HEARTH​AND​CARAVAN​​​​

I wanted a great basic muffin recipe that I could use as a base for adding many different flavors and with ingredients I usually have on hand! 

Ingredients:

Cream together:
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter with 3/4 cup sugar

Mix in:
2 eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup applesauce
Optional 6 drops Vitality Essential Oil (Lime, Orange, Lemon, etc..) 

I love this recipe because it adapts to anything I want to make. Just a simple, basic muffin recipe that never fails. I've made peach muffins, key lime, lemon poppyseed, orange pecan cranberry, and I'm sure there will be more. 

Tested and Approved! The 3 flavors below are YUMMY.

ADD IN:

• 6 Drops Orange Vitality Essential Oil
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans
  
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries

Pike Valley Farm
Terrapin Hill Farm
Marksbury Farm/Pasture
Yoder's Processing
The Nutrition Center
Your Farmer's Market
Good Foods
Whole Foods/Trader Joe's
The Bluebird
If you know of any other local and sustainable food sources in central Kentucky, please share them with me and I will add them to the list!

Next time you eat at an ethnic restaurant, look to see if there is a store nearby! Next door to our favorite indian restaurant there is a store that sells Indian foods and goods. While not all things there will be local, they will usually be of good quality and "local" to that ethnicity. Plus you'll find great deals on bulk spices and ingredients. specific to that type of food. We always make sure to check out the Japanese markets, Mexican tiendas. and Indian stores because we love to eat culturally diverse foods and that's where you'll find the most authentic foods for each culture. 

We're all at different places in our journey to a simpler life, in different parts of the country, with different finances. But one thing we can all do to move toward a simpler lifestyle is make our own bread. (Even if you don't eat bread, stick around, this applies to you too!) For those of you who do eat bread, go get the ingredients, mix them up, knead your dough and bake your own loaf of bread. 
The reason for this is threefold:

• If you forego buying bread at the store, you will have made a healthier choice firstly, by choosing to eat bread without added chemicals, sweeteners and hydrogenated oils. 
• Secondly, you will have created something with your hands to consume. Into your body. Yes. That is good stuff.
• And thirdly, You will literally not believe how freaking delicious homemade bread is if you have never made it before.  (And I'm not one to overuse the word literally.)

I believe that we homesteaders (that includes homestead wannabes!) are creators and generally want to be conscious of the foods we put into our bodies. Even so, I don't know how many times we have fallen back on store bought bread for a meal of sandwiches or toast. BUT, if you schedule in the time to make homemade bread once or twice a week, I really believe that some part of your homesteader's soul will be satisfied. Even if you're not able to grow a garden this year. Even if you live in the middle of a booming metropolis. Even if no other part of your life is centered around this ideal. Then, when you do fall back on sandwiches, or toast with cream cheese for a meal, it won't feel like a fall-back at all.

My favorite bread recipes are usually a half wheat, half white mix with honey or molasses and butter or coconut oil. 

• This recipe from Betty Crocker is our staple. I buy our yeast in bulk, so I use 2 tablespoons of yeast instead of 2 packets.
• We use Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day when we need bread throughout the week with little effort. There are all different flavors of bread in this book, but our favorites are the basic recipe, and the cornmeal one (which is similar to what we use for barquitos

If you are low-carbing it, doing paleo, gluten free, or otherwise have dietary restrictions, it may not be bread for you. It may be corn tortillas you are making from scratch, or  cream cheese pancakes, or anything that would be a good option for you to have on-hand and consume with more confidence, knowing exactly what's in them, and putting your own hand into the making of them. 

It's funny how being intentional in our living usually begins with the foods we eat and the ways we get those foods into our bodies. I call this The Beginner's Guide to Modern Homesteading, because these next several blog posts are the exact ways we began homesteading ourselves around ten years ago. 

We have fluctuated in how heartily we have pursued the homesteading lifestyle, but we always come back around to it. It makes us feel better . We feel better about the foods that are going into our bodies when we eat more sustainably because we know where our food comes from, and the way it was prepared, by us, and without a ton of preservatives and non-food additives. The closer we get to our food's source, the better our bodies feel. 

Keep a lookout on the sidebar for the Beginner's Guide to Modern Homesteading page, where you can find all those posts categorized neatly and ready for you to access. Our hope is that you'll take this information and run with it! Take it, expand it, make it your own version of every recipe, do it your own way, find your own source, and share your homestead successes with us, both small and large. Did you can tomatoes for the first time? Did you make your own bread, or start raising chickens? Did you choose meat from a local farmer instead of a chain store? Did you make pizza instead of ordering out?! Share it all with us and we'll celebrate those successes with you. Homesteading starts because you begin to make decisions about your health and life according to what makes sense to you and what makes you feel better. Screw the FDA and their messed up pyramid. You're someone who doesn't want others telling you what to do, what to eat, and where to get it--It means you choose to take authority of your own life, starting with this bite.