Hello and Welcome to Gardening Foodies. If you’re open to a new way of doing things then this is the spot for you. Those that wanted to eat better, or just simply start saving money by eating at home this page is for you. Start here is designed to be a catchall to help those just starting out that would like some direction. It’s a work in progress for right now so leave a comment and tell us what you’d love to see here.
I’m self taught both in the kitchen and the garden which means I’ve spent plenty of time with trial and error, searching for things and lots of failures. My goal is for you to avoid that to some extent anyway. Now keep in mind everyone is at different points in their journey. Honestly we all eat differently and having varying degrees of interest in actually growing anything. This means my go tos may not even appeal to you in the least, but that’s okay. Even if we have different styles guess what? I love teaching and finding ways to help others achieve their goals. Which means if you can’t find the answer ask away and let’s see if we can solve it together. So start here and let’s see where we can go.
It Starts with the Right Tools
There’s really no wrong way to start. Essentially, like so many things, you just have to start. Just start somewhere and the rest will fall into place as you go. Once you do start it’s way easier to tweak and evolve. So in order to start you probably need to have some tools right? I’ll be adding some of my Go to’s that get used pretty regularly, if not everyday, in our kitchen. Having the right tools really does make a difference so get the tools to make your life easier until you can do better and don’t need them. The easier you make it for yourself, the more likely you are to stick with it.
Recipes
This is really where the magic happens. You have to start somewhere and I’ve included a few links to those recipes that started building my confidence in the kitchen so that I would try more. The first few I swear I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to replace the box and open up so many more options & varieties. (we literally use to live off of boxes and bags) And while it was a slow snowball, if I look back it definitely snow balled over time. Those recipes I tried first have grown over time and built my kitchen into what it is now. Trust me, if you told me I’d be cooking the way I am right now I’d have looked at you like you had three heads. So here are some easy ones that started it all. So play a little and see what you can do.
–Rice Pilaf Coming real soon
–Chicken Parm This is one of my personal favs.
Oh and PS Once we got bon COOK involved and had their products to work with things just went crazy and exploded what we could make at home because it was so EASY. I’ll be chatting about that more later. So many things I want to get up here, but it will take time. So stick with me.
Grow Your Own
Growing your own food in any way is cool. It’s fun (at least for me) to see something start as this little plant or even a seed then watch as it grows. I’ve found that the variety available through garden centers and even more so with seed catalogs is crazy compared to what you can get in the grocery stores. I personally had no idea that tomatoes came in so many different colors. (feel free to laugh it up) Grant you when I started down that rabbit hole we could only ever get red cherry tomatoes. Now even in the store there are a ton more varieties available. However, there is absolutely no comparing the taste of what you get from the your own little plant vs the store. They are completely night and day.
When it comes to growing your own food I would NEVER recommend really jumping all in, unless of course that’s your personality, because it can be over whelming. So start small and then go from there. I may have a huge garden right now, but trust me it didn’t start out that way. To be completely honest, since having kids, about the only garden that gets any attention is the food gardens. I just haven’t managed to get back into it, but that’s a story for another day. Check out this article on how you can save money just by trying your hand at a few herbs. Gotta start somewhere so you might as well start here.
