Simplifying a Healthier Life while Respecting Time Honored Traditions: 47

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Heal, Nourish, Grow podcast. I am joined by Stephanie Leaf today and I'm excited to have this conversation again because our first time around we had a little bit of technical difficulty, um, but I really loved our conversation so I'm glad I get to share her again with you. But Stephanie, can you just give everybody a little bit of background on your, uh, world and how you got to be doing the work that you do on your website now? Sure.

Well, I'm glad to be here and be speaking with you again. Thanks for having me. Um, so I, um, run a blog and a, um, podcast all about simple living and self-sufficiency. So we talk about, uh, kind of the 4 things that I like to talk about is like cooking from scratch, food preservation, um, making your own products, like your own facial products and cleaners. So all natural DIY types stuff as well as gardening. So those are kind of the 4 things that I like to talk about and help like modern mothers really incorporate those things into their busy lifestyle. So kind of trying to find a balance between modern lifestyle but also bringing back some of those old time-honored skills and knowledge and kind of marrying them together.

Yeah, I love the way that you do that. And I'm just curious if you found that sort of over the pandemic that you found more people searching for this kind of information or, you know, looking to both simplify their life but also go back to some of the practices that sort of, I guess, used to be more of a hobby thing, for lack of a better word. But I do feel like people are coming back to it more. Do you think that that's accurate?

Absolutely. I think that there's a, like, self-sufficiency revival, if you want to call it, coming, like, happening right now. And I think a lot of that, that's for, like, a couple reasons. First of all, the pandemic, people had a lot more kind of free time at home and they were trying to find ways to just keep themselves busy but in a healthy way. So taking up gardening or learning how to make sourdough or bake or those kinds of things was something a lot of people were turning to. And then a lot of food shortages or just trouble finding some things on the shelves kind of led a lot of people to open their eyes to maybe like this as an option of, you know, just a way of life of being able to ensure that the family has a well-stocked food supply, being able to ensure the family has the food that they need. So it's kind of like a lot of reasons why this self-sufficiency revival is happening right now.

Yeah, when it comes to— since we're talking about the food, obviously, and there are some shortages and things, but I know you like to sort of simplify things, and like me, you like to cook from scratch. Do you have any things that you've been thinking about more lately or learning about to sort of make these things easier for people to do, like putting dinner on the table every night? Any tips to make things quicker, or how do you, how do you approach all that?

So yeah, I mean, we— cooking from scratch is a big thing that I think is really important to save money, to make sure you're, you know, tons of benefits from just cooking from scratch and making sure that your family is eating the best food, as you know. Um, and I think that it's really— I think a lot of people are coming to, you know, realizing that it's important to do that because even though we're, we're, you know, so busy and everything, but cooking from scratch doesn't have to be complicated. It can be really simple. So I like to help people. The best way that I like to tell people, or at least help people make it actually happen, is to have like a well-stocked pantry. So that's just buying ingredients instead of processed foods. So just having raw ingredients, spices and broths and, and fruits and vegetables and canned goods and those kinds of things stocked up. And I don't mean like stockpiling, but just available so that you can cook at any given time. Right. Um, so a lot of baking goods. So if you don't have these things on hand, you're running out to the grocery store every time you need something. And that's just a really good way to have a, um, kind of just a foundation of being able to cook from scratch. That's one thing I tell people to do.

Yeah, well-stocked pantry, could agree more. It helps a lot. And, you know, one of the ways that you stock your pantry, we talked about this a little bit last time, is that you actually do some canning. Can you talk a little bit more about your garden and what, what your harvest was like this year? What have you been bringing in and what things are you going to be canning going into the fall?

