this help stretch your flour, it provides some extra fiber.

Here in the Midwest we love our meatloaf, and you will be hard pressed to find a meatloaf recipe that doesn’t call for oats3 as a binder or filler. Oats are known to make appearances in meatballs and breakfast casseroles as well!

Oatmeal as Dessert

The absolute best pie I have ever made is a Black-Bottom Oatmeal Pie. It has all the goodness of a pecan pie at a significantly reduced price. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a shot for your next family reunion or dinner party!

No-Bake Cookies are my husband’s absolute favorite. I shared my recipe here!

And don’t get me started on the best cookie of all time: Oatmeal Raisin (and yes, I will fight you about this!!)

REGULAR OATMEAL IS NOT BORING

Stovetop cooked oats DO NOT have to be boring. A few days ago I shared a Note about adding apples and butter to the pan before cooking my oats, and a bunch of people responded with their own variations!

Here is a non-comprehensive list of ways (some original to me and some recommended by you lovely people in the thread above) you can use to change up your morning oats:

• Cook a cut up apple, peach, pear, or berries in butter and cinnamon until soft before adding your oats and liquid.

• Toast your oats before adding your cooking lid to deepen the flavor.

• Instead of cinnamon, consider other warming spices such as cardamom, ginger, and nutmeg.

• Add dried fruit, such as cranberries, raisins, or apricots.

• Change up your sweetener: maple syrup, brown sugar, molasses, or jam are all options.

• Up the protein content by adding nuts, seeds, protein powder, peanut butter powder, nut butter, eggs, or collagen powder.

• Change up the cooking liquid and use milk or juice instead.

• Top your oatmeal with shredded coconut, nuts, a glug of cream, or (for the whimsical among us) sprinkles!

• Venture into the world of savory oats. Substitute broth for the cooking liquid and adjust your mix-ins to accommodate (herbs, green onion, greens, crumpled up bacon, soy sauce, etc.).

Your stovetop oatmeal is only going to get gummy if you don’t add enough liquid or you overcook it. Keep an eye on it while it’s simmering, and you’ll be surprised at the result!

Baked Oatmeal

One of the best ways to prepare oatmeal is to bake it. If you are the type of person who wakes up in the morning and says “wait, you need to eat breakfast again?? you just had breakfast yesterday!” to your children, then baked oatmeal is your friend.

One bowl, a 9x13 pan, and mostly pantry ingredients are all you need. Make it the night before, store it in the fridge overnight, and reheat in the morning! It will feel like breakfast magically appeared in the fridge for you (with minimal dishes!!).

Below I’ve included my Pumpkin Baked Oatmeal recipe. You’ll notice it’s heavy on the spices. This is because pumpkin and oatmeal are BLAND, and if you end up choosing to eat this cold (it’s still good cold, just better warm) you’ll be grateful for the extra flavor.

Also, I beg you, DO NOT be uptight about measurements here. The cranberries and pecans are what I had kicking around in the pantry. Feel free to substitute any nuts, seeds, fruit, or chocolate that sounds good to you! This is your chance to cut loose a little, don’t let the recipe boss you around.

Recipe: Baked Pumpkin Oatmeal

Ingredients:

• 2T butter, for greasing the pan4

• 4 eggs

• 2 cups milk (non-dairy milk is fine)

• 1/3 cup maple syrup

• 1 - 15oz can pumpkin

• 1t salt

• 2t cinnamon

• 1t ginger

• 1/2t nutmeg

• 1/4t cloves

• 2 cups oats

• 1 cup cranberries (or other dried fruit)

• 1 cup pecans (or other dried nut)

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 350*. Grease a 9x13 pan with butter.

2. Mix eggs, milk, maple syrup, and pumpkin in a large bowl. (I use my dough whisk.)

3. Stir in salt, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.

4. Add oats, cranberries, and pecans. Mix well.

5. Pour into prepared pan and bake for 40 minutes. The oatmeal is done when it is set in the middle.

6. Let cool a bit and cut into squares.

Store leftovers in fridge. This can be eaten cold, but tastes better warmed up in the microwave or oven. Because no one wants to eat cold oatmeal in January5.

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Thanks for being here friends. Stay warm out there!

I’m cold and tired and I KNOW I sound like a petulant child, but I would like to curl up under a blanket for the next four months, please and thank you.

But then someone asked me this very good question:

And suddenly, I am locked in. Apparently my mind and body aren’t ready to embrace the seed starting yet2, but canning? Let’s fucking gooooooooo.

It may only be January, but I have been a broken record that you need to count your jars, lids, rings, and shelf space in the dead of winter just as much as you need to check your seed packets. One of the MANY things 2020 taught us is that people will panic buy shit when the world feels unsteady. Lids were nowhere to be found because people who had never canned before suddenly thought they would can 400 jars3.

People are freaked out again. The economy, tariffs, ICE, Greenland, the general vibes lean towards panic. I’m not counting on being able to buy lids at the last minute this year. Buying early isn’t going to hurt you, since lids don’t really have a sale season and they keep. Stock up now and you’ll have one less thing to worry about when the strawberries start rolling in.

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A Disclaimer

This post is not going to contain canning tutorials. There are dozens of great resources out there for first time canners, both video and written, that will help you out.

What this post will do is point you in the right direction. I’ll give some brief explanations, point you to recipe ideas, and layout what my anticipated canning season4 will look like.

Please make sure you are looking for resources that align with tested, verified safe recipes. University extensions, Ball approved, and USDA approved are all good indicators that a recipe is safe. Canning is only dangerous if you don’t follow the rules5. I always default to the The Ball Blue Book if I have questions.

A Very Brief Canning Overview

Waterbath Canning is for high acid foods. High acidity (a pH level of 4.6 or lower) inhibits the growth of bacteria that causes botulism. I normally waterbath can applesauce, jams, jellies, and pickles. You can waterbath can tomatoes, but you need to add additional acid (either citric acid or lemon juice), and I don’t love the taste.

Pressure Canning is for low acid foods. According to the CDC, the toxin that causes botulism cannot be killed unless a sustained temperature of 240* is met. You can’t bend the laws of physics here. It does not matter how long you boil something, water evaporates at 212*. You will never get those jars up to 240* without a pressure canner, which means you run the risk of botulism. I pressure can corn, green beans, tomatoes, potatoes, stock, meat, and some meal-in-a-jar type things.

I have two standard waterbath canners, a Presto pressure canner, and an All-American pressure canner. I do not use an electric pressure canner, a steam canner, or anything like that. I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but please be diligent in vetting the safety of those things before jumping in on them.

Some Other Miscellaneous Reminders:

• I am in the United States where using two-part, Ball style lids is pretty much standard. I have zero experience with Weck, tattler, or paraffin sealing methods.

• Always check your jars for cracks and nicks before use to avoid broken jars.

• Always make sure your head space and processing time are accurate. As a rule, I always reread the recipe I’m using before I start, just to be safe.

• Never put hot food in a cold jar.

• Always test your seals by picking your jar up by the lid.

• Never store your jars with the rings on.

AGAIN, if you follow the rules you’ll be FINE. I PROMISE. But please follow the rules, not random TikTok influencers. Ok?

My Canning Priority

There isn’t a “right” way to approach canning priorities, because every family cooks and eats differently. Some people prefer to prioritize meals-in-a-jar. I prefer to prioritize flexible ingredients.

When I get a glut of something, I start by canning the most versatile version of it first. For example, when I get apples I start with applesauce. If I can my applesauce goal, then I move onto “fun” stuff, like apple butter or dried apple rings.

I follow this principle for everything I can. I stock before soup, plain tomato sauce before salsa, and plain green beans before dilly beans. This helps insure that no matter what dry good staples I have on hand, I can find ways to incorporate my canned goods into meals.

Order of the Harvest

This list is not going to have dates, months, or even clearly defined seasons. Depending on your growing zone, the dates are variable, and in recent years fruit seasons have been off by weeks even within my specific zone on occasion. However, there is a rhythm to the order produce comes in, with certain things generally proceeding others.

I am also not including everything you could can, just the stuff I have found worth canning for my family. I’ve tried to leave white space so you can add things you might enjoy that I’ve missed. All recipes are from The Ball Blue Book unless otherwise specified.

At the end of this list, I’ve linked a PDF for you to download that can help you map things out on one page! Feel free to stick it to your fridge once the season starts rolling, or as a reminder that eventually we will be unburied from this snow. Hypothetically.

Now let’s get into the details!

Rhubarb

When the rhubarb comes on, I feel like I have been resurrected from the dead. I’m still working on establishing my patch, but I adore rhubarb simple syrup and strawberry-rhubarb jam. You can freeze rhubarb to save for jam making during strawberry season, since the strawberries don’t always cooperate timing-wise.

Strawberries

Strawberry jam is my family’s absolute favorite, and I literally can’t make too much of it. Because of this I have never canned a non-jam-strawberry recipe. I use The Ball Blue Book long-cook jam recipe, because it doesn’t call for pectin. It doesn’t necessarily yield a fully gelled product, more like a preserve, but I read somewhere once that “some fruits express themselves more softly as preserves, and that’s ok”. Since then, it has become my jam-canning-motto and I opt for making pectin free jam for all my berries. No regrets.

I use jam for yogurt, sandwiches, cookies, cake, pancakes, cinnamon rolls, and basically anywhere else you might add sugar. We go through about a pint a week, sometimes more, depending on the season.

Green Beans

I always start by pressure canning pints of plain green beans. In my experience, home canned ones are less soggy and bland than store bought. I dump these into soups, chicken pot pie, and have found they work really well in green bean casserole6.

After I’ve canned my weight in plain green beans, I start in on dilly beans. I love these things! They are easier to keep crisp than a cucumber pickle but pack the same punch. I use my wide mouth pints for these, it makes packing them uniformly a bit easier. I use my mom’s recipe, which I shared below (1/2 inch headspace, btw).

Raspberries, Blackberries, + Black Raspberries

Black raspberry jam is divine, and is an absolute pain in the ass to get berries for. Where I live, you can find wild black raspberries growing all over the place. Many people will let you pick them for free, and there’s a reason for that. Black raspberry bushes are COVERED in prickly little thorns. The same applies to regular red raspberries, although those will require more work to hunt down as they are cultivated, not wild.

Blackberries and black raspberries are NOT the same thing, and the number one way to get me to ignore your food content is to conflate the two. Blackberries don’t come on until the black raspberries are mostly finished for the season. They don’t have the zip of a black raspberry. They’re bigger and juicier and the most popular variety around these parts is thornless. I think they’re a little inferior on the jam side, but they are definitely easier to pick!

Blueberries

My absolute favorite jam, however, is blueberry. Blueberry bushes are tall, so you don’t have to stoop to pick them. There are no prickers. You don’t have to slice them up. You wash them really well, check for tiny pieces of stem, and move on with your life. Not only that, they make the best jam flavor!

Tomatoes

For tomatoes, I always prioritize plain sauce. I can it in quarts in my pressure canner. This sauce can get turned into pasta sauce, pizza sauce, soup, Midwest goulash, chili, beef stew, or any number of other things further down the road. If I run out of stamina, I abandon the food mill and start canning them as whole, peeled tomatoes. I cook with tomatoes constantly, so I try to put up as many as possible.

Salsa is something that has been on my to-do list literally forever, but I have never actually gotten around to it. If you have a canned salsa recipe you swear by, let me know in the comments!

Tomatillos

Salsa verde is a gift from God, and we all need more of it in our lives. I haven’t found a recipe I super love yet, so if you have a recommendation let me know! I don’t share this one with the kids, so spicy is ok!

