What I Feed My Family in a Day on the Homestead | From Scratch Meals

Hello, my friend. Welcome back to the homestead. Today we are cooking up some food to feed the family. I'm going to share how I cook three meals from scratch each day, keeping it all whole food ingredients and super nutritious. We're going to use up some leftovers while we're at it. So let's get right to it. Here is what I feed my family in a day. So the first matter of business obviously is going to be breakfast and we're going to make some quiche. Quiche is a favorite of mine. It's a staple here. It's such a great way to use up some veggie scraps. Just, you know, the leftovers you've got in the fridge, you can make a variety of different flavored quiches. So today I had some spinach in the fridge. I'm also going to chop up some mushrooms. I have some garden peppers in the freezer and we're going to shred up some cheese as well. So I choose to make all of my quiches without a crust. Just not so heavy first thing in the morning. But if you would like to use a crust, I have a good recipe. I'll link that video down below for you. I am not using a crust today, so I am just going to oil my pie plate and get all of my ingredients ready to go. Now for my quiche recipe, you can use two cups of add-ins, whatever add-ins you want. Mine is just a mixture of what I had in the fridge, but you could do things like ham and Swiss, spinach and feta. You can do a cheesesteak and pepper and onion quiche. Super good. Buffalo chicken and blue cheese, broccoli cheddar, you know, really anything with the kitchen sink or whatever you've got on hands, you can throw it in a quiche. So I always add in at least a cup of cheese, whatever variety of cheese I'm using here is just a raw cheddar. I had about six mushrooms in my fridge. I probably used a cup's worth of spinach and half a cup of green peppers. I'm going to get them into an oiled skillet here and I am going to cook them up a bit, not entirely, but I want them a bit softer and somewhat cooked going into the quiche. Now this recipe does take a bit of time to bake in the oven. It's 45 minutes. So a lot of times I will actually make this the night before. I'll either make it entirely, prepare it and bake it and just do reheats in the morning, or you can just prep the mixture, have it assembled and then pull it out of the fridge to bake in the morning. That's one way that I help myself, um, in order to always have a good nutritious breakfast. Sometimes you have to plan ahead, work ahead, do some meal prep. But this morning I had the time, so I'm just throwing it all together here. Usually I would use six eggs, but I've got this big old guy here. It was definitely a double yoker. We have some new layers and a lot of times when they're first laying, you'll get some oddly shaped eggs, some really big ones, some really tiny ones. And today we had a double yoker. I've got my five eggs, scrambling them up. And to the eggs, I am going to add in equal parts of heavy cream and raw milk. So I'm doing a half cup of each of those. So the nice thing is with this recipe, you have your base like egg and dairy mixture, and then you can customize it with your add-ins. Super easy, really convenient. Like I said, great way to use up things in the fridge. Now I'm going to add in my salt and pepper. I like to do a half teaspoon of salt and just a pinch of pepper. Today I'm also going to add in just a sprinkling of onion powder. To that mixture, we will add in our shredded cheese, a cup's worth. Mix that together. And then we're going to go check on what has been sauteing. I added in the mushrooms and the peppers first. They would take longer than the spinach. I'm going to throw the spinach in for about 30 seconds or so, just until it wilts a bit. Come back over to my greased pie plate. I always put the add-ins on the bottom and then spread them out evenly. I'll pour the egg mixture over top. Sometimes you have to even it out a little bit. Things get shushed around. And then this will go into a 350 degree oven for about 40 to 50 minutes. Just depends on what the ingredients are, how much moisture content is in them. If you can stick a knife in there and like it pulls out somewhat clean and it's for the most part set, you're good to go. Now because I didn't have any meat in this quiche, I am going to cook some separately. This is just some turkey bacon. I like to have a variety of different breakfast, quote unquote, meats on hand. I'll always have turkey bacon, regular bacon, some pork sausage, some chicken sausage. Sometimes we'll do steak in the morning every once in a while. That's another way that I save myself some time. Occasionally at the beginning of the week, I will cook all of our breakfast meats so that they are ready to go. It's one less thing I have to do in the morning and it ensures we have a good source of protein to start our day. So here's the quiche. All done. Nice and golden brown, looking