Yeah, so I think we talked before, we were just at the beginning of gardening season. So, um, let's see, we have— we did really good with tomatoes this year, which some years it's, it's, you know, I don't know, some years we haven't had a good harvest. We've had a pretty good harvest this year, um, and a lot more on the paste tomatoes. So we're going to be doing a lot of sauce. The way that I'm doing that is tomatoes tend to just come in and kind of like waves, so I take them off the vine, and I core them, and I just throw them in the freezer. And then, so I have several gallons of tomatoes in my freezer, and we're probably going to be doing sauce maybe next week, if not the week after. So in like 2 weeks from now when we're speaking, because my garden should be done by that point. And so we'll just make a bunch of sauce, and then we'll be canning them. That's one thing we did. We also, um, let's see, we processed a lot of things that I didn't grow, like some things, uh, that I can get locally. Like, we did corn. We tried corn. Not nearly enough, I mean, for us to have for the whole year, but we tried corn and the deer found it, so it was like not, um, happening. So we just bought a lot of— like, I think we did 12 dozen, 12 dozens. We bought 12 dozen ears of corn and processed that. So that's something that's from a local farm. We We also did green beans as well from a local farm because we had enough to harvest for our family for like meals and stuff. But to do a big canning to stockpile us for the entire year, we had to go locally. Uh, let's see, what else do we do? We had a lot— we had a strawberry, um, we have a strawberry patch, so we were able to do that. And so we made quite a lot of jam that was from our strawberries, but we also kind of supplemented as things are in season. Uh, you can find strawberries at the grocery store, you know, for pretty cheap, and we kind of stocked up on that just so we had a bigger harvest, or at least a bigger amount to actually preserve. So we did a lot of jelly with that. And then we did peaches recently. So I don't have peach trees yet, so we did that locally as well. Um, bought 2 bushels of peaches and canned those. So that's what we've done so far, but we're also going to be doing a fall garden. So that's carrots, maybe some potatoes, some spinaches, and some, what else, some other greens. I think we're going to be doing kale or something like that. Yeah, kale. Yeah, kale is a good one to do for the fall. So those are in the ground right now, and we'll, we'll be doing those later. Now, as far as our garden, we do really good with peppers and tomatoes. But a lot of that we did, we just consumed it. We enjoyed it fresh, fresh, you know. So sometimes when that happens, which is fine by me, I just look locally and buy in bulk when it is in season. And it's, you know, good to do it that way as well.

No, that's a great tip. And so for people that may not want to have their own garden or just don't get a lot of space to do it, I think buying things when they're available and fresh and either quick freezing them or canning them or, like, to your point about the sauce, like processing it in some way so that you can enjoy it later is a really nice tip.

Yeah, it definitely not, not only is cheaper that way if you're able to buy it when it's in peak season, but it's also the freshest and it's, you're just getting the most for your money if you're able to then preserve it and use it throughout the year. And then you're also, it's a good peace of mind. It's also a good peace of mind because you're having that stuff on your shelves already. You don't have to worry about tomato sauce later. Yeah, you have it all. Yeah.

Yeah, I usually do that too, except for I freeze mine, but it just depends on what you have space for, and I don't have gallons of tomatoes at my disposal at the moment.

So yeah, definitely.

What, what tips might you have for people? So say they've never grown a garden or they don't know how to get started. I think you kind of shared a story with me last time we spoke about how you ended up on the farm that you're on and that you weren't maybe that experience with gardening when you first got into it. So could you share a little bit how you approach that and how you got started at the beginning?

