Rain Country Homestead

I had someone ask awhile ago if we were actually off grid or if we just explore with it. Well the answer is sort of both. We are still connected to public water and power, however, we live mostly off grid throughout the year.   Making beef jerky on the wood stove in the fall with the dehydrating rack Mr. Rain built Since we have an extensive solar power set up, summer is easiest for us to be pretty independent of the grid. We are not grid tied with our solar and we plan to keep it that way. We want what is ours to be ours. Period.  For a rather detailed explanation of our solar set up, here is a video Mr. Rain did on it: From spring through fall, I do all my canning in my All American Canner on a propane burner outside and much of my cooking in our Solavore Solar Oven and on our Stovetec Rocket Stove .  When cooking outside is not an option, or I am baking breads and pies, that is when I utilize the solar power to run my toaster oven and hot ...

Making your own tartar sauce is not only very frugal, it is also quite simple and far better for you than store bought.   I preach it all the time about reading those labels, you will find all kinds of things that serve no real purpose (other than to make a product more appealing through appearance or texture) and are very unhealthy.  Commonly found unsavory and toxic ingredients in store bought tartar sauces are Calcium Disodium EDTA, soybean oil, and high fructose corn syrup. If going with the super simple method, one only needs two ingredients: mayonnaise and  relish.  However, if buying these store bought, you are still looking at either paying a lot of money for ones without all the nasty ingredients or you are still getting the same garbage you would buying the premade tartar sauce. For me, I start by making my own organic mayo from farm raised chicken eggs, avocado oil , homemade vinegar, mustard powder , and salt .  In this batch...

Mr. Rain loves his ice cream and though we do splurge on some from time to time, I mostly try to offer a more healthy alternative.  Though I have made ice cream off and on for several years, I find the homemade creamsicles to be so much easier and just as satisfying.      *fudgesicle and blueberry-lemon creamsicle When I decided to start making them, I did not have any recipe to follow but instead came up with my own method using whatever fruits and such that I had on hand.  Sometimes it is with home canned fruits such as peaches or plums.  Sometimes it is with berries from our garden I had frozen in pint size packs such as raspberries, strawberries, or blueberries or the wild picked blackberries.  I have even used my purreed garden pumpkin with spices such as cinnamon and cloves. Other times I use things like organic cacao powder, organic peanut butter powder, coconut, or a few healthy seeds like hemp or chia.   ...

If you are vegan or simply cannot have dairy for any reason and have never made your own nutmilk, it is time to start! Making your own means YOU have control over what goes in it and it is far less expensive than store bought.   Have you every really read the labels closely on that over priced container in the store?  Even in many of the so-called organic brands, there is carrageenan and other unhealthy and unsavory ingredients. It really only takes a two ingredients: a healthy water (we use filtered rain water) and whatever your choice of nut or seed you prefer.  You can choose to add your favorite organic sweetener and vanilla extract if you choose. It is incredibly easy and you will be wishing you had started doing this sooner. This batch of nut milk I am making is almond from organic, raw almonds that have not been chemically treated. I have also made coconut, cashew, brazil nut, and hemp seed milks.   How To Make Nut ...

I have been making our own tooth powders and pastes for years and along the way have changed the recipe several times until I came up with this one.  It is my favorite of all the ones I have created. This recipe makes decent size batch so that it can be stored in a quart sized jar to use in refilling smaller jars we use for each person in the household as needed.  Doing it this way has really saved me a lot of time.  When one person's jar is emptied, it gets rinsed, dried, and refilled from the quart jar.  Easy and fast. Though one can use just plain baking soda,  it can often be too abrasive for using this way daily for a long period of time.  It has been said that it can actually cause minor scratches on the teeth that will likely lead to a greying or darkening of the teeth. This is why I like to blend the sodium bicarbonate with either organic Tapioca Starch or Arrow Root Powder. The addition of the magnesium and calcium citrates i...

Mr. Rain just loves chocolate syrup for his ice cream (the one splurge I allow from time to time) or for making chocolate milk from the raw goat's milk we get from a friend.  Just like with my organic chocolate pie recipe (another of his favorites) it took time to develop this recipe so that it could be organic and even mostly healthy.  Decadent treats and healthy do not have to be complete strangers! In this recipe you can use honey, coconut sugar, and/or organic cane sugar.  Though I like the honey, Mr. Rain did not care as much for that.  Coconut sugar is a great choice for its high mineral content, but using only that made for a disappointing flavor. I have found going half organic coconut sugar and half organic cane sugar gives the best taste while still allowing for those great minerals provided by the coconut sugar.  RECIPE: * 1 cup organic cane sugar , coconut sugar , or honey  * 1 cup organic whole milk 3/4 cup organic co...