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Peaches

When canning peaches, you need to make sure you are getting the kind meant for canning. Otherwise your pH levels can be off and/or you will spend your entire life prying pits out of them and hate yourself. You need freestone, yellow peaches. My local Amish store sells them by the bushel at a steep bulk discount.

I always start with canning sliced peaches (in quarts). When you’re looking at recipes for canning fruit, you’ll notice that you need to select a type of syrup. In The Ball Blue Book there is a syrup recipe that calls for honey. I use that instead of white sugar.

Then I move onto peach butter. We don’t eat a lot of peach butter, but it’s delicious and I like to give it as gifts7.

Plums

My friend Allison gave me a half-pint of plum jam a few years ago and I literally dream of it to this day. Plums are pricey, but a small batch of plum jam is worth the splurge if you can swing it. I use the recipe she gave me, and that’s classified information, sorry.

Sweet Corn

Sweet corn is one of the few vegetables that taste more-than-adequate when canned. I always try to put up pints of sweet corn to add to soup, particularly potato soup8. It also makes a good side with butter in a pinch!

Apples

I live in Michigan, where if you knock on doors and ask if people are going to use their field apples you can probably get a couple bushels9. I always start with applesauce, and have never actually made it to apple butter because we eat so. much. applesauce. I can it in quarts (unsweetened10), because my kids can eat two quarts in a single sitting.

Apples are a bit controversial in my mind, because they are high-acid and high-pectin, but the most reason Ball Blue Book consistently calls for adding lemon juice or citric acid for waterbath canning. They also do not add a specific amount per jar, so I’m not sure how they’re guaranteeing the correct acidity if that was the concern. They don’t explain why they’ve updated the guidance anywhere in the book. Because I am familiar with the why of the rules, I still waterbath can my applesauce without adding any extra acid. Do your own research on what you feel comfortable with.

Pears

I always can quarts of sliced pears for kids lunches. If for some reason I don’t get to my pears fast enough, I turn them into pear sauce. This is delicious, and is honestly similar enough to applesauce that I just tell my kids it’s applesauce. I get my pears from our local Amish store as well.

Concord Grapes

I don’t always succeed at getting my hands on them, but in Michigan concord grapes are to die for. If I can track them down, I make jelly. I can’t explain to you the goodness of fresh concord grape juice, it’s next to none. If you ever get the opportunity, try it. You’ll see what I mean.

Beets

I could make myself sick eating pickled beets. They’re incredibly simple, taste amazing, but it will look like someone committed a murder in your kitchen if you process them. You absolutely must wear an apron for this, or forfeit your clothes to the canning gods upon finishing.

Potatoes

For potatoes, you have to can peeled, white-fleshed potatoes in a pressure canner in chunks. Potatoes are one of the things I see most frequently unsafely canned on the Internet. Please don’t be that guy. I can my potatoes in quarts for making potato soup (see footnote 6). I buy the $0.99/5lb bags around Thanksgiving for canning purposes.

Potatoes do keep for a very long time, but I can them because it completely eliminates the prep step later. I don’t have to peel or cook potatoes to make soup, I just have to pop the top. This is worth it for me! Canning them also puts them in glass, which helps keep pests away.

Stock + Meat

I do not currently can a lot of meat, but I do love making stock11. I save turkey carcasses, chicken carcasses, and discounted beef bones and chicken feet from Horrocks in my freezer for a rainy day (literally). Then, the biggest pot I own gets pulled out and the bones are combined with veggies like carrots, onions, celery, ginger, and garlic. I cover the whole mess with water and a hefty splash of apple cider vinegar, then bring it to a boil and skim any impurities off the top. Only after I’m done skimming it do the spices join the party: whole black peppercorns, bay leaves, and thyme.

I don’t add salt to my stock. Commence pearl clutching, I know, but hear me out. One of the (many) issues with store bought stock is you can’t control the salt level. I add salt to whatever recipe I’m adding stock to and taste as I go.

Canning stock is a three-day ordeal, because I let the stock simmer in the pot for 24-hours. Then, I strain the stock and let it cool in my second-biggest-pot in the fridge until the fat congeals. The day I can it, I remove the fat off the top and get to work. It is a labor of love, and absolutely only worth it (to me) because I have a giant pot and can do gallons at a time. Also it tastes SO good!

I am not particular about what I put in my stock, in terms of a recipe12. This is because I am pressure canning the jars, and the main concern with pressure canning is getting all your ingredients up to temperature to kill bad bacteria. Stock is always a liquid, and there is little variation in density, so it doesn’t matter what seasoning or bones you use as long as it’s strained well and you have appropriate head room!

Citrus

Winter is citrus season!! I have not done a whole lot with citrus, but I have canned pineapple and it is WAY better tasting than the cans you get at the store. I’d like to try lemonade concentrate at some point as well, but the cards have not yet aligned.

Dried Beans

Yes, dry beans keep forever. But you know what? They also take forever to cook! At the end of the season, if I have extra13 pint jars I pressure can jars of black beans. Black beans are my go to for vegetarian or vegan taco nights, and having jars available to make tacos in the summer (when the last thing I want to do is cook a big pot of beans) is a game changer. Sometimes canning is less about preserving and more about front-loading your ingredient prep.

*BONUS ROUND* Discounted, Off-Season Berries

Where I live, there are sales on strawberries, blackberries, and blueberries in the dead of winter where you can get them for $0.99/lb. I take advantage of these sales and make copious amounts of jam for my family, if needed. It’s not ideal fruit (in-season local fruit tastes better) but it saves me a good chunk of money.

I Made This For You!

Below is a PDF download of a one-page printable canning planner where you can write the recipes you hope to make and how many jars you’re hoping to achieve. Let me know if you end up using it, I’d love to see!

Canning Printable (black And White)

2.66MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

Canning Printable (color)

2.66MB ∙ PDF file

Download

Download

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Thank you all for being here and supporting my work, it truly means the world. Now go forth and plan your canning season! May all your lids seal and your jars never crack!

In 1930, Mrs. C. W. Anderson published what is the first known recipe for hotdish. According to Paul Fehribach, in his cookbook Midwestern Food2:

Many speculate that the name derives from the USDA’s push for a “hot dish” to be included with school meals during the early twentieth century, and many of the guides it published through extension offices were pretty specific about it….By the definition that evolved from this purpose of forming a square meal out of a single dish, a proper hotdish includes a starch base, a protein such as poultry, meat, or fish, a canned or frozen vegetable, a canned soup, and a crispy or crunchy topping.

Since the 1930s, hotdish has become an integral part of Minnesotan (and Midwestern) culture. There are countless cookbooks, blog posts, and competitions dedicated to the concept. You can buy hotdish themed merch: postcards, trays, tea towels, t-shirts, you name it. Every community cookbook from the 1930s on seems to contain at least one recipe for the dish.

And in a place where temperatures dip well below zero during the winter, this kind of food makes sense. You can feed a lot of people easily with mostly shelf-stable pantry ingredients. It’s a hot bowl of comfort, when the world around you feels cold.

Like many other places in the United States, Minnesota has a beautiful, thriving immigrant population. And because the definition of hotdish is relatively loose, it has in recent years become a launching point for cooks to create recipes utilizing flavor profiles of their heritage in the packaging of their new home culture.

Representative Ilhan Omar, for example, submitted her recipe for “Little Moga-hot-dishu” to the 2019 Minnesota Congressional Delegation Hotdish Competition. It contains warming spices, like ginger and garam masala, alongside a tater tot lid.

James Beard nominated Chef Yia Vang created a Minnesota Hmong Hotdish, utilizing coconut milk to create a creamy curry sauce in lieu of creamed soup and tops it with the iconic tater tot.

Recipes for Chow Mein Hotdish, Taco Hotdish, Ras El Hanout Hotdish, and countless other variations (of sometimes dubious origins) abound. But at the end of the day, they’re all hotdish. Variations on a theme, with striking differences, all apart of the same delicious family.

In the Midwest, feeding people is a love language. When it’s cold, and the world is dark, we make massive amounts of food. I love you, we say, as we fill your bowl. Do you want some more? we ask, as we pick up the spoon. Take some to go, we instruct, as we fill old sour cream containers with leftovers. Stay warm out there, we caution, as we stand in the cold doorway with the porch light on. Let me know when you get home safe.

Please, get home safe, I whisper as I rock the baby and hold back tears at the news updates3 and pray things don’t get worse, please, get home safe.

There is very little that I, as a stay-at-home mom with four permanent shadows, can do to help in the current moment. I can’t go protest. I can’t even do something as simple as go to the grocery store right now, because it’s not safe to bring the baby outside in the Real Feel -6"*F we’re currently experiencing.

But in this moment, we are all called to do what we can with what we have. I will watch the news and pray and call my representatives and pray and rock my babies and pray and remind everyone in my life that I love them.

And I will make a hotdish, and remind you to make one, too. I’ll feed the few people I have access to right now with love and warmth and remind everyone I can that before we are anything else, we are human. We’re all the same, variations on a theme, all made in the image of God, all worthy of a warm meal, love, respect, dignity.

Fight like hell, feed your neighbor, and please, friends, get home safe.

I will always keep my work paywall free, but if you would like to support me financially consider becoming a paid subscriber or contributing at my ko-fi. Thanks for all your support, it means the world.

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For my tenth wedding anniversary (and my husband’s 31st birthday), the universe put me on call for jury duty.

When I opened the summons a few weeks ago and saw the dates1, I burst out laughing. We had been planning, children willing, to take an impromptu Friday night away. Just one night, in a mediocre hotel, eating takeout, watching shitty tv, and drinking tequila2. And maybe we could have swung it still, if I was scheduled to report maybe I could have gone straight from the courthouse to pick up my husband and then head out to meet my parents and drop off the kids and make it to the hotel by 8pm to check out by 11am the next day. Maybe the baby wouldn’t lose his shit after not seeing me all day and all night and spike my parents cortisol levels with his screaming. Maybe.

But maybe next year is a better idea, actually. The baby will be a year older, the money will be a little more secure, the house will be a little more put together. Maybe.

Last week Tuesday morning my husband told me they were dropping to five tens. He’d have weekends again, be home again, we’d see each other again.

Last week Tuesday afternoon my husband texted me they were bumping up to 12s for the rest of the week and he might be working Saturday. I would be alone again, bedtime solo again, hanging onto sanity by a thread again. Not talking to adults for days at a time will do that to you.

This week, he’s back to five tens. So the universe gifted us the coldest weather we’ve had in years, wind whipping through the cracks in our little farmhouse, and my husband spending every spare minute in the cold making sure the wood is stocked and the boiler stays lit and the house stays warm.

And I am alone again, inside hanging old quilts over all the window frames and yelling at the kids to wear socks, please, for the love of all that is holy. And baking and baking and baking to keep the kitchen warm and to say thank you for doing this, I know it’s cold, thank you for loving us with cold hands and frozen breath and sore back. I love you.

On his birthday, after a ten hour day, my husband changed the oil on my sister’s car as trade for date night babysitting.

I made him a giant vat of beef stew to keep him warm and peanut butter cake with chocolate fudge frosting with 24 candles on it (because that’s how many candles are in a pack, “wouldn’t it be nice to be 24?” he said). He blew them out, and we relit them so the kids could blow them out, too.

For his gift, I cleaned every dish in the sink and swept the floor and caught up on all the laundry and folded all the socks, so that when he came in the door he couldn’t find a single chore he felt obligated to do. So he could sit and rest and breathe. That’s what the January budget allows for, that’s what being in your 30s with four kids on a single income allows for, that’s what it means to show love these days.

Growing older just is. Morally neutral, laced with equal parts melancholy and joy. Breathing and sitting and loving become precious, but it’s all tinged with fear. As the losses creep in, it’s hard to hold what you’ve been given with open hands.