Sure. Yeah, so I never had a garden or anything growing up, and when we bought our property, uh, my mom and I decided it was a nice property to have a garden. So we always just like jump right in without researching anything, always, which is kind of like a good thing because we, we start, but then, you know, we learn a lot, I guess, along the way with a lot of failures. But Our first garden was actually pretty, pretty productive and pretty successful, except that we like just crowded so much stuff into a very small space because we didn't realize the tiny plants that you buy at the store were not going to be that, that way the whole season. So we definitely had some success with that garden and learned quickly that we needed to do better with our spacing and actually planning a little bit to figure out what it was that we wanted. To grow. So we've had that, and that was, I guess, about 8 years now. So we've had a garden each year, progressively getting more, more, you know, larger or adding more things to it. So it's just a, it's a learning process. But what I suggest people to do when they're first getting started is really determine what it is that you want to grow. Because like when we first had our garden, we threw all kinds of stuff in like eggplant. And while I really enjoy eggplant, I don't cook a lot with it. You know, I might make a meal every once in a while, but to have like 4 plants of eggplants, which produces multiple eggplants, um, was not something that was like the best for our family and the best use of space in our garden. So, uh, just kind of thinking about what it is that you're going to grow, what, what your family eats the most, what is most cost-effective for your family to grow yourself instead of purchasing at the store. And then, as far as space goes, or determining where you're going to grow your garden, a lot of people get hung up on that they don't have enough space. Well, you can grow things in containers, you can grow things in the ground, you can grow things in raised beds. There's tons of options as far as where you can actually grow. And if you're just getting started, I definitely recommend starting with some kind of containers. That way you can move them around, trying to play with how much sunlight you're getting, you know, where the best place to be, and without it being a complete commitment to a certain spot. So I recommend that for people getting started. And then if you're also small space, they have varieties that are like smaller footprint like plants, so they're not necessarily like huge tomato plants. They might be a smaller bush plant. So you can— sometimes they're just called like a patio cucumber plant, right? So it's a smaller version. So there's definitely things to get yourself started and start growing things fresh. Um, yeah, like I said, we had lots of, lots of failures. We did cucumbers first year and we had tons of cucumbers. I mean, it was like amazing. I don't think honestly I've had quite the cucumber harvest since that first year. But we decided to turn it all into pickles and didn't know what we're doing and made like, like probably 20 jars of the worst pickles ever. So, you know, it's all something. Yeah. Learning how to, how to do it. It comes with time.

Well, I think you mentioned last time, and because you mentioned the pickles, this is probably a good segue, uh, that, you know, canning is intimidating to a lot of people, but you mentioned that you do like a lot of refrigerator pickles. So can you maybe share that process a little bit with people?

Sure. So the canning, canning, it, it is intimidating, but canning is literally just the process of making whatever food you've put in your, your can and making it shelf stable. So there's like, I know when I was just getting started, it was very confusing with what exactly it means to can. So if you're making pickles, you're making the pickles, you can make a refrigerated pickles. Um, that just means you're not canning them, so you're not even putting them into a canner to make them shelf stable. So instead, you're making the pickle in the brine. I can talk about that in a minute, but then you're just putting it in the fridge, and it's gonna— it's not gonna stay as long as a shelf-stable pickle, but it will stay a couple months in your fridge, not long enough for you to enjoy it. Um, but with pickles, what you're actually doing with pickles is you're fermenting them. So you are taking your cucumbers and you're putting them into a jar with seasoning, whatever. This is very like surface-level fermentation lesson here, but, and then you're just going to be adding what's called a brine. Because you're not making your own brine, or you're not, the pickles itself doesn't produce as much water. Because if we're doing sauerkraut, you can, it will, sauerkraut, you know, cabbage will produce its own brine. But with pickles and cucumbers, you're going to want to create a brine, which is literally salt water. Like, you're going to dissolve salt in water, and you're going to put that over the pickles. You know, keep that in the fridge. So that's how you can enjoy your pickles, your cucumbers, you know, in the fridge without even having to get a canner out or even having to process it. Now then, if you want to put it on the shelf, You would have to can it, put it through the process, you know, where you're boiling it in the water with the lids and, and all that things, um, have enough headspace and all that in order to be able to put it on the shelf. So it's kind of a 2-step thing. Um, and that's kind of how it is like with the sauce, right? You're making the sauce, um, like tomato sauce. You're making the sauce in a pot and you would either be, you could put, you could jar it right there and then just put it in the fridge. And use it over the next couple weeks. Or you could can it, put it through the canning process, that then it would allow it to be on the shelf. So that's kind of how it goes. And I know it was so confusing to me when I first started, like, canning. I didn't understand. I thought canning was like cooking, or like making the— all of it was like something else with canning. But canning is literally just processing it to release all the, all the air in the can and creating a vacuum seal so that you can put it on the shelf.

And, you know, I think that that is what intimidates people about it because they, you know, even if they do know that it's a storage, canning, whatever process, I think that there's some fear of doing it improperly that you could get sick or that you wouldn't know if it was done properly. Any tips for people? I've only done it once. I made, I used to have this probably 25 years ago. We had a grapevine in our yard and I made some jelly. So I, made the jelly and I canned it and it worked out fine. I was very careful. I just made sure I boiled everything. But can you speak to that a little bit? Like, is there a reason to be fearful or should people just give this a try?