yummy. I like to serve up the quiche and the turkey bacon with whatever fruit I have on hand. This morning it was some Mandarin oranges. So that is what a normal breakfast looks like here on the homestead. Now we're going to think about dinner. So a huge time saver and something I always thank myself for doing is starting dinner in the morning and using my crock pot. It is like a gift to yourself. Come late afternoon and you're like, Oh, what do I, what do I want to make for dinner? And then you realize, Oh, I already figured it out. And it is just the most wonderful thing ever. Now when I worked outside of the home, I did not love leaving my crock pot on, but nowadays you've got the instant pot. Things can happen pretty quick in there. So that's an option for anybody who does not want to leave a crock pot on at home all day long. I am here at home, so I do take advantage of using it. Today we're going to do a French onion type of beef. I don't know. It's just a thing that I threw together and it's really yummy. So I am chopping up three of my shallots here. You can use any type of onions. I went a little light because we are not huge onion people. Don't hate me. But you could use probably as many as like two cups worth of onions. I'm going to make a sauce here. I am using a cup and a half of beef broth, tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, a tablespoon of coconut aminos. You could also use soy sauce, two tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce. I also had some white wine sitting in the fridge. I would have preferred to use a red wine, but I did not have that. So I just tossed in what I had. It was probably about a quarter cup. Also put in about a teaspoon's worth of dried rosemary and two cloves worth of minced garlic. So here I have a bottom, a round roast. You could use like a Chuck roast. And I am going to sprinkle that pretty heavily with some salt and pepper. Now you could sear this if you wanted to, to lock in some of that flavor and juices. I did not. I was feeling lazy. It'll still turn out really good. So that's totally up to you. This is about a three pound roast. I put half of my shallots on the bottom there, topped it with the roast, some more onions, my sauce mixture, couple more onions that I found laying on the counter. And then I'm going to pop the lid on here and I'm going to let this go on low for seven hours. You could also put it on high for about four hours, but I recommend doing the low setting if you can. I think it comes out so much more tender. Now I'm going to start thinking about a late morning snack. In preparing this video for you guys and throwing it together, I realized we eat like hobbits. We love our food. Seriously. We have breakfast, second breakfast, elevensies, lunch, afternoon tea, supper, and dinner pretty much every day. So for our second breakfast, we are going to make some apple cinnamon scones. These are a favorite. I usually try and do like a baked good a week. So I'm not doing this part every single day. I will try and make enough to last us at least a few days, if not the entire week until I would go to bake something else. So for this recipe, like always, I will include the detailed recipe down in the description. I used one cup of home milled Khmut flour and one cup organic all purpose. You need two cups total, whatever flour you want, a tablespoon of baking powder, a teaspoon of cinnamon, pinch of nutmeg. And then I threw in probably like a half teaspoons worth of salt and I grated, uh, right out of the fridge, a half stick of butter. I did use a fork then to kind of break those butter pieces up a bit more into about like the size of a pea. And then I used a half cup of buttermilk. Now I didn't actually have buttermilk, so I just kind of soured milk. I took some of our raw milk, threw in some lemon juice, allowed it to curdle, took about, I don't know, two or three minutes. And then I added that in. That works just fine too if you're in a pinch. Add in one egg and I did a teaspoon of vanilla. Now I'm using coconut sugar here. You could just use cane sugar, whatever you have on hand, a half a cup, and then we're going to mix all of that together. I am going to prep an apple. I'm going to peel it and dice it small. Combining everything well until it just comes together. We don't want to overwork this. I did find this dough to be pretty sticky. I added a little bit more flour and perhaps that's just a learning curve using some of the home milled because I typically don't have this issue if I'm using all like store-bought flour. So if any of you home milled flour experts out there have some advice for me, I do know that I need to let the fresh milled grains sit and soak up the moisture a bit, which I did for about 15 minutes, but I still found it to be pretty sticky. So I'm not sure if I need to adjust the ratio of flour to liquids. If any of you have some insight for me, go ahead and drop it down