My husband’s grandfather died a few months ago. My uncle is dying in his 40s. My mom is gone and I have lost friends, too. The losses will keep coming, the grief will compound, and each time it sharpens my view of the world. Every precious moment, every baby giggle or tumble, every kiss and argument and good bowl of soup appears before me in HD. It takes all my strength to keep my hands open, to let things come and go instead of strangling the goodness out of them trying to hold onto things that are only mine for a season. What a terrible gift, grief is.

Some day there will be more time to write, more time to process, more time to give. But winter is always the crucible of the year for me. I’m home more, facing down my demons, and forced to truly live with myself. This year is no exception.

Spring will come, there will be growth and sunlight again. And all will be well. Maybe. But even if it isn’t, I’ll hold onto it all with open hands and a grateful heart for each difficult and beautiful moment.

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Thank you for all the support friends, I couldn’t do this without you. <3

This post is part of a sporadically published series. You can find the first two parts here, here, and here.

I have turned on paid Substack subscriptions! My work will continue to be free to all, however if you would like to support me financially you can do so either here on Substack or over at my ko-fi page. Thank you so incredibly much to each and every one of you who have contributed, I can’t begin to tell you how grateful I am and the difference your support makes. <3

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(This post is too long for email, so if you want to see all my sassy footnotes you will need to open it in your internet browser.)

Turkey

I talked a ton about turkey over in my Big Thanksgiving Post, so I’m not going to go all into the details here. However, I will say that I made the compound butter with two full sticks of butter, thyme, lemon zest, salt, and pepper, stuck slices of lemon under the skin with the butter, and it was an incredibly juicy decision.

I cooked this bird on a random weekday, because it is a LOT of meat for cheap. It became leftovers for the week and was put to good use! You can just cook a turkey, on a weekday, because why not!! Follow your heart2!

Steak & Mushroom Cream Sauce

This meal looks all fancy and expensive, and it would be if I had bought the ingredients specifically to make this meal. BUT. It is actually a lot of Thanksgiving ingredient leftovers in disguise. The potatoes, parmesan, and cream are leftover from making scalloped potatoes. The mushrooms were leftover from making green bean casserole. And as many of you know, we let our farmer neighbor use our pasture in exchange for beef, so the steak was free (sort of). The only ingredient I actually bought for this specific meal here was (frozen) broccoli.

This is what I mean by use what you have!!

Anyways, for the mushroom sauce I sweated an onion, added the chopped mushrooms and cooked until the juices came out. Then I added salt, pepper, thyme, and the cream. (Cream will thicken up without a roux!) I also added a splash of Worcestershire sauce, and wow did that take it over the top (complimentary).

For frozen broccoli, I always roast it at 425* with salt and olive oil3 until a little crispy. This time, I topped it with extra parm I had laying around and stuck it under the broiler until the cheese melted.

I’ve talked a lot about mashed potatoes in my Thanksgiving Post as well, and I followed that pretty closely (minus the parsnips). But I will say that I added some leftover dried chives this time (not in the picture) and WOW. I made mashed potatoes without them a few days4 later and my daughter said “mom, where are the little green things??” and I said “I ran out, why?” and she said “they make them taste SO GOOD.”

So that’s my 8-year-old’s five star tip for making your mashed potatoes perfect. Add little green things.

Alison Roman’s Blueberry Muffins

I have made this recipe from multiple times and I really love it. They’re not too sweet! They’re very blueberry heavy!

Last week I made a version of them with chocolate chips and almond extract instead of blueberries and lemon zest, and they were also phenomenal. So if you get bored of blueberries, give that a shot. I always make a double batch.

I have also, after literal years of longing, finally acquired a microplaner5. As a general rule, I try really hard not to buy things unless I can get them secondhand, so I had been using a box grater to zest things for the past-however-long-I-have-been-baking-things. And I have to say, a microplaner actually is all it’s cracked up to be! Definitely worth purchasing!!

Very Gingery Chicken (well, actually turkey) Soup

My personal theory is that pretty much anything you can use a chicken for you can actually just use turkey. I haven’t found a recipe that proves me wrong yet. So that giant turkey from earlier? He got turned into literal gallons of soup6.

I am very much in the “you do not need a recipe for soup” camp, and I think ’s post on the subject is the definitive guide. If you are trying to break away from recipes, check it out!

The Kettle with Meagan Francis

You don't need a recipe to make soup

Let me start by saying this: I have nothing against recipes. I like them as a source of inspiration, a quick grocery-list cheat, and sometimes, a source of basic cooking information I don’t have at the top-of-mind ready - like how long a specific cut of meat may need to stay in the oven at a specific temperature. And when I’m learning a totally new-to-m…

Read more

a year ago · 23 likes · 18 comments · Meagan Francis

This soup season I have found myself gravitating towards onions, celery, carrots, sweet potatoes (or regular potatoes), chicken (or turkey) and some kind of grain (farro or pearled barley7) to fill it out during the last 20 minutes of cooking. For the liquid, I’ve been using a combo of stock and milk. And for the spices8 I have been adding COPIOUS amount of garlic, thyme, and ginger. You know, the ones that are supposed to help you not-get-sick? It doesn’t seem to be helping, but I’M TRYING OK.

Cabbage & White Bean Soup (with lots of parmesan!!)

This vegetarian9 soup is loosely inspired by a soup recipe I read one time in Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat because I CANNOT FIND MY COPY literally ANYWHERE in my house, so it’s just the parts I vaguely remember.

The thing that sets this soup apart, in my opinion, is that after you sweat the onions and garlic you add a can of crushed tomatoes10 and cook them down until “jammy”11. Then you add your liquids and your beans and cabbage and cheese, per usual. Make sure you stir the bottom of the pot often, like more than you think you should, because the cheese will stick things to the bottom and it will burn!!

The other thing I love about this soup is that when you’re eating it, the cabbage ribbons almost feel like noodles. They’re not, obviously, but it’s an easy way to trick yourself into eating another vegetable.

Lazy Baked Potatoes

I have four children. When we do baked potato night, I have to assemble multiple plates of baked potatoes to individual preferences. I also end up having to peel a bunch of baked potatoes.

On this particular night, I did not want to make individual plates and I only had sausage (no bacon). So I baked all the potatoes12 in my cast iron 9x13 pan, peeled them all, smooshed them in the bottom of the pan, topped with cooked sausage, covered it in cheese so my kids couldn’t see it wasn’t bacon until it was too late, and stuck it in the oven until the cheese melted13. And then I had to put ranch on it, because we live in the Midwest.

It tasted really great, way better than these pictures make it look, and it made serving the kids way faster!! It would make a phenomenal breakfast, and you could probably prep it the night before and just heat it up in the morning. Practical food doesn’t have to be pretty, just delicious.

Deviled Eggs

We celebrated Christmas with my dad and his wife, and it was a lovely time! I asked what I could bring and she suggested deviled eggs.

Now I had never made them before, but I was feeling confident since I had figured out how to boil eggs that peel easily14! I could do this! With or without an egg tray15!!

I started with the deviled egg recipe on the Pioneer Woman’s blog, because I figured she was probably a safe starting point for a potluck staple. Her recipe calls for mayo, mustard, and pickle brine, which seemed right!

Turns out it was….ok…but kinda bland. So I added a bunch of dried dill, some garlic powder, and a lot more salt. It was much better then!!

And yes, I did break out the piping bag to fill these (thank you for noticing) because I wanted to be fancy since this was the only thing I was bringing. My piping is atrocious, but they still turned out edible and cute, especially with the dry chives sprinkled on the top like savory sprinkles!!

ANYways, now I’m hungry and need to go feed my family. Until next time, friends!

This work will always be free, however…

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The year is ending, and with it comes a sense of my own mortality. If the average lifespan of an American woman is 81 years, I’ve got 49 left. If I die at the same age my mother did, I’ve got 16. If I get unlucky and slip on the ice tomorrow, this could be the last thing I ever write you.

There was a time in my life when those numbers and the inevitability of death would cause me intense anxiety. I felt like there was so much I wanted to do and see and say and experience. Art to make, work to complete, life to live. How the hell was I supposed to finish it all, with the ball dropping?

In a weird twist of fate, it was joining the Dead Mom Club that cured me of that. Those numbers became facts, not threats. Death comes for us all, I realized, and the work I get done is the work I was meant to do. No more, no less.

To declare that feels anathema to how I was raised. I come from a strong and steady line of women who fully embodied the Protestant Work Ethic. It’s not an understatement to say that I did as well, for a time. Working hard was how I survived through all sorts of pain during my high school and college years. It gave me a purpose, and that purpose felt larger than myself because I had been taught that embracing endless hard work was as essential as worship in the eyes of God1.

I always wanted to be a mother. But when I became one, it shattered me into a thousand pieces. All of the ambition that had previously been my reason for living was sucked out of my bones. I loved my daughter more than anything, but when she made her entrance I felt like a husk of my former self. I couldn’t stand the thought of leaving her to return to work2, but I couldn’t live with myself if I wasn’t working to the bone. It took having three more kids to reconcile the pieces and transform me into a cohesive human being again3.

I will never say that motherhood is the highest calling of a woman. Everyone has their own role to play, and by claiming one role is the peak of human experience belittles all the other paths a woman might find herself on. I believe we’re each called to the work we’re meant to do and for each of us it will look different, because all of us are unique in beautiful and clever and strange ways. No one person’s work is more important.

However, motherhood has become the most important and defining work of my life. Not in an all-consuming-personality-defining-everything-that-I-am sort of way4. I am still very much myself, with my own interests and desires and personality. But motherhood has become the backbone of my days, the through line of my decision-making, and my impetus to become a better person. Having four immortal souls dependent on me for their every need has become the central focus of my life.

And paradoxically, the more I’ve embraced my role as mom, the more confident and independent I’ve become. I am stronger than I ever believed possible, because motherhood has challenged me and I have tried my best to rise to that challenge.

When I think of the death of the old year and the start of the new, I no longer panic about how many summers I have left to garden, how many Christmases I have to make memorable, or how many birthday cakes I have left to make. I don’t set SMART goals, stretch goals, or KPIs anymore. (I was never good at meeting them anyways.) Instead, I think about the legacies of all the mothers that came before me, and in particular my own mom.

My mom worked hard until a few weeks before she died, but that’s not what she’s remembered for. She’s remembered for her warmth, her laugh, her immeasurable kindness. She loved fiercely and gave generously. She met each day with gentle optimism, in a way that shouldn’t have been possible under the burdens she carried. She is the reason I am compassionate and kind and fierce and optimistic, not through explicit instruction but from her determination to be the best version of herself that she could be.

I am now a mother, in a long line of mothers, who is building a legacy for her children. And I have been asking myself this New Year’s Eve: how do I want my children to remember me?

I want them to remember me standing in the kitchen, singing while I wash the dishes instead of complaining about the mess. I want them to feel warm and comfortable in our home, a clean and well-loved home, confident that they can always come back for a delicious meal and a hug. I want them to remember my determination to be the best I can, how I loved fiercely and gave freely, no matter the circumstances or cost. I want them to remember my joy.

So, in 2026, I’m not setting quantitative goals. I’m setting the vibes in hopes of creating a place and a person my kids will look back on with gratitude and love once I’m gone. I may have 49 years, 16 years, or 10 minutes left to build that legacy. But whatever time I have, I trust that it will be enough.

Happy New Year, friends. May it be filled with light and love. I am so grateful for each and every one of you. Cheers.