Yeah, definitely just give it a try. I know it's really scary, but there is— this is a time-honored skill, and as long as you follow some really simple instructions from like trusted sources, which you can find, you know, you find them easily, like Blue Ball Canning book is like trusted source. And what you really want to make sure is that you're using the right canning method, um, water bath or pressure canning. Um, some things you can't pressure can, like if it's not high in acid enough, you have to pressure can it because water bath canning, you need that pressure from the pressure canner to actually make sure that you're getting all of the possible, um, you know, stuff, bad stuff out.

Of it.

So things like, um, like broths or sweet potatoes or pumpkin meats, you have to pressure can. So just, that's one thing to make sure that you're doing. If you're doing tomato sauce, you can water bath can it because it's high in acid, you know. Peaches that I did, I did those water bath. I just added a little lemon juice to each of those, each of the jars, and we were— that's high enough in acid that you can water bath can it. Um, jelly, strawberry jelly was high enough in acid that I could water bath can it. So that's one thing, just making sure that you're using the right method. Um, and then also you want to know if you're using the right headspace, which is just the amount of— and if you're following a recipe, it will tell you all this— um, the amount of space between the surface of your food and the lid of the jar. That's just to make sure that you have enough room for all the bad stuff to get out while it's processing. Um, and don't make up— don't— let's see, here's some real basic things. Don't can anything that's, uh, milk-based. Don't can anything that's too high in fat, like, like fat, you know. If you're going to be doing soups, you can can soups. Don't thicken it with anything that will come after you, you know, after you take it off the shelf and you don't. There's just some real simple basic rules, and getting sick from canned food if you followed the normal instructions is very rare, like very, very rare. Um, and I would just say just follow some real trusted resources and don't do anything crazy. That's not like— there's crazy things all over the internet, so just make sure you're following a well source.

Yes, that's a good point. And when you mentioned one specific book, can you say that?

Yes, it was like the Blue Ball Canning is like the the like high esteem, the Bible basically. Yes, if you get something like that, you will be fine. Um, and it's really rare for you to get sick off something that's properly— if something's properly canned, it's very rare. You're not gonna, you know, um, it's when you start messing with things, you know, your own recipes and stuff like that, that you could possibly have something, you know, go crazy.

So just wait till you're a little more experienced to go off of something besides a recipe.

Yeah, your own recipes. Yes, but don't be scared. Definitely give it a try. I mean, I was surprised at how actually easy it is because I can't— a jar of, um, 6 things of jelly to actually process, it took maybe 15 minutes to actually process it. So it's not a long process. Um, yeah, definitely worth it because then you save space in your refrigerator and all that stuff.

No, I thought it was— like I said, I only did it once, but I thought it was very fun. And I don't know why I haven't gotten back onto it again, but I I would definitely recommend that people try it because it's, it's just a fun process to learn. It's kind of like almost like a little hobby or very zen, like you're, you know, boiling things and just making sure everything's just so, so I liked it.

Yeah.

So let's see, Stephanie, we talked about, so you have 4 things that you love to talk about. We talked about gardening. We talked about cooking from scratch.

Yes.

What haven't we talked about yet?

So, um, Food preservation. So we talked about that. So aside from, we talked about the canning, we also talked about fermenting. I also help and teach people how to, you, like dehydrate. That's a lot, another thing you were asking me about preserving. So all your herbs and everything, we did a lot of herbs this year. And we do those by just drying them. Either I'll just have them like a cardboard tray. Somewhere that will dry, or I'll hang them. And then that's how you get like your bulk spices and everything. That's how we keep our spices at our house. Um, that's, yeah, so not having to buy spices is nice. Um, let's see what else. And then freezing. Um, yeah, freezing. We all freeze stuff. That is a method of food preservation. And in fact, with the corn, I don't know if I said I canned it. We actually chose to freeze our corn this year. Um, because just the way we use it, we— I use it in soups and stuff. It's just easier to freeze it for us. So I decided to not do the processing, the canning and all that, but instead to freeze it. So you have a lot of options if you're choosing to put your own food up or to buy food in bulk at the grocery store or at farmers markets or whatever and decide to preserve it for later. There's a lot of options for you depending on what space you have, depending on what resources you have. There's a lot of different options.

