2023 Homemaking Goals: Growing, Preserving, and Cooking Food from Scratch

Our goals for 2023 are about food from scratch: growing, preserving, and cooking it. And it’s for so much more than being a healthier weight.

So a few weeks ago I shared a YouTube video and told you I wanted to share our goals for 2023.

Now if I’m being perfectly honest I’m a little scared.

(Which is why it’s taken me a month to actually do it haha.)

Our goals for 2023 are HUGE, and I need to be clear about one thing before we go anything further.

I’m certain we will fail in attaining our goals for 2023 perfectly.

If you’d like to watch the YouTube video I made about our goals that it out HERE

I think we will look back and see that we made great progress but still have things to learn before we can actually attain them.

But that’s what I think has me so excited about our goals this year.

They are more of a journey than they are a destination.

In the past 3 months that we have been actively pursuing our goals, we have found:

• community/friendship/support with others doing the same things
• we’ve seen differences in our personal health
• changes in the health and behavior of our girls
• budget has been slightly reduced
• our girls are enjoying the journey and doing their part
• we’re learning and mastering new skills
• the girls are learning new skills and developing passions

You guys!!

It’s only been 3 months

2023 Food from Scratch Goals

Before we dive in I want to apologize for the picture in this post. I usually try to make the images look as professional as possible, and unfortunately, these are all phone pictures. But they will give you an idea how what we’ve been up to!

So I decided to use them even though they aren’t the best.

Okay, so let’s get to it.

• Reduce processed carbs and processed sugars from our regular home diet
• Grow and preserve enough produce from our garden and the local farmers to feed ourselves for 1 year.

Those sounds really crazy, I know.

This is why I told you we are probably going to fail.

But the thing is, even if/when we fail this year, as long as we are working hard to attain these goals then we will be that much healthier.

For me, that’s all I need to keep going.

Reducing Processed Carbs and Sugars

You would be absolutely baffled about the amount of foods that have added sugar to them.

Well maybe you wouldn’t be.

But I absolutely was!

We were buying what I thought was relatively healthy yogurt.

But when we looked at the label, one little thing of yogurt had more than 20% of an adult’s allotted amount of sugar for the day.

In yogurt!!

That isn’t a cookie or a piece of cake; it’s yogurt.

How we’re reducing precessed carbs and sugars

So these are just a few of the ways that we’re reducing our processed carbs and sugars.

I’m using my sourdough starter to bake all our bread needs.

When we have hamburgers, I bake sourdough hamburger buns.

If we need dinner rolls, I bake sourdough dinner rolls.

In the past 3 months, we have not purchased any bread products from the grocery store.

Which is actually pretty exciting for me.

A couple of years ago, I admitted to you guys that I battle with feeling inadequate in the kitchen.

But recently my husband reminded me that my role as a wife, mother and homemaker is a big one and one to be valued and honored.

One that I’ve allowed society and the voices in my head to take from me.

But now, I’m excited to get it back and take responsibility for my family in the way that a Proverbs 31 woman does.

This new view has actually exploded my joy in the kitchen.

I’m regularly making homemade yogurt, some cheese, sourdough everything, granola, and meals from scratch.

I’m not perfect.

In fact if I’m being totally honest, I still haven’t figured out how to make sourdough dinner rolls haha!

I don’t know why.

But every recipe I try just doesn’t turn out right.

They are certainly edible, and my girls LOVE them.

But they are not the dinner rolls I’m trying to bake for Thanksgiving with the in-laws if you know what I mean haha!

Growing and Preserving Food from the Garden

So if you’ve been around for a while you know that we love our garden.

It’s not the most beautiful garden you’ve ever seen, nor is it the probably the “best” garden you’ve ever seen.

But it’s a joy of ours.

Every year we add new additions to the garden and make it more and more the garden of our dreams.

So to find out that we have staked a claim on such audacious goals may not totally surprise you.

But with us trying to ultimately grow and preserve our food for a year we are going to have to make some BIG changes.

We did the math for how many plants we need to plant and we are trying to grow 30 tomato plants!!!

The most we’ve ever done before is 7 BAHA!

So that being said we are going to have to get creative with our planting and we’ll be building more garden beds to make sure we can accommodate all the plants we need next year more easily.

As far as preserving goes, we’ve dabbled in it.

We’ve canned apple sauce, which lasted us like 6 months, and we’ve done potatoes.

But again, so much to learn and so many things to change.

Food from Scratch: It’s About More Than Weight

When we set goals at our house I always need a “why?”

Why am I going to try to attain this goal?

I even write it down sometimes.

It helps me when things get tough and I want to quit.

“He whose life has a why can bear almost any how.”

– Jordan Peterson

Honestly the seed was planted in our minds and hearts when we started doing our adoption training.

In that we learned that food and the types of food we feed our daughter will have a huge impact on her ability to adjust and even heal from trauma.

That led to another book, another conversation, and an article online and before we knew it, this was our passion.

We saw that the foods we were eating, while most would have called them healthy, were not the best for our girls and their future.

Not to mention our own health.

• A husband whose grandfathers on both sides have had heart issues
• A daughter who has been through extreme trauma due to life circumstance she had zero control over
• Another daughter who has a sensitive tummy and refuses to eat sometimes
• Me, who has a history of stomach issues resulting in severe belly pain

So when I look at my family; that is my “why”.

In the past 3 months, they are why I’ve pushed through the inconveniences of the “how”s.

Waking up early to get dough started, and staying up late to get it baked.

Sacrificing “leisurely” time doing nothing and replacing it with more dirty dishes, and more cooking and baking.

What We’ve Gained By Sacrificing This Convenience

But the thing is, I don’t actually feel like I’m sacrificing a lot or adding that much more work to my day (except maybe all those dirty dishes haha)!

The girls haven’t wanted to help me in the kitchen as much as they do these days.

We have allotted TV time for the girls, and our middle daughter will leave the TV, knowing full well that TV will soon be over, and ask to help me in the kitchen.

One day I walked out into the kitchen and found she had pulled everything from the fridge for lunch.

Then our oldest daughter asked me if I would give her a copy of all the recipes in my recipe book when she moves out and has a family.

What I’m sacrificing is time.

But what we’re gaining is priceless.

I hope that if you have some crazy big goals for 2023 you feel encouraged to know that you’re not alone.

You have a cheerleader in me, cheering you on as you work to reach your goals, just like we are doing!

Have a great week!

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Have a great week! XoXo

Open Your Doors,
Aliya

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