This work will always be free, however if you would like to support me monetarily in the New Year you can now become a paid subscriber right here on Substack! If you can’t commit to a monthly or annual subscription but would like to donate, you can instead make a one-time donation over at my ko-fi page. Thank you so much for all your support, and I’m looking forward to a wonderful 2026 with all of you. <3

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Without fail, I forget all the little merry-making-magic traditions because we only do them once a year. Instead of wallowing in self-sabotaged-pity (again) and repeating the cycle in 2026, I am taking the time RIGHT NOW2, while it is still fresh in my brain, to make a comprehensive list of what my ideal holiday season would look like. Will we actually do every single one of these things? Probably not. Does this at least give me the framework to try and do the things if I want, which is a huge improvement over my current “always feeling behind” system? YES.

This list starts in October, the month where I inevitably forget that my kids need costumes and find myself scrambling at the last minute to the thrift store. It ends with Theophany in January, the day I inevitably forget to bring a container for Holy Water to liturgy and forget to schedule our annual house blessing.

There are many things here that may or may not be applicable to you (for example, some of you are not religious, some of you don’t care about the solstice or Halloween, and some of you don’t like making cookie boxes). But my hope in sharing this is that if you, like me, want to feel less behind during this crazy 3.5 month holiday run, you are inspired to take what you can and leave what you can’t.

Huge thank you to in the subscriber chat for asking “I don’t suppose “planning your entire Holiday season for you” is a realistic option…” because, JOKE’S ON YOU, that was the inciting incident for this massive piece!! (I know you were kidding, but it made me realize a holiday planner would actually be super helpful lol.) I can’t plan your holiday season for you, but I can plan mine and you can copy as much of it as you want.

While writing this, I also came across ’s post about her liturgical binder. Her binder leans more common place book while what I’ve outlined below is definitely more planner, but the goal is similar: document annual, seasonal traditions in a way that makes planning feel manageable. Check out her post if you would like to see some beautiful inspiration and ideas!

I’m hoping to publish a hardcopy holiday-season planner in early September of next year3. Consider this the first draft and I’d love your feedback on anything I might have missed4.

This work will always be free, but if you would like to monetarily support my work you can do so over on ko-fi! Thank you so much to all who have contributed. And to my monthly subscribers, I appreciate you more than you can possibly imagine.

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Now let’s save our holiday sanity together! But for next year. This year it’s already too late, I fear.

October:

The autumnal equinox5 has passed, and with it the ramp up to the most chaotic and magical part of the year begins. This month we have Indigenous People’s Day (Oct. 12)6 and Halloween (Oct. 31).

Week 1, 9/27/2026 - 10/3/2026

Buy a Book for Indigenous People’s Day

Each year, I like to buy a book by (or recommended by) an indigenous author and read it with the kids to mark the day. It’s a good way to help make sure my home library is not homogenized, and provides an annual marker to talk about the complex history of the United States with my kids at an age appropriate level. I try to buy the book with plenty of time to ship.

Pick Out Costumes

I would like to start having an annual sit down dinner with my kids for a costume planning session. I feel like this could be a fun, annual tradition (that can grow with them as they start taking on their own responsibility for costume ideas/plans).

At this dinner, I would like to have each kid fill out a piece of paper (words and illustrations) with their dream costume. This would give me a month to attempt to make their dream a reality, and I’m hoping the act of physically documenting what they want to be will help prevent last minute costume mutinies7.

I want to serve soup in a pumpkin, for dramatic effect. This is a weird internet thing, I know, but I make a decent sausage/squash soup that would be fun to serve in a pumpkin, and I think it would be a memory making moment of “that one time a year mom made a pumpkin full of soup”.

Plan a Party (If You Want)

We don’t normally do a fall party, but I’m considering a pumpkin carving party for next year. Ideally this would take place sometime during Week 4 of October. My kids are finally old enough that this sounds more “fun” than “safety hazard”. If you’re planning a fall party, get those invitations out!

Week 2, 10/4/2026 - 10/10/2026

Take or Pick Out Photos for Holiday Cards

My family is not an annual-family-photo crew. I have also successfully sent out Christmas cards exactly once. I really, REALLY want to be a Christmas Card Family, so I’m putting this reminder here: TAKE OR FIND THE PHOTOS YOU NEED NOW. There’s a lull here, in the chaos, and if you’re going to start digging through nine months of photos this is your opportunity.

If you are an annual-family-photo family, this gives you time to get your pictures back from the photographer for your Christmas card!

Week 3, 10/11/2026 - 10/17/2026

Monday October 12: Indigenous People’s Day

This is the day to read some books from the list below! You could also consider making some recipes utilizing indigenous ingredients. Again, this is just a way to check-in by using the holidays on the calendar as reminders to touch on important topics with your kids each year.

Week 4, 10/18/2026 - 10/24/2026

Finish Up Halloween Costumes

By now we have one week left to finish up those Halloween costumes! This is the week that last minute details should be planned, accessories made, make-up purchased/tracked down, and everything should be put together in one spot. The week of Halloween normally means kids’ parties, which means you won’t have time next week. Do it now, get it done!!!! And don’t forget to figure out what bags you’re using for trick-or-treating!

Finish Up Trick-or-Treat Plans

Where are you trick-or-treating? My family has oscillated between local trunk-or-treats, local door-to-door, school fundraiser events, and occasionally driving to the next town over to walk the neighborhood with friends. Depending on dates, sometimes we do more than one! Make plans now if you haven’t yet!!

Week 5, 10/25/2026 - 10/31/2026

Saturday October 31: Halloween

This is the night it alllllll comes together. The costumes are already made, you have your bags, you have your plans. You can just….do it. No last minute stress, because you’ve already planned the details.

November:

This is where the rubber really hits the road and the weekly lists are starting to get longer. While there aren’t a ton of “holidays” this month, if you want December to go smoothly you really have to put in the work now. This month we have Veteran’s Day (Nov. 11), The Start of Nativity Fasting (Nov. 15), Thanksgiving (Nov. 26), and Black Friday (Nov. 27).

Week 1, 11/1/2026 - 11/7/2026

Track Down Advent Readings

For my family, we’re going to try and read Welcoming the Christ Child daily this year. That means I need to buy it in time to ship before the fast starts.

Make Christmas Gift Lists

My goal is to have all the presents bought by the end of the first week of December. That means this is the week I need to know what people want for Christmas. It gives me time to watch for sales, start digging through thrift stores, and plan my budget. You certainly don’t have to give gifts to everyone listed below, everyone’s traditions are a little different, but I’m writing down all the categories just in case you actually want to.

Gift Categories to Consider:

• Teachers (co-op, Sunday School, sports, etc.)

• Godchildren/Godparents

• Pastor/Priest

• Parents

• Grandparents

• Nieces/Nephews

• Aunts/Uncles

• Siblings

• Your Kids

• Your Spouse

• Neighbors

• Friends

• Postal Workers/Delivery People

In 2026, with my immediate family (spouse & kids) I would like to start a tradition of only doing a stocking. A little while back, there was a really great thread started by a commenter, , on my “This is Not a Gift Guide” piece about stockings and it really inspired me. Thank you everyone involved for your suggestions!! I plan on looking back at that thread and utilizing a lot of them, plus adding some little things (for example a watch, earrings, a belt, etc.). My kids are at an age where they are still receiving some big toys from grandparents, and our house is small, so we really don’t need more toys. The size restraint of the stocking seems like a good fit for us!

When I was very little, my great grandmother had made a stocking shaped like a boot that fit a metal coffee can and an orange in the toe for each of her kids, grandkids, and great grand kids. Those were all lost to time, but I would like to try and come up with a pattern for something similar. If you have seen something similar, or have a suggestion for a pattern for something similar, please let me know in the comments!

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Start Watching for Sales

The start of November is when sales are going to start popping up for holiday foods and pantry staples. Keep a particular eye out for turkeys, potatoes, sweet potatoes, cranberries, canned corn, canned green beans, and hams.

Make a Fasting Plan

If you are Orthodox, you know Advent is a fasting season. If you are fasting, this is the week to make sure you have pulled out your recipes and backfilled any vegan pantry ingredients you may be low on.

Make & Freeze Pie Crust for Thanksgiving

I always, always, always volunteer to bring pie to family events in November because it travels really well and doesn’t require reheating. Making the pie crust now and stashing it in the freezer is one less thing to do during the end of the month, when things start inevitably careening towards chaos. I have started using the recipe for pie crust from Fat + Flour by Nicole Rucker, and something about the way it comes together sooooo smoothly means I’m never going back. (Her recipe utilizes a stand mixer, but I used my food processor with great success.)

Design & Order Christmas Cards

If you do it now, you don’t have to think about it anymore! And if you buy them at the start of the month, it’s one less thing you’re trying to squeeze into your holiday budget at the end of the month! If you have recommendations for best-place-to-print-photo cards, or if you have other ideas beyond a standard photo card, I’d love to hear them in the comments.

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This is new territory for me, and I want to make this an annual tradition. I love receiving them, but I always forget to plan ahead to send them! (Also don’t forget to buy stamps!)

Order Book for Thanksgiving

Similar to Indigenous People’s Day, I try to buy a book to read with my kids on Thanksgiving that is either focused on gratitude or honest about the colonial history of the United States. While we do celebrate Thanksgiving, and I think it’s good for us to have a day to remember the importance of gratitude, the day is also symbolic of the deep pain this country has consistently inflicted on indigenous people. Taking 15-20 minutes to read some books with my kids and talk about it is literally the least I can do. But in order to do that, I need to order the book ahead of time.

Week 2, 11/8/2026 - 11/14/2026

Wednesday November 11: Veteran’s Day

I accidentally bought the book The Eleventh Hour at a library book sale. It is beautifully written, but is probably a little graphic for your younger kids. I intend to read it with the kids, as well as the poem In Flanders Fields, and make paper poppies with them. (If my oldest is up for it, we may use that poem for November’s memory work.)

Map Out the Thanksgiving Parties

If the group text(s) for the family event(s) have not already been flying, this is your reminder to reach out and figure out the plan. You’re less two weeks out, you should know where you need to be and what you need to bring for your holiday festivities by now!

Find Nativity Set & Advent Calendar

In 2025 I finally got my Christmas decorations located and somewhat organized. That doesn’t mean they will be that way in November of 2026. I like to set-up my Nativity set on the start of the Nativity fast (see what I did there), but in order to do that I have to know where it is.

I also bought the kit to make the 40 Days Advent Calendar from Draw Near Designs. I didn’t get it assembled in time to use this year, but I am hoping next year I will have it ready to go. This is the last week possible for me to get that assembled!!

(If you are doing a more elaborate Advent Calendar, I’m assuming you’re probably not Orthodox, and you should make your plan for that about now as well so you’re ready to start December 1.)

Clean Out Fridge & Freezer

In two weeks the fridge will start filling up with dinner-party-sized sides to transport to family events. You need to maximize your space. It’s time to let go of the things you’ve been saving in your freezer but are not going to actually use.

Start Making Cranberry Garlands & Paper Chains

I love the look of cranberry garlands on the tree and paper chains attached to every light fixture, but I never give myself enough time to make them in the quantities I want. If I start this week, I’m hoping I’ll have enough by tree decorating day!!

Order & Wrap St. Nicholas Day Presents

St. Nicholas Day is about one month out and I always, ALWAYS forget to buy something ahead of time. Ideally for St. Nicholas Day I like to buy the kids books related to Orthodoxy, gold chocolate coins, clementines, and maybe a small religious toy or tool. It sounds like a lot, but if we’re sticking to just stockings at Christmas I think it balances out.

Week 3, 11/15/2026 - 11/21/2026

Sunday November 15: First Day of Nativity Fast

First Day of Advent Calendar! First Day of Welcoming the Christ Child!

I set up my Nativity Set on the first day of the fast. I’ve started putting it on the shelf of my china cabinet, with the Christmas china, and it gives me a chance to set the whole shelf up for Christmas. I also set up the mantle (I just use bottle brush trees and little white ceramic houses) while I’m at it. All the non-Christmas decorations get packed away in the boxes.