Well, since you're basically the food preservation expert, in terms of freezing, do you recommend or do you like using vacuum sealing? Because I find sometimes, particularly with meat, if I buy it at the grocery store, the way that it's sealed, if I then just directly freeze it, it can get freezer burn or, or it might not last as long. I don't have a vacuum sealer myself yet. I usually just put it in a Ziploc, but I'm guessing you might have been over this at some point.

Yeah, no, I, I don't currently use a vacuum sealer, but I do, I mean, I do think it would give you like the ultimate optimum results for to freeze that. Right now I just wrap it with like Press'n Seal wrap, honestly, like really tightly. And then I freeze them in like gallon bags. It's not the most ethically friendly, you know, way of using all this plastic. So I would prefer to use vacuum sealers. I just haven't gotten one yet. And for what we use, we go— we cycle through our frozen food like pretty frequently. So a lot of what I use also freezer-wise comes from butchers. So I'm buying, um, half a steer or something. So that stuff's already packaged and things like that, um, in certain ways. So I will bring that home and I'll just freeze it the way that it came. Um, but if I'm buying like chicken in bulk, I'll break it down and individually wrap it. And I won't, I won't freeze it in like the grocery store container. I definitely break it down and at least wrap it up. Probably similar to vacuum sealing, but not as, you know, as well as what a vacuum sealer would do. So if you're able to vacuum seal, I definitely do think that that would give you the most, the best results.

Okay. And then what about, you mentioned, um, how you cycle through your frozen food. I know with our family, I always found this a little bit challenging kind of, you know, last in, first out sort of idea and just managing what I need for the week. Do you have any tips for that process?

Sure. So I, I struggle with this also until recently. I mean, we have 4 little kids, so I am— we're going through a lot of, you know, a lot of food. We have a lot of food. So I, my biggest struggle with cooking from scratch was forgetting to take something out of the freezer. Sounds like such a basic thing, right? Um, but I would forget to defrost things all the time. So I think I can't remember who I got this from, but this was some, it wasn't my original idea or my genius by any means, but I do like a freeze, like I, I have a tray that I put in my fridge and I take things out. And they are defrosting in my fridge so that at any point I have something relatively well defrosted, if that makes sense, so that I can use it. Um, if I, if I don't, it comes to a time when it's just sitting there and I haven't used it, I have to use it like that day. I have to figure something up and use it. That doesn't really happen too often. So I will have ground beef out in the freezer. I mean, excuse me, in the fridge defrosting. I might have some chicken breasts. Um, and that gives me some leeway throughout the week to be able to then pull it out on the— onto the counter and finish defrosting it. That's what I'm going to use that week, that day. Um, so yeah, that's what I have to do now, otherwise I will forget to defrost something. I also have a stand-up freezer and I have a chest freezer. So things like big chicken, like whole chickens or turkeys, they obviously go in the chest freezer. But I know they're underneath and I use them rarely. Not rarely, but I don't use them as much. So I will have to dig for them. Anything else that I eat, I'm constantly in and out, I put in my standup freezer so that I can easily kind of see what's in there. And then I also have to inventory it every once in a while. Otherwise I'll forget things and I'll lose things. So yeah. Yeah.

I love that idea. And I've actually thought about before, I looked for it. There must be an app where you can put everything that you have in your freezer.

That would be wonderful.

We need to look for that. I'll, I'll see if I can find that for the show notes. That would be good. My other thing that I don't think I knew until the last couple years is that you can actually cook a steak from frozen. You don't— it doesn't need to be defrosted. So what I do now is I do reverse sear. I'll put it frozen in the oven at about 225 degrees. And so it kind of slowly defrosts it, and then when it's tender enough, I put the temperature probe in, wait till it gets to within 10 degrees, and then I just sear it off. So it's like this reverse process, and it really produces delicious steaks without defrosting. So that's just— people haven't tried that, I recommend.

Yeah, that would be wonderful because, yeah, I— like I said, defrosting stuff is still— is it one of my biggest struggles for whatever reason? And that would be Really easy. So you just take it up from— yeah, like from frozen and just put it in.