in the comments. I always appreciate that so much, but I did get it to work out here. I just had to add a little bit more flour to make it workable. I flattened it out into a disc about 10 inches in diameter and then sliced it into eight pie pieces. These go on to a parchment lined cookie tray and I was feeling a little lazy again, rather than putting some cream in a bowl and using a brush to apply it, I just drizzled it on there, used my finger to spread it around and we're good. So these went into a 400 degree oven for about 20 to 25 minutes and when they come on out, we're going to make some icing for them. The icing is just half a cup of powdered sugar. I'm going to add some maple syrup to that just to get it into a nice consistency. I also threw in a dash of vanilla, probably a quarter teaspoon or so and then I decided I was going to spice this a little bit. So I used some of my chai spice blend that we had made up a few videos back, probably about a quarter teaspoons worth and then mix it all up. Drizzle it over the tops. This hardens nicely so you don't have a big sticky mess and you guys, these are so good. My kids gobble these up. I feel pretty good about giving them to them. I mean I'm all about treats every once in a while, right? Everything in moderation, but there isn't a whole lot of sugar per serving. I didn't use any refined sugar. Scones generally don't have much sugar in them. They're not like a cookie. They're more like a biscuit. So they're definitely a staple in our house. I make tons of variations on these. To go with our scones, my kiddos have this obsession with what they call cinnamon milk. It's actually chai milk. I warm up some raw milk for them, put a dollop of maple syrup in probably like two teaspoons worth and about a quarter teaspoon of chai spice. I like to run it underneath the frother. This is attached to my coffee maker, but you can buy handheld ones. Just gives you that nice foamy layer of milk on the top that my kids go nuts for. You guys, this is really good and it's actually really good for you. So this will go with our scones today. They each get a half of a scone. You need a straw? Good. Is it good? Kiddos are watching some Superbook this morning and mom is going to make herself some tea as well. So I'm going to have basically what they had, but I'm going to add an extra step and do a bag of tea. So I'm actually using chai tea. However, I always find that like the ones you can buy in the store, the chai tea baggies, they're just not very chai like. So I am dressing it up. I have a box of them, so I want to use them. I am just brewing some of that. I only did about six ounces of water cause I'm going to add in some milkier, probably a quarter cups worth. I mean, you can do it to your liking. This is just how I like it. And then about tablespoons worth of maple syrup and about a quarter teaspoon of that chai spice. So pretty much just like the kids just with that extra step of the chai. Use the frother again, got it nice and foamy. And this is such a lovely warm drink to have in the morning. Now I'm going to think about lunch. Lunch is going to be using up some leftovers from Thanksgiving. Dinner will be too a little later, but I've got some turkey and we can only eat turkey as it is so many times before we're like, okay, we need to do something different with this. So I'm going to make some soup featuring the turkey. I'm going to prep some veggies. I've got some carrots that I am going to chop up. I'm going to get them into my Dutch oven. Got some olive oil in there. We're going to get those cooking. I'm going to dice up some potatoes leaving the skin on for all the extra nutrients. And we're going to add those in with the carrots as well. Those two things will cook up a bit longer than everything else. I'm going to add in some freeze dried goodies. I have some celery and some leeks that were actually from last year's garden trying to work through some of those things before we start dipping into this year's. I have a jar of canned chicken broth. This is four cups worth. It's going to go in and because I've added in some freeze dried foods, they're going to suck up a whole bunch of that liquid. So I added in an extra cup of just plain water and I kind of forgot about my garlic. So I added that in a little later than I wanted to, but some garlic just went in. We're going to allow all of that to come to a boil. We want everything to soften up and become fork tender. So while we wait, we're going to shred up some cheese. I've got some Parmesan and some raw white cheddar here. It's going to make this soup super creamy and yummy. So now that we've achieved a boil, I'm going to add in a cup of pasta. You can use whatever pasta you want. You could also use rice if you want. The lid goes back on. These simmer for however long the box says. This one was eight minutes and then we're going to turn down the heat, allow it to just be over low and we're