The Homestead Diet

Back in the summer of 2008, Nathan and I wanted to test our food self-reliance and so we did what we called at the time “The Garden Diet”.  At that time we still lived in town on 1/4 acre, we had a large garden, as large as our space would permit, and chickens giving us about 8 eggs a day.  For a whole week in August, just Nathan and I lived off only what we grew (the kids still ate their regular diet though).  It was August so there was LOTS coming from the garden at that time and we ate well, whenever I felt hungry I would just feast on a couple of tomatoes or cucumbers and we had eggs and homegrown potatoes to create more filling meals…during that time I lost 7 pounds in 7 days!

Now, we are far out in the country on a 9 acre homestead producing 6 quarts of goat’s milk a day about 1 quart of which is reserved for cheesemaking, 12-15 eggs a day, and picking pounds of vegetables almost everyday.  Just yesterday we picked about 7 pounds of spinach and that was just 1/2 of the spinach plot!  ((Tomorrow we will be picking the rest of it and transplanting our tomato seedlings to the same plot.))

We also have radishes, spring onions, swiss chard, mustard greens and various asian greens like mizuna and pak choi and a wide variety of fresh herbs, not to mention the wild foragables like RAMPS and wild greens like dandelion, chicory and creasy greens.  And soon enough there will be peas of all kinds, fava beans, tiny gourmet new potatoes and strawberries!  And that’s just in the Spring time! 😀

So, for at least a week, maybe longer, I am going to do it again, but this time I have titled it “The Homestead Diet” and here I will showcase the different recipes and meal ideas that I come up with involving mostly what we grow…the only “outside” food items allowed will be zero calorie ones like coffee, tea,vinegar, salt, pepper and other seasonings and all natural zero calorie sweetener like stevia.

For example, yesterday, Day One, I had:

A smoothie made using 2 cups RAW goat’s milk and 4 egg yolks, a bit of stevia, vanilla extract and nutmeg (tastes like egg nog..)

A rather large spinach salad with radishes, spring onions, parsley, lovage, lemon thyme and 2 hard boiled eggs dressed with RAW apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper

And two pieces of homemade cornbread made from cornmeal that I ground from our own homegrown corn and a big glass of ice cold RAW milk

Total Calories: 1,476

For drinks, I had coffee with goat’s milk in the morning, and then water and iced green tea sweetened with stevia throughout the rest of the day.

incan rainbow corn before and after grinding

the finished cornbread, it took on a bluish-greenish hue but it was still very tasty!  I have enough cornmeal left for at least 2 more batches of bread 🙂

Here’s the recipe that I used:

Scalded Cornbread

2 cups cornmeal

1/2 cup boiling water

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

3 eggs (from our hens) beaten

1 cup of buttermilk (I had no buttermilk so I made “faux buttermilk” by taking a 1 cup measuring cup and putting in 3 tbsp. of vinegar and then filling to the top with our homegrown goat’s milk, it worked great!)

First grease a 10″ inch cast iron skillet with a bit of bacon grease and out into a 400 degree oven to heat up.  Meanwhile, scald the cornmeal with the 1/2 cup boiling water and stir well to avoid lumps.  Add the rest of the ingredients and beat well until smooth.  Remove skillet from oven and pour the batter into the hot skillet so that a brown, crisp crust will form.  Bake for about 20 minutes or until fully set and slightly brown on top.