Find & Test Christmas Lights, Ornaments, Tree Skirt, Tree Stand

I try to get our Christmas tree the weekend of Thanksgiving. That means if I don’t want to be scrambling, I need to test the lights this week (to buy more if needed) and locate the tree accessories.

Rearrange for Tree

Our house isn’t that big (right around 1000 sqft for six people), which means we inevitably need to rearrange some things for the tree to fit. Instead of putting it off until the last minute, this is the week to do it!!

Make Sure Laundry is Caught Up

Next week you are going to be too busy to do laundry. Wash every last sock you can this week, so that you’re ready to go.

Week 4, 11/22/2026 - 11/28/2026

Sunday November 22:

Make Black Friday Shopping List: The sales will be posted by now. Remember to only buy things you’d have been buying anyways, like socks, underwear, glass pyrex with lids, or specific Christmas presents. Speaking of, inventory your kids/spouse/your socks and underwear. It’s time to let go of the holey ones.

Figure Out Where Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is Streaming: Every year I put on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade for my kids while I finish up the last minute preparations for wherever we’re going. Instead of scrambling the morning of, figure it out and set up the subscription ahead of time, if needed.

Monday November 23:

Ingredient Shop for Holiday Week: By now you should know what you’re bringing and where. Make your list of ingredients and get your shopping done!

Tuesday November 24 & Wednesday November 25:

Food Prep & Cleaning: If you’re hosting I’m sure you need more time to clean and prepare food, but if you’re not this gives you enough time to get your house in decent shape (so you’re not returning late after family parties to an overstimulating mess) and make any necessary dishes to pass.

Read “Balloons Over Broadway”: A great kids book about the origins of the Macy’s Day Parade balloons. Historical context tied to annual traditions is great!

Thursday November 26: Thanksgiving

I always make cinnamon raisin oatmeal for breakfast, because I remember my mom making it. Then we watch the parade, finish up the food, and enjoy the holiday (normally at someone else’s house)!

Friday November 27: Black Friday

Online Black Friday Shopping: You’ve got your Christmas lists, you’ve already reviewed the Black Friday Sales. Hypothetically you know exactly what you’re buying and from where at this point, so you shouldn’t go over budget! Again, only buy what you would be purchasing anyway!

Saturday November 28:

Christmas Tree Day: I like to get my Christmas Tree on the early side, and I like to get a real tree. We tried to schedule a time to go to a tree farm with friends this year but it didn’t pan out. I’m hoping next year we can make it work. If not, we’ll get one from the tree lot in town again!

When I was growing up, every year on Black Friday we would help my mom’s parents decorate their house for Christmas while our parents shopped. My grandma would make a microwave fudge recipe, and it was the best treat. When my parents would set up their tree, my mom would always make a cheese plate with summer sausage, sliced cheese, and apples for dinner. In retrospect, this was her way of not having to cook dinner on an otherwise hectic day, but as a kid it felt like a huge treat.

I would like to carry on the fudge8 and charcuterie tradition for my kids on tree day, as well as start an annual tradition of watching White Christmas. Next year, we’ll probably put the boys to bed and invite my daughter to watch with us. As the kids get older, we’ll invite them to stay up and watch.

December:

You’ll notice the week lists are shorter than November. That’s because most of us are out of the house more in December, and so there is less time to do planning and preparation stuff! You will be just as busy, don’t worry! This month we have St. Nicholas Day (Dec. 6), St. Lucia and St. Herman Day (Dec. 13), The Winter Solstice (Dec. 21), Christmas Eve (Dec. 24), Christmas Day (Dec. 25), and New Year’s Eve (Dec. 31).

Week 1, 11/29/2026 - 12/5/2026

Last Gift Purchases

You’ve made it through Black Friday, at this point you need to wrap up buying presents so you can focus on enjoying the holiday season. You’ve been at it for five weeks now, you should be able to finish it!

Make & Freeze Portioned Drop Cookies

If you’re making cookie boxes or planning on bringing cookies to a family event, you need to make your drop cookies now. You can mix them up, portion them, and freeze them. When it’s time, all you have to do is plop them on the sheet and bake. You can also freeze slice-and-bake ice box cookies ahead as well.

Mail Christmas Cards

Your cards should be here, you bought your stamps, now label envelopes and send those cards.

Map Out the Christmas Parties

If you don’t know when and where things are, start nagging people in the family group chat so you can plan ahead and figure out what’s going on!

Saturday December 5: Boots Out for St. Nicholas

You already have the presents, so fill those boots!

Week 2, 12/6/2026 - 12/12/2026

Sunday December 6: St. Nicholas Day

The kids enjoy the presents! Read some books about St. Nicholas!

Pick Out Christmas Eve/Day Outfits & Catch Up On Laundry

If you pick out your outfits now, you’ll know whether or not everyone’s shoes fit, which dress shirts have stains, and who’s pants are long enough with plenty of time to track down necessary replacements. (Remember to check the tights. The tights probably have holes.) If you catch up on laundry now, you will have less “I have nothing to wear!!!” during the next two weeks!

Saturday December 12: Prep for St. Lucia Day

Lussekatter, the saffron buns made for St. Lucia Day, are an enriched dough which means you can prep the dough the night before and put it in the fridge overnight.

Track down any books you’d like to read as well! Our go-to is Lucia Saint of Light!

Week 3, 12/13/2026 - 12/19/2026

Sunday December 13: St. Lucia and St. Herman Day

Pull the lussekatter dough out of the oven about an hour before you want to bake it, shape it, and let it rise for another hour. Then bake!

My family has never done the St. Lucia Day crown, and I don’t think we’re going to start it any time soon because my daughter hates waking up in the morning. But if that works for you, it sounds fun!

Read some books about St. Lucia and St. Herman. If you’re not full of sweets at this point, make some pine tree shaped cookies to remember St. Herman and his life on Spruce Island.

Make the First Round of Christmas Bakes

I almost always have a family holiday party the weekend before Christmas, which means I need to have cookies ready well before the cookie boxes need to be ready. One of the days during this week needs to be dedicated solely to making cut-out cookies and candy, as well as baking some of the pre-portioned drop cookies.

Wrap Christmas Presents

At this point, you’re one week out from Christmas. If you would like to sleep the night before, wrap the presents now.

Week 4, 12/20/2026 - 12/26/2026

Sunday December 20: Prep for Solstice

Tomorrow is the solstice, the return of the light! If you’re planning on making sun bread, you can prep the dough the night before and let it rest in the fridge after the first rise. Track down your books for the next day as well!

Monday December 21: Winter Solstice

Pull out your sun bread dough an hour before you need to shape it. After it’s shaped, let it rise for another hour and bake it.

Read your solstice themed books while eating your sun bread!

Make kite paper stars to welcome in the light. I use Window Stars by Thomas Berger, which has skyrocketed in price, but there are also lots of tutorials online.

This past fall/winter I’ve been making chicken soup with lots of ginger, butter, and milk. It ends up making the broth a golden, sunshine color. I would love to make it an annual solstice day dinner tradition!

Tuesday December 22:

This is the first big cookie box baking day! Make cut-out cookies and candies for those cookie boxes!

Wednesday December 23:

This is the second big cookie box baking day! Bake off any cookies you’ve prepped ahead of time so you can pack cookie boxes to give to friends at church on Christmas!

Thursday December 24: Christmas Eve

Prep Cinnamon Rolls for Christmas Day: I would like to start making cinnamon rolls for Christmas Day. Since it’s an enriched dough you can prep them the night before and after the first rise stick them in the fridge to cook them the next day.

Prep Coffee Hour Dish to Pass: On Christmas Day, we go to church and bring a dish to pass at coffee hour. It’s important to prep that the day before, that way I’m not scrambling the morning of to get it done.

Pack Up Cookies: We typically get together with my husband’s maternal family on Christmas Eve, which means a road trip, and I need to tray up lots of cookies! I also typically try to make cookie boxes for our friends at church, so those need to get packed up as well.

Lay Out Christmas Day Clothes: It’s important to do this BEFORE you go to family Christmas Eve events, because if you lie to yourself and say “I’ll do it when we get home” you absolutely will not and someone will not have matching socks.

Friday December 25: Christmas

Liturgy: We always attend liturgy on Christmas morning, which means we also bring a dish to pass for coffee hour and that dish needs to be ready before we leave for church. Everyone also needs to be dressed, cleaned, and out the door on time!

Pass Out Presents: Most of our friends are from church, so this is when we pass out presents to friends, godparents, godchildren, etc. It’s a beautiful day and tradition for our family that I love!

Stockings with Kids: Before heading to liturgy, but after the kids are in the car, set out their pre-packed stockings by the tree. That way as soon as we get home, they can open presents and it’s a little bit magical how they just appeared! My kids don’t believe in Santa, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have fun.

Bake the Cinnamon Rolls: Pull out the dough as soon as you get home from church, shape it after the kids open their presents, and bake it off!

Saturday December 26:

Ideally we would rest on this day, but I’m almost certain we will have a family holiday party instead. To which I will bring more cookies. Because I always bring cookies.

Week 5, 12/27/2026 - 1/2/2027

Friday December 31: New Year’s Eve

Bake vasilopita, or Greek New Year’s Cake, for St. Basil’s Day. Maybe watch The Thin Man instead of watching the ball drop! Or do both!

Saturday January 1: New Year’s Day

Eat the vasilopita for a late breakfast after staying up too late!

January:

Week 1, 1/3/2027 - 1/9/2027

Wednesday January 6: Theophany

Remember to bring a container for Holy Water to liturgy. Text your priest to schedule your annual house blessing so that it’s on the calendar before Lent starts on March 14!

Put the House in Order

The main goal of this week is to reset the house so it’s passable for the upcoming house blessing. After the chaos of the holidays, it needs a hard reset.

We Made It!

If you have suggestions or feedback on what you’d like to see in a print version of this planner…guide…thing, let me know!

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If this was helpful to you, I’m so glad! But also, if you want, you can donate to my ko-fi!

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And thanks for being here, friends. <3

The Appendices:

To finish out this post, I’m outlining the lists of decorations and media that I like to draw from during this season. If you have favorite activities, books, or movies that you don’t see listed I’d love to hear them!

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Fall Homemade Decorations:

• Beeswax Leaves for Wreaths, Garlands, or Crowns

• Pumpkin Carving

Fall Movies:

• It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

• Over the Garden Wall

• Room on the Broom

Fall Books:

• Five Little Pumpkins (also a fun one for simple memorization work)

• Woody, Hazel, & Little Pip by Elsa Beskow

• Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet

• Autumn Story by Jill Barklem (A Brambly Hedge Story)

• Miss Maple’s Seeds by Eliza Wheeler

• Sharing the Bread by Pat Zietlow Miller & Jill McElmurry

• How Many Days to America? by Eve Bunting

• The Eleventh Hour by Jacques Goldstyn

Books by (or recommended by) Indigenous Authors:

• All of Julie Flett’s books are beautiful

• We Are Water Protectors by Carole Lindstrom

• Fry Bread by Kevin Noble Maillard

• We Are Grateful by Traci Sorell

• Keepunumuk by Danielle Greendeer, Anthony Perry, & Alexis Bunten

Fall Recipes:

• Soup-in-a-Pumpkin

• The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen by Sean Sherman

• Turtle Island by Sean Sherman

• Thanksgiving Recipe Round-Up Post (2025) by me

Winter Homemade Decorations:

• Cranberry & Dried Citrus Garlands

• Paper Chains

• Brown Paper Bag Snowflakes

• Printer Paper Snowflakes

• Kite Paper Stars

• Cinnamon Ornaments

• Salt Dough Ornaments

• Orange & Clove Balls

Winter Movies:

• A Christmas Story

• Muppet’s Christmas Carol

• The Year Without a Santa Claus

• Frosty the Snowman

• Jack Frost

• Rise of the Guardians

• White Christmas

• Rudolph

• Christmas in Conneticut

• It’s a Wonderful Life

• A Charlie Brown Christmas

• It’s Christmas Time Again, Charlie Brown

• The Grinch (original cartoon and 2018 version9)

Winter Books:

General

• Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester

• The Tomten by Astrid Lindgren

• The Tomten and the Fox by Astrid Lindgren

• The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

• Grandmother Winter by Phyllis Root

• Cinders: A Chicken Cinderella by Jan Brett

• Welcome to the Ice House by Jane Yolen

• A Starlit Snowfall by Nancy Willard

• The Mitten by Jan Brett

• The Hat by Jan Brett

• The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett

• Annie and the Wild Animals by Jan Brett

• The Gingerbread Man by Jim Aylesworth (this one has the ending where the gingerbread man gets eaten by the fox, so reader discretion advised maybe?)