going to add in a few more things. I've got some freeze dried kale I'm going to add in. You could also do spinach. You know, this recipe is totally customizable. I'm just throwing things in that I had in my fridge that needed to be used. I'm going to add a half cup of heavy cream and then we're going to add salt and pepper to taste. I probably did about a teaspoon's worth of salt, maybe a quarter teaspoon's worth of pepper. All of the yummy cheese goodness is going to go in and this is where I'm also going to throw in our turkey. This is about a pound's worth of diced turkey leftover from Thanksgiving getting put to a second use. So this will be our lunch. I'll let this simmer for a little while, allow all of the flavors to mingle, serve it with some homemade bread or some leftover rolls from Thanksgiving. But this for sure made some bellies very happy. It's time for another snack. I'm telling you, we eat all day long. So a second snack usually consists of mainly cheese and fruit. Sometimes I will use some crackers if I have some good ones on hand. Sometimes it's hard to find crackers with not a million things added to them and I don't always have time to make them from scratch. So I found these from Aldi that were pretty clean. The kids like them. So they went on the plate today. I have one of the mini Babybel cheeses and we have some freeze dried strawberries, but this is just, you know, an endless variation of cheese and fruit, maybe some crackers. Sometimes I can find cleaner pretzels or really a simple, you know, early afternoon snack. Another daily occurrence here is chocolate milk. My kids are obsessed with it. So I make my own version of chocolate syrup, two ingredients, just some organic cacao powder and some maple syrup, just enough maple syrup to kind of make a paste out of the two ingredients there. Um, I don't really measure this. It's more of just an eyeball thing, but probably two tablespoons worth of cacao powder and a tablespoon of maple syrup. Then I'll add in a little bit of milk. If you add in too much at once, you just get clumpy bits all throughout it. So I like to mix that thoroughly and then I'll add in some more milk to the tump. Now we're getting to late afternoon time to get the rest of dinner prepared. I am going to make a side for the pot roast of some carrot fries. This is one of our favorite ways to eat carrots, roast them up just like you would French fries in the oven. I prepare them the same way, cut them in two French fry type pieces. I drizzle them with olive oil, a good helping, some paprika, some salt and some pepper. Get them coated up really well. If you want anything to come out crispy, don't overcrowd on the pan. They go in at a fairly hot oven 450 degrees for about 15 to 20 minutes. Our pot roast is all done. So I am going to take some of the liquid out of here, about two cups worth, and we're going to take it over to the stovetop and make a gravy. You've never made a gravy before. You just take a little bit of a liquid out, combine it with either some flour or some cornstarch. For every one cup of liquid, I use one tablespoon of either cornstarch or flour. Make that into a bit of a slurry and then add it into the rest of the simmering broth. Add it in slowly while stirring and you'll have a beautiful gravy. We're going to shred up our pot roast. I like to do this and then allow it to soak in all of those juices before serving. Our carrot fries are all finished. So there's one last step. I am going to toast up some baguette that I had in the freezer. I have some slices of, it's a mix of cheddar and Gruyere that I got from Aldi. I'm just going to stick this under the broiler for a little bit. I also have some leftover mashed potatoes from Thanksgiving, so I don't have to make those tonight. So win there. These I'm doing separate tonight, but other times I will make this dinner in a Dutch oven. So then you can, once the pot roast is finished, slice up the baguette, put the Gruyere cheese on top and put the whole thing in underneath the broiler. It's awesome that way too. I just chose to go the slow cooker route today. So here are my leftover mashed potatoes. I was going to get everything all plated up, mashed potatoes, carrots, our pot roast and the gravy. And then on the side, I'll have some of the baguette with the Gruyere cheese. Friend, thanks for hanging out with me today for a bit of a what I feed my family in a day. I hope it was helpful and enjoyable. I'm going to get to work, cleaning up this kitchen because a dirty kitchen is not so fun to work in. And I like to put my kitchen to bed each night so that I have a clean slate to work with the following day. It makes everything so much more enjoyable and easier on myself. Any questions, go ahead and ask them down below in the comments and let me know if this was helpful. I appreciate the feedback. If you want to see more of this, blessings on your day friend until next time, take care.