Yeah, it's good and it works great. I can't attest that it works on all meats because like when I've read about it in relation to fish, the texture changes with fish a little bit, so I wouldn't try it with fish necessarily. But it works, I can attest it works amazing with beef. I don't know about chicken. Yeah, totally. And maybe I should do that experiment sometime, try chicken that way and see if it works.

I don't know, that would be awesome. Very nice.

Stephanie, I love how much practical information and knowledge that you've given people today. Can you share one or two final thoughts on things about, you know, simplifying your life but yet using these sort of older practices that take more time? How do you balance those things?

So for me, it was definitely just a learning process. I know that sounds boring and that's not necessarily what people want to hear, but it's If you're interested in this, it's kind of like you want to learn and collect these skills, right? But so that means you're not going to learn everything at once. And what I really had to learn was that like this is all seasonal. So it helps— it actually, for it to be seasonal, I hope it kind of works in your favor because you're not doing everything all at once. So like we're right now, for example, we're getting out of gardening season. Um, so while I love gardening season, I'm ready for it to end. So we will move on into some other skills. We'll move on into some other skills, um, that will take us through the fall, through the winter. So maybe we will be doing more building my bone broth, um, pantry, or doing more like crafty stuff like knitting or sewing or whatever you're into. That will be more— carry us through the winter. And then come January, February, then we'll be ready to get back into the gardening season, and then we'll hit it full force, and then we'll be canning and So it, you don't, not everything's happening all at once. So don't let it like be overwhelming. Also with things like living simple, like living like a simpler life, you don't have to do everything. That's kind of what is the, um, like what's great about it right now. And in balancing it with modern conveniences, if you don't want to learn to sew, you don't have to learn to sew. There's someone else that is a wonderful sewer that you can, you know, find and can purchase their goods from. So for me, when I was getting started, it was like, I have to learn everything and I have to learn it now. And, you know, if I don't, then I'm not doing what I need to be doing. So just kind of being more intentional and purposeful with what you're putting your effort and your, your time and your money towards is really what it's all about. Um, and that goes with what skills you're taking the time to learn. You don't have to do everything. And if you think you're going to have to do everything, then you're going to get overwhelmed and you're going to not want to do any of it. So that's kind of my tip with— for people getting started.

Like, just try one thing that seems like canning, for example. Like, yeah, I'm gonna try canning. That's it. Buy the stuff at the grocery store. You don't have to grow it yet. Just try the canning thing, for example.

And with canning, you don't have to do 12 cans, you know. You can do one can, you can do two cans at once.

Um, I totally would have gone for 12.

Well, if you can, that's great. But if you, if you, um, you know, usually I think I'm going to do 12 cans and then the amount of the quantity that I actually get out of once the sauce cooks down is actually more like 2. So yeah, you can do smaller, smaller batches with canning if that's easier for you.

Yeah, yeah, no, that's a great tip because I do think in my mind I automatically think of my mom when I was a kid and my grandma. They would have— we had huge, huge like acre gardens and they would just have jars all over the kitchen kitchen and all this stuff. And I think that that is what people think of it as a lot.

Yeah, definitely.

So just knowing you can do two is, is like a great tip.

Yeah, and just like mastering their skills with doing like smaller batches or doing smaller amounts is definitely more achievable for some people, I think.

Oh, absolutely. No, that makes perfect sense. Well, Stephanie, can you share with everybody where they can find you? Are you actually active on social media? Like, what are the best ways that they can get in touch or listen to your podcast, all those sorts of things? Sure.

So my blog is called Wingin' It on the Homestead. Um, you can find that. I have some recipes and things on there. And then I have a podcast called Simple Living Made Simple Podcast that I drop an episode every Sunday night. And then Simple Living Made Simple on Instagram is where I'm trying to be the most active on there and sharing as much stuff that we do. So follow me on there as well.

Awesome. Well, thank you again for being willing to record this. I'm glad that it all went well this time, and I get to hear all your great experience with people instead of have it like stuck in this weird digital world.

Yes. Well, thanks so much for having me. It was a lot of fun.

Yeah. All right, take care, Stephanie.

Thanks, you too.