• Ollie’s Ski Trip by Elsa Beskow

• The Story of the Snow Children by Sibylle von Olfers

• North Country Night by Daniel San Souci

Solstice

• Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven

• Window Stars by Thomas Berger

• The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper

• The Solstice Badger by Robin McFadden

• The Return of the Light by Carolyn McVickar Edwards

• Winter: A Solstice Story by Kelsey E. Gross

Secular Christmas

• The Little Fir Tree by Margaret Wise Brown (get the one illustrated by Barbara Cooney if you can)

• Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett

• The Night Before Christmas by Jan Brett

• An Ellis Island Christmas by Maxinne Rhea Leighton

• The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

Religious Christmas/Advent

• Welcoming the Christ Child by Elissa Bjeletich (family readings for the Nativity Lent)

• The Miracle of St. Nicholas by Gloria Whelan

• Lucia Saint of Light by Katherine Bolger-Hyde

• The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola

• The Nativity of Christ by Elena Trostnikova

• Prepare O Bethlehem by Niko Chocheli

• North Star: St. Herman of Alaska by Dorrie Papademetriou

• St. Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins by Jim Forest

Cookie Box Ideas:

Drop Cookies

• Some variation of Chocolate Chip Cookies, but add hazelnuts/cranberries/etc.

• Snickerdoodles

• Molasses

Cut-Out Cookies

• Sour Cream Sugar Cookies

• Linzer Cookies

• Gingerbread Cookies

Miscellaneous Cookies/Candies

• Thumbprint Cookies

• Cathedral Windows

• Buckeyes (Peanut Butter Balls)

• Peppermint Bark

• Fudge (particularly peanut butter/chocolate double decker)

• Caramels

Other Important Recipes:

• Lusekatter10

• Spruce Cookies (use the Sour Cream Sugar Cookie Recipe)

• Vasilopita (St. Basil’s Day Cake)

• Cinnamon Rolls (Great-Grandma’s Recipe)

• Sun Bread

So I thought it would be fun to share Actual Things I have bought (or suggested) for Actual People. This includes gifts given in years past, things we’ve already received this year, and things I’m giving later this season. I did not personally pay for all this, a lot of it was on behalf of other family members. Some of this might inspire you, other parts might make you laugh. Regardless, thank you for indulging in this little peek into my family Christmas lore.

The Dad Who Has Everything

Every single year for Christmas, my mom would ask my dad what he would like for Christmas. And every single year he would say “a chainsaw with a pole”, which he knew was outside the budget and not something my mom could buy the right version of without his help, because he truly couldn’t figure out what he would actually want for Christmas.

Because of this, a family tradition emerged, where every year my dad would receive the Hallmark Keepsake Train Ornaments for Christmas instead. This has been going on for decades at this point. My siblings and I still buy them each year for him. There are three pieces, a locomotive and two cars, and I have two siblings so we each pay for one piece. It’s perfect symmetry, tbh.

The Sweetest Stepmother

My dad remarried in 2020 to the sweetest, kindest woman you can imagine. She’s a former preschool teacher, devoted mother, and loves Hobby Lobby. I’m so grateful for her and the grandma she is to my kids.

For Christmas, we normally end up getting her accessories for her Cricut machine, pictures of the kids, and other sentimental gifts. She’s also the one person I’d buy a gift card2 for, because when you’re buying for a project-oriented person that is often the best choice (so they can get the things they actually need!!).

The Husband Who Is a Nerd

Did you know there’s a new Pokemon game for the Nintendo Switch? Did you know it has mediocre reviews? Did you know that it means the Pokemon fan in your life may be putting off buying it because they really want to play it but are unsure about spending money on it? Did you know they would love to get it as a gift because then they don’t have to worry about justifying whether the purchase was worth it?

Well, now you know.

Have you also considered buying your husband a massive LEGO set? Because I’ve done that in the past as well, and let me tell ya, nothing wakes up the inner child in a 6’4” blue collar nerd more than opening a Star Destroyer that will take him hours to assemble.

And if you’re like, “Hannah, Pokemon and LEGO aren’t that nerdy, they’re major pop-culture staple at this point, be serious”, may I interest you in some books about historical hand-to-hand combat that are essential reading for all HEMA3 members? I have actually purchased these books for my husband, and he actually reads them.

The Single Brother with Disposable Income

My brother has done more for me (financially) than just about any person (excepting my husband, obv) and he is IMPOSSIBLE TO BUY FOR because if he needs something he just BUYS IT. This means the best gifts are the weird ones. The quirky, sentimental ones. Or art. Because the guy never hangs up anything on his walls.

He is, however, a Milwaukee Tools Pack Out junkie and my sister actually bought him the all-time best gift last year. It was a customized Milwaukee boxcutter that had “Milwaukee Boi” printed on the side in the same text as the Milwaukee logo. If there is a person in your life who loves their particular brand of tools, this is the best gift you can give. As we all know, boxcutters eventually grow legs and walk away so it’s important to have an abundance of them.

The Queer English Major Sister with a Hyperfixation

Books. I always buy books. One year it was Scott Cairn’s poetry. Another it was graphic novels. This year’s hyperfixation is bugs, and this is the list I was presented with. Use ThriftBooks for the best deal so you can maximize your book buying budget.

The BEST present I ever bought my sister, though? A custom library embosser stamp. This girl has created library catalog labels4 for their entire book collection. Nothing brings them more joy than stamping their name on that title page! And they’re not that expensive!!

The 8 Year Old Who Is Obsessed with Dresses and Cats

I am not a girly girl in the traditional sense. I am just now figuring out how, at the age of 32, to apply lipstick correctly. My daughter is the iconic girl’s girl. She loves unicorns and cats. This was her Christmas list this year. I will not be buying her a pink toy Jeep. I will be buying her a bathrobe.

We also spent some quality time looking at vintage dresses in her size on eBay, and she will be getting some for Christmas (that are similar) from our local Goodwill!! She also doesn’t know this5, but I got her some clip on earrings and she will lose her mind over them. If your daughter is not obsessed with clothes and books about warrior cats6, I’m not going to be much help to you, sorry.

The Boys

I have 5, 3, and 1 year old boys. They all wanted the same things: Hot Wheels tracks, Nerf Guns, and bow ties7. Is it bad to flatten them all into one category? HELL NO because they legit all want the same thing, and if I pool the money I can get them bigger gifts.

For the one year old, I did get him a little Montessori wood car thing instead of Hot Wheels cars though8.

My Christmas List

You will all be shocked, SHOCKED to know that I mostly want cookbooks. Here’s a couple of the ones I’m getting this year.

I also will frequently buy myself9 recipe boxes off of eBay. A little known fact is that people will sell the handwritten recipe collections from estate sales!! It drives me a little batty, but I’m on a mission to collect as many of them as I can afford to and scan them into galleries on the Internet Archive so they don’t end up in the trash. If you ever were like “wow, I want to send Hannah a present” this is top tier on that list10. The amount of handwritten recipe cards out there that may or may not end up in the trash at some point literally keeps me up at night.

If My Mom Wasn’t Dead, Here’s What I’d Buy Her

This is the one hypothetical here, I know I’m breaking the rules about “no hypotheticals”, but I am confident in these suggestions because I knew my mom pretty well. She loved to bake, and started experimenting more towards the end of her life. Weeknight Baking and Fat + Flour would be top of the list. The first is one I preach about ALL the time, the second is new to me but the pumpkin snickerdoodle recipe is worth the cost of the book alone!!

Every year she requested silicone spatulas for Christmas, because she would use them to pieces. Specifically, she liked the mini ones so she could effectively scrape things out of jars and measuring cups. I’d have bought her the Good Vanilla Extract that you can get for cheap at our local Amish feed store and upgraded some of her cookie sheets to true half sheet pans.

For fun, I would have bought her one of these sweatshirts that has the butter wrapper logo on it11. She finally came around to the joy of salted butter after I graduated from college, and she would have loved a cozy sweatshirt. Cancer treatment makes you cold, after all.

The Stocking Stuffers

My family doesn’t actually do stockings, because that would end up blowing the Christmas budget. However, we do have a tradition of buying the Terry’s Chocolate Oranges each year and they are SO GOOD.

Socks are normally given to at least one person, and we always give exactly one pair of Darn Tough socks. They have a lifetime warranty! They’re made in Vermont! They’re so good!!

One year my dad gave each of us kids a rechargeable book light and I still use mine. Another year he gave us a portable battery pack, like the kind you use to charge your phone on the go, and I also still use that. The most dad-coded and practical stocking stuffers ever.

This Probably Wasn’t Helpful…

…but thank you for indulging me as I share some of my family’s Christmas giving quirks! If you enjoyed my rambling about family, you might want to consider subscribing. I do this every once in awhile, but I mostly talk about food!

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Happy Holidays, friends!!

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This is my PO Box address, if you’re curious!

First, a lovely person sent me a piece of insured mail to my PO Box, and because of my eyesight and being sick I missed the pick-up for it and it was returned to sender. If this was you, please reach out and I’d like to pay you back for the shipping. I know how pricey shipping is, and it was absolutely my fault for not getting someone to check my box while sick. I’m so sorry that this happened.

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Now let’s talk about some family favorite cookies!

As a person who thrives on cozy vibes, handmade projects, nostalgia, and sugar the holiday season is probably the most creatively inspiring time of year for me. Traditions of all shapes and sizes abound! Everyone is suddenly into DIY! There is an abundance of recipes to try!

I am also a bit of a perfectionist. And each year, during the lead-up to Christmas, social media is filled with perfect, aesthetic holiday scenes. You know the ones. The orange garlands that don’t have a single misshaped circle. The bows tied perfectly. The coordinating gift wrap. The family photos in the matching pajamas in the living room that doesn’t have any pine needles visible on the floor1.

Eleven months of the year I am able to distance myself from the perfectly curated social feeds and laugh at the unrealistic (but beautiful!) posts paraded before us all. But for some reason, when December hits, I want my life to look like that, even though I know it isn’t real!!

The area I take the most psychic damage in is holiday baking. I am not trying to brag, but I’m an above average home baker. I am also very much not, in any sense of the word, a professional. My pies taste amazing, and have what we’ll call “rustic flair”. My cookies are delicious, but even using a cookie scoop never turn out perfectly round2. We’re not going to talk about my frosting skills3.

This reality drives me absolutely batty when the pictures of perfect cookie boxes start carouseling across my feed. Unique4 flavors, symmetrical sprinkle arrangements, and that damn perfect frosting (my nemesis!!). If I’m not careful it makes me want to despair of the whole entire process5.

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But then I remember my mom.

My mom was locally renowned for her home baking. She would sell baked goods at the small-town-farmer’s-market at the park. For a few years she took Thanksgiving pie orders in the teacher’s lounge. She made the cupcakes for my wedding. Every year she would bake dozens upon dozens of cookies and candies to bring to all the family parties.

Most of my mom’s baking career occurred in the pre-Instagram6 world. And you know what? Her baked goods looked homemade!! She was out here successfully making and selling enough bakes to pay for my siblings and I to go to summer camp with the money! Banana bread, wrapped in plastic wrap. Coffee cake, in disposable foil containers. Caramel corn, in cellophane bags with generic twist ties. All these items, with their cottage law disclaimers, spread across a folding table under a white pop-tent. She sold enough Thanksgiving pies through orders that she would have to wake up at three in the morning to get them all done!

Her recipes were simple, and that was the appeal. They were nostalgic, rich treats that tasted like coming home. Nothing about her operation was Instagrammable, and that fact did not detract from the quality of her bakes at all. So when the comparison game gets me down, as it does every December, I make her recipes7.

Below you will find my mom’s sour cream sugar cookie recipe. This recipe is not an original creation; it’s one of those old-fashioned recipes you’re likely to find in every community cookbook you come across. And for good reason, these cookies are truly the best.

Some notes on the recipe:

• I use butter instead of margarine.

• The nutmeg is what absolutely makes these cookies shine. Don’t skip it.

• Be very careful not to over bake the cookies. Always err on the side of underbaking until you get the timing of your oven right. They should just barely be brown on the bottom for the softest cookies.

• I frost mine with a buttercream frosting, and just change up the food coloring, flavor extract, and sprinkles to match the vibes.

• These cookies are perfect for any holiday you have a suitable cookie cutter for, not just Christmas!!

• This recipe makes a LOT of cookies. (This is only a problem if you do not like cookies, for some reason.)

I hope you enjoy, your cookies look perfectly haphazard, and that they taste like home. If you make them, I’d love to hear how they turn out!

This work will always be free, however…

…this newsletter does take time and if you would like to support my work financially, I have a ko-fi set up. Every dollar goes straight towards keeping my family afloat while we work to pay down debt and raise four beautiful, wild kids.

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And at the end of the day? I’m so glad you’re here. Keep moving forward, friends. There’s always hope, but it takes work to keep that hope alive. You’ve got this.

This work will always be free, but if you would like to financially support my newsletter you can do so as a paid subscriber or one-time donation over at my Ko-Fi page! I appreciate each and everyone of you who has taken the time to do so, it truly means the world.

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Total Cost Breakdown

The total of my grocery bill was $205.061.

My WIC benefits covered $58.082.

My out-of-pocket cost was $145.06.

Convenience Food: $41.40

Literally everything in this category was absolutely non-essential and could have been avoided. However, I am struggling hard with the bone-deep fatigue known as depression so here we are. Sometimes, you just take the L and buy the brats your five year old is begging you to make for dinner, because that absolutely would be easier than trying to make something else at home and you’re too tired to save the $13.16. Depression and fatigue are expensive.

I also purchased my kids Lunchables and a couple other junk-food-type items because they had to get dragged along to a lab draw later that day (where they had to hangout in the car with my sister for over an hour) and I am not above bribery3. The Go-Gurt is covered by WIC, otherwise I would not have purchased it.

I Spent $41.40 on Convenience Type Food:

• Go-Gurt (2 boxes): $4.98

• Christmas Trees (2 boxes): $6.00

• Brats (2 packs): $9.98

• Buns (2 packs): $3.18

• Lunchables (3): $8.67

• Pringles (3 cans): $6.00

• Checklane Coke: $2.59

Sale Items:

During the lead-up to the holidays, a lot of pantry staples go on sale4. I normally end up spending a bit more than usual this time of year on groceries, because I’m buying bulk quantities.

The white chocolate chips are a holiday baking splurge. They were on sale (BOGO 50% off, so $8.98 for both bags) which is normally a lot of money for me to be spending on a single ingredient. However! White chocolate is NOT all created equal, and I will only use these for one specific recipe (white chocolate macadamia nut cookies, and I already have the nuts I got for cheap in my pantry), so it will be ok5. This also should be the only specialty ingredient I need to purchase for my holiday baking this year6.

Speaking of holiday baking, butter was on sale! Normally I try to hold out for the Land O’ Lakes butter dropping below storebrand price and stock up. However, I am planning on making cookies for pretty much everyone as Christmas presents this year, so when I saw storebrand was only $2.49/lb I went for it. Boxes of butter like this can just be put straight in the freezer as is, making it really easy and convenient to stock-up. I bought 12 boxes, which came to $29.88.

Yes, you absolutely can make your own salad dressing. But these were 2/$4, and are a staple on my convenience food shelf. My husband loves Kraft Ranch (we’ve been out for a few weeks), and I use the Italian for making really easy pasta salads7.

Cranberries are currently $0.99/bag. I bought ten, because you can throw them as is into the freezer and then pull them out for baking whenever. This is the one time of year they are available for cheap, so if you want to use them in baking the rest of the year now is your time!!

Turkeys are cheap! That is a lot of meat for $8.128! This guy is currently sitting in my fridge thawing, I plan to cook him Friday, and then I want to write a post about how many meals I can get out of him. I also made my younger siblings buy turkeys and stick them in my brother’s deep freeze. I am planning on emptying out my fridge, thawing four turkeys at once, canning up the meat, and making stock. Is that slightly insane? Yes. But I really, really want to do the price comparison to see how much stock/canned meat I can get out of four discount turkeys.

Sausage was on sale (2/$6), and again, this is something you can just chuck in the freezer as-is. I have been using a lot of ground beef (because we were given half a cow) and ground venison (because my friend gave us 15 lbs of it). But I do like to have some sausage on hand for the occasional pasta dish, soup, or quiche.

Canned beans were on sale and I bought a lot of them. Yes, dried are cheaper. Yes, I could have canned them myself to make my own convenience food. But I am struggling right now, and these beans are a cheap and easy way to get food on the table for my family. I use the cannellini beans in soups and pasta salads. I use the black beans for taco salad/quesadillas/etc. I use the kidney beans in chili9. I bought three cans of black-eyed peas because I use them in the Chicken Pelau recipe from Small Victories (which I don’t make terribly often but I adore). In total, I bought 51 cans of beans for $45.39.

My grocery store always has five pound bags of russet potatoes for $0.99 this time of year. I bought 50lbs, which is a lot, but we eat A LOT of potatoes. Like a wildly large amount of them. I’m not exactly sure where they all go. For these russets, I’ll go through them and pull out any that look bruised and cook them first. The rest will go in a cardboard box in a cool, dark corner of my kitchen and will stay good for quite awhile. If I am able to work up the energy, I will also can some of them. I love having canned potatoes on hand to make potato soup quickly!

I Spent $132.13 on Sale Items:

• White Chocolate Chips (2 bags): $8.98

• Butter (12 boxes): $29.88

• Salad Dressing (4 bottles): $8.00

• Cranberries (10 bags): $9.90

• Turkey (20.98 lbs): $8.12

• Bulk Sausage (4 lb): $11.96

• Canned Beans (51 cans): $45.39

• Russet Potatoes (50 lbs): $9.90

Miscellaneous:

There are always a couple things that I need, but aren’t on sale or neatly categorizable. Normally this includes produce, dairy, and/or carbs.

I’m still working through my Costco bag of frozen peas, but we went through our broccoli way faster than I anticipated. Broccoli and peas are our two go-to vegetables, because they hold up well to freezing and work well with most dishes.

The oranges are not a necessity, but I have a dehydrator and really enjoy hanging up citrus garlands around the house this time of year.

I always buy tortillas because one of the things I can convince myself to eat, almost any time, is a quesadilla and the past couple weeks have been a struggle. (We’re still working through our Costco cheese, so that’s covered.) Tortilla chips and salsa are also another go-to struggle snack for me. If I have learned anything as a mom who struggles with SAD it is that you need to buy the struggle snacks10. Otherwise, you won’t eat, and the whole system goes to hell in a handbasket. It is not worth saving the $6.99 if you are a hot mess because you can’t make yourself eat lunch11. Buy the snacks, even if you’re the only one who will eat them.

I normally buy whole milk because I believe in flavor and fat free milk tastes like water, but WIC covers 1% or Fat Free milk. My kids drink it and do not seem to mind, so it works out.

Pineapples were on sale, and my kids think they’re the coolest snack ever. My five year old holds them like they’re about to explode because he thinks they’re going to randomly poke him (no matter how many times I show him how to hold it without getting poked by the leaves) and it’s kind of hilarious. These ones will probably sit on the counter to ripen for awhile!

I Spent $31.53 on Miscellaneous:

• Frozen Broccoli (4 bags): $5.96

• Oranges (12 lbs): $11.97

• Tortilla Chips (2 bags): $5

• Tortillas (1 bag): $1.99

• Milk (1 gallon): $2.92

• Pineapples (2): $3.69

I Could Have Saved More…

…but you have to know your limits. This is the reality for me right now, with how my eyes have been effecting my mental health and general ability to function. Things don’t always go perfectly to plan, and that’s ok! I’m grateful we had a little buffer this week to take the edge off my workload until I’m back to 100%. And there’s always next time to do better.

I hope you all have a lovely holiday weekend and eat delicious food. If you want my Thanksgiving Thoughts (of which there are many), check out my previous post if you missed it!!

If you enjoyed this peek into my grocery cart, or learned something, I post a lot of random food and homemaking things you might also enjoy. Consider subscribing!

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So, after a long delay, thank you for indulging me as I share how I cooked one of the best Thanksgiving meals I’ve ever made (that I still dream about, honestly), while also being very pregnant.

If you have Thanksgiving Food related questions, or questions about how to make it a bit cheaper than outlined below, definitely leave a comment. I love talking about Thanksgiving Food because it’s the one time a year my very Midwestern family made the rolls from scratch and cooked a whole bird and took the food seriously.

First, Some Housekeeping

I want to plug my “Buy Me a Coffee” (Ko-Fi) page, where you pay-what-you-can either as a one-time donation OR a monthly subscription. I use Ko-Fi (instead of Substack’s payment features) because I have heard one too many horror stories about Stripe as a payment platform. Ko-Fi automatically sends the money you give directly to my PayPal account, which streamlines the process on my end. Ko-Fi also allows one-time donations, unlike Substack, and with the amount of uncertainty we all have going on at the moment that format works better for most of my subscribers. Your support is appreciated more than I can say, and goes towards things like seeds for the garden or adding additional back stock to my pantry.

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Anyways, enough of that, let’s talk about turkey and my slightly delusional dinner party, yeah?

A Food-Centric Dinner Party

There are different kinds of dinner parties. Some emphasize the party aspect, the hosting, or perhaps the community building. When I host a dinner party, the emphasis is strongly on the dinner.

In my day-to-day life, I am constantly feeding people, but it is very rarely food that is fun to make or interesting. My kids don’t like fancy food, and I don’t like making food people won’t eat. So on occasion, when I have an excuse, I invite friends over who I know will eat the fancy food.

People always look at me a little concerned when I first tell them about my cook-a-thon meals, but if people can run marathons with their friends cheering I think it’s ok to make elaborate meals and ask my friends if they will eat them. It’s fun for me, and no one has ever complained about taking leftovers home!

The rules are simple, they can’t bring anything except themselves (and maybe drinks). There will be a lot of food. It’s a very casual affair, with low expectations. I get to make exactly what I want (dietary restrictions excepted) and while I always set the table nicely, that’s the extent of the “hosting” expectations I put on myself. My friends keep showing up, so I’m going to keep assuming they enjoy the chill conversation, low expectations, and good food.

November is the month where Americans cook turkeys, and I am going to be having a baby any day now, which means I won’t be getting to partake in the normal family get togethers. So I decided to throw a Friendsgiving, squarely in the “it’s ok if I this puts me into labor but not quite due date” time window1. Here’s the menu rundown, with recipes and tips to keep the food hot.

Prep What You Can Ahead

If you are slightly delusional and taking on a project similar to this (welcome to the club!!), you need to have a plan. An essential part of that is making what you can ahead of time. I make the pie crust, pies2, rolls, stock, cornbread, compound butter, cranberry sauce, chop up veggies, shred cheese, and anything else I can think of ahead of time.

AND PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS HOLY REMEMBER TO GIVE YOUR TURKEY PLENTY OF TIME TO THAW.

Make a Schedule for Your Oven

If you live in a house with just one, regular oven and you are cooking everything yourself, you need to make a schedule (with times!) of what is going in the oven when. It sounds excessive, but cooking an entire thanksgiving dinner from scratch on your own is, by definition, excessive for most people. It’s really the only way to make sure everything lands on the table at the same time while still hot.

Eat a Lot of Food + The Recipes!

This is the part where I share the recipes. I can’t give you a full, detailed, heavily researched newsletter while having prodromal labor and making an entire Thanksgiving dinner from scratch. Hopefully this overview will suffice, and next year we can deep dive Thanksgiving recipes together.

Without further ado, here’s how I made a full Thanksgiving dinner while 37 weeks pregnant.

The Turkey:

I am one of those strange folks who actually really enjoys eating turkey, and I think if you don’t like it it’s probably because you’ve never had a well-cooked one. I don’t buy expensive turkeys, it’s just not in our budget, so this guy was a $7 clearance special3. Would it taste better if it was a heritage breed, never frozen, specialty turkey? Probably. But I’m working with what I’ve got, and it still tastes great.

You need to treat your turkey like an oversized chicken. It needs no less than two sticks of butter (I did a compound butter with roasted garlic, lemon zest, thyme) smeared under the skin and the cavity stuffed with as many aromatics (onion, garlic, lemon, carrot, celery, etc.) as possible. If you shove a whole, peeled onion up into the neck hole it will help expand the cavity even more so you can fit extra aromatics in there. I also smeared a little extra butter on the outside and sprinkled it in flaky sea salt, to make sure I got that crispy skin.

Cook at 425* for 45 minutes, drop the heat to 325* until done, and don’t forget to let it rest afterwards under a tinfoil blanket. If you have successfully slathered it in an obscene amount of butter, you don’t need to baste it.

Stock + Gravy:

Now I know Ina Garten says “if you don’t have homemade, store bought is fine” but in this case it doesn’t apply. You need great stock for great gravy, and I’ve never had great store bought stock. Besides, if you use store bought you are at the mercy of their salt levels, and there are few things worse than a salty gravy.

And before you say “that’s so much extra work!” let us pause for a moment and think. Is it really that much extra work?

If you are cooking the turkey, there is a good chance that you are A) hosting and B) thawing the turkey, including the neck, in your fridge. All you have to do is take the turkey neck out the day before. Put it in a stock pot on your back burner with the extra aromatics from the turkey situation (you’re not shoving a whole bag of carrots in there, be serious), a splash of apple cider vinegar, and enough water to fill the pot. If you’re feeling really ambitious, throw in some chicken backs, bones, or feet from the freezer, if you have them. Bring it to a boil, skim off the scum, and THEN add spices/herbs (I threw in a big handful of black peppercorns and a huge spoonful of dried thyme4). Let it simmer on the back burner until it’s time to make gravy5. I also used this stock for my stuffing and green bean casserole.

You get to use up a bunch of extra ingredients that would likely go bad in the post-Thanksgiving “I don’t want to even think about cooking” phase and it costs you zero extra dollars. Also use any stock leftovers to make yourself turkey soup sometime during the following week, because you will probably have extra turkey and a half used bag of pasta laying around.

To make the gravy, after you cook the turkey pour all your turkey drippings into a big pyrex measuring cup, top off with stock until you have however many cups of gravy you want to make. In a pan, make a good roux6. Slowly add your liquid into the roux, whisking constantly. Add salt and thyme to taste7. Drown your potatoes and turkey.

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Mashed Potatoes:

The secret to the best mashed potatoes? Don’t use just potatoes.

Now I am absolutely a potato apologist. I love potatoes, in all their forms, and would happily eat them daily. But when everyone is looking at the Thanksgiving table, the mashed potatoes are an essential, but overlooked side dish. I simply have never been able to abide by this slander.

A thousand years ago I read in a Food52 cookbook a recipe for mashed parsnip potatoes that changed my life. So, instead of all potatoes, I use half yellow potatoes and half parsnips. Mash them altogether while warm, and add a LOT of butter. The other secret? Don’t use sour cream or heavy cream as your main dairy, add plain full-fat yogurt. Throw in some fresh grated parmesan and a little garlic powder while you’re at it, before8 you adjust for salt. Thin it out with a little cream if you need to. The sweetness of the parsnips, richness of the butter, tang of the yogurt, salt of the parmesan? Everyone will ask you what the hell you did to the potatoes (complimentary).

Green Bean Casserole:

Culturally, we have this bizarre notion that prior to the invention of cream of mushroom soup our forbearers were making homemade green bean casserole. This is completely backwards, the only reason we have green bean casserole is because of the Campbells Soup Company.

This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t make it from scratch, but it’s worth acknowledging that by doing so you are essentially taking a dish invented to be convenient and intentionally overcomplicating it9.

I riff off the Smitten Kitchen Green Bean Casserole Recipe. If you fry your own onions10, make sure you add them *after* the casserole has been almost completely cooked or they’ll get burned. Also don’t add the nutmeg. Nutmeg is for sour cream sugar cookies and pie and french toast, but not green bean casserole.

Butterhorn Rolls:

In December of 1989, my mom got married and was given a Pillsbury Cookbook, like many other aspiring housewives of the day. In that cookbook is a recipe for rolls that you can shape in many different ways, and for some reason my family decided (before I was born) that the appropriate shape for Thanksgiving is the crescent, also known as the butterhorn. This is uncharacteristically complicated11 for my extended family, known for their traditional canned soup Midwest fare on the rest of the table, but who am I to break with such a delicious tradition?

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Pie Crust:

I made a LOT of bad pie crusts before I ever made a good one. What I’ve landed on is that the best pie crust uses half butter and half lard, combined with flour, salt, and water (with a splash of ACV). This gives you a bit of the flavor from the butter and the flake from the lard. Also, lard is cheaper than butter these days.

I use the technique Julia Turshen describes in her book Small Victories which, if you are new to cooking, I will always recommend to you. Her book just feels like a warm hug, I don’t know how else to explain it.

ALSO. One of the best, most important things about pie crust is to take your scraps, cut it into pieces, put on a parchment lined cookie sheet, brush with your leftover egg wash, and sprinkle with cinnamon sugar. Bake these while you’re baking your pies, just keep an eye on them so they don’t get too crispy. They are the best little cookies. If you are a nice person, you can share these with your children and/or partner. If you are like me, you can eat them without sharing while making the rest of the food.

Black Bottom Oatmeal Pie:

I love pecan pie, with my whole heart. The gooey, sticky, sweet layer makes me so happy. I also have a budget (have you priced pecan halves recently??) and two friends coming over with tree nut allergies.

When I read the Smitten Kitchen Black Bottom Oatmeal Pie Recipe, I thought surely it wouldn’t work. But I actually like it *better* than regular pecan pie. It’s rich and decadent from the dark chocolate layer. You don’t have to worry about putting your friends in anaphylactic shock. It might be my favorite kind of pie.

Apple Pie:

The secret is cardamom. I don’t care what else you put in your apple pie, I don’t care if you make a mock apple pie out of Ritz crackers, you need to add cardamom.

Pumpkin Pie:

Libby’s Pumpkin is not actually pumpkin. If the biggest face of pumpkin in America can fudge the main ingredient in their star recipe, you can too. Try making a butternut squash pie. Or a kabocha pie. Or just use a can (like me).

I just learned this week that Libby has changed the recipe on the can (as of 2019) to include sweetened condensed milk. This upsets almost 70 years of tradition, using exclusively evaporated milk. But the Libby’s pumpkin pie with evaporated milk was actually a new version in 1950, and the original called for regular milk. This year I’m going with that original, plain milk recipe, and we’ll see how it goes12. (Don’t tell my husband, he’s a 1950 pumpkin pie traditionalist.)

Whipped Cream:

I forgot to freeze my ice cream maker bowl in time, so we’re skipping the ice cream for whipped cream this year. I have a stand mixer, and I only really use it for whipped cream and (occasionally) butter. Put the cream in the bowl with a little bit of sugar, maybe a little vanilla bean if you have some stashed in your freezer from better days, and whip it until you have the texture you want. Easy as pie.

Cornbread Stuffing:

This was my first time eating and making cornbread stuffing. It was life changing. I’m not sure why anyone makes stuffing with regular bread, to be quite honest.

I’m also not sure why the cornbread recipe doesn’t call for you to put the cast iron pan in the oven when it’s preheating with a couple tablespoons of butter in it, but that’s the only way you should be making cornbread. The most important thing is to make your cornbread a day ahead so it’s hard and soaks up all the liquid when you transform it into stuffing. Also, use spicy sausage. The heat gives it a lovely kick, which helps with all the heavy and rich foods you’re serving.

I used recipes from NYT Cooking for cornbread and stuffing.

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Cranberry Sauce:

I made an awesome cranberry wine sauce last year using this NYT Cooking recipe, and I froze half of it in glass jars. I’m going to thaw it and see how it looks, but it should be great reheated. It’s spicy and makes a great foil to all the other richness going on. Also wine is involved, so it can’t be all bad.

Brussel Sprouts:

The key to hosting a massive Thanksgiving meal and forbidding anyone else to cook is to make foods that you want to eat, so that when you start questioning your sanity you can tell yourself “but this is going to taste so good, though!!”. So what if I already have green bean casserole and potatoes as sides?? I want brussel sprouts, too. I’m in charge, I can make that decision.

Turns out these were the runaway favorite. Cook chopped bacon in a cast iron skillet, add halved brussel sprouts until crispy, then pour over a 1:1 balsamic vinegar/honey combo. Sweet, salty, fatty, crispy, delicious. And when oven space is a premium? It’s nice having something that comes together in minutes on the stovetop.

Macaroni + Cheese:

This was my first time making Southern style mac and cheese, and it is luxurious to a fault. I know that mac and cheese runs on a continuum from boxed-Kraft-OMG-I-need-to-feed-these-kids-something all the way up to this awesome special occasion recipe, but if I had unlimited time/budget I’d always make it this way. And now, my kids will eat something besides rolls!! Where has this been all my life13?

I used this recipe from NYT Cooking.

I Don’t Have Any Regrets

Just lots of strong opinions. If I were to do it over, I would figure out a way to get sweet potatoes on the table and I would absolutely remember to freeze my ice cream bowl to make maple syrup ice cream.

Will I do it all over again? Hell yes. And I’ll probably tell you all about it when I do.

If you have any questions or want any strong Thanksgiving Food related opinions, feel free to ask in the comments!

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This work will always be free, however…

…this newsletter does take time and if you would like to support my work financially, I have a ko-fi set up. Every dollar goes straight towards keeping my family afloat while we work to pay down debt and raise four beautiful, wild kids.

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And at the end of the day? I’m so glad you’re here. Keep moving forward, friends. There’s always hope, but it takes work to keep that hope alive. You’ve got this.