If you’re hoping to find a from scratch meal plan to feed your family this week, you’re in luck! This meal plan has seven meals, all made with from scratch, healthy ingredients typically found on a winter homestead.
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Homestead eating is all about eating with the seasons. Our winter eating definitely looks different from our summer eating, but each offers something special to enjoy. I personally love the change from season to season; I associate different foods with different times of the year and different feelings. For example, one food on this from scratch meal plan is sauerkraut. This is something we very rarely eat in the summertime, mostly because we’re eating much more fresh foods than the preserved and fermented ones. We tend to save the sauerkraut for winter time when we know we won’t have our fresh foods to rely on.
Winter eating on the homestead is full of comforting, hearty, delicious meals and foods filled with memories from summer. It’s a special time of year and should be appreciated in its own right!
Table of Contents
- Meals
- Shopping List
- Cost
- Day One: Pork Roast with Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, and Corn
- Day Two: BBQ Pork Pizza with Salad
- Day Three: Chicken Salad
- Day Four: Chicken Alfredo
- Day Five: Sauerkraut and Boiled Potatoes
- Day Six: Pizza Roll Ups
- Day Seven: Venison Stew
- Need desserts?
- Other Notes
- More Posts to Read
- Save to Pinterest
Meals
This is what’s for dinner this week:
- Pork Roast with Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, and Corn
- BBQ Pork Pizza with Salad
- Pizza Roll Ups
- Chicken Salad
- Chicken Alfredo
- Sauerkraut over Boiled Potatoes
- Venison Stew
Shopping List
We eat primarily from our homestead, so most of these items are things we already have at home. BUT, if you don’t already have a homestead and need to do some grocery shopping, this is what you’ll want on your grocery list:
- Whole Chicken
- Pork Roast
- Pork Chops (or hocks or chops)
- Potatoes
- Beef Broth
- Corn
- Spring Mix Salad Greens
- Ranch Dressing
- Pepperoni
- Mozzarella Cheese
- Parmesan Cheese
- Cream Cheese
- Butter
- Milk
- Pizza Sauce
- Green Pepper
- Mushrooms
- Basil
- Garlic Powder
- Cottage Cheese
- BBQ Sauce
- Sweet Pickles
- Onions
- Baby Carrots (or canned carrots)
- Sauerkraut
- Flour
From this list, the only things we purchased are in bold. Everything else we had from our own homestead! This just goes to show how much we rely on the homestead for the foods that we eat. Growing food is a big deal around here!
Some of the things in bold are available from our homestead, but just not now in this season. For example, butter, milk, mozzarella cheese and cottage cheese all can be made from our dairy cow’s milk, but she is currently dried up as she prepares to calve. Salad greens aren’t able to be grown outside in our winter environment, so they are purchased at this time of the year. And some things, like potatoes, we just didn’t grow enough of this year.
Even so, our from scratch meal plan is very heavily centered around what we do have preserved and from our homestead in order to save money and eat healthily from our land.
Cost
For us, this week’s meals cost a very small amount overall. However, I understand that not everyone has all of these foods preserved and available! If you needed to purchase everything from the store (even the pantry staples and spices), the total would be around $75 to feed your family with this from scratch meal plan. I put everything in a Walmart cart with the breakdown of the prices:
If you’re able to grow and preserve these things from your own homestead, this price is going to go down dramatically!
You can read here to get more information on how to be more self-sustainable with your vegetable garden this year.
Now, let’s dive into the meals!
Day One: Pork Roast with Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, and Corn
Ingredients
- Pork Roast
- Beef Broth
- Potatoes
- Corn
- Diced Onion (optional)
- Spices (Garlic powder, salt, pepper)
- Flour
Steps
This is a pretty easy recipe! We used our instant pot to cook the pork roast from our farm.
- To make it, push the sauté button on your instant pot and sear the roast on each side in a small amount of butter or cooking oil.
- Next, add spices of your choice to the meat; we used garlic powder, salt, and pepper for our seasonings.
- Chop your onion, and add it to the instant pot.
- Pour your beef broth (1 quart) into the instant pot.
- Cook at high pressure for 1 hour and 15 minutes
To make your gravy:
- Remove meat from the instant pot and shred or cut, depending on your preference.
- In a small bowl, mix together 1/8-1/4 cup of flour to 1/2 cup of water.
- Turn your instant pot back to sauté and whisk in the flour and water mixture. Stir continuously as it stirs. If it needs more thickening, you can add more of a flour/water mixture (you can also use milk instead of water).
Serve with mashed potatoes and corn.
Day Two: BBQ Pork Pizza with Salad
This recipe is SO delicious! I used my sourdough starter to make this simple and delicious crust, then added the toppings to make a really delicious and unique pizza. (You can also use a regular pizza crust to make this too!)
Ingredients
- BBQ Sauce
- Leftover shredded pork from previous night
- Basil
- Garlic Powder
- Salt (to taste)
- Mozzarella cheese
- Sweet Pickles
- Onion
Steps
- Firstly, please note that if you want to make the sourdough crust as shared here in these steps, this needs to be made in a cast iron pan so it doesn’t stick. I recommend this one!
- Grease your cast iron pan, then place your cast iron pan into the oven. Turn the oven on and preheat the pan at 425 degrees. You’ll know the pan is ready to use when you sprinkle water on it and it sizzles.
- Meanwhile, take your leftover shredded pork and toss it in BBQ sauce, coating all sides.
- Once the pan is hot, remove it from the oven and spread a layer of sourdough starter (discard or active is fine!) to the pan. You’ll want to cover the entire pan about 1/2 inch thick with starter.
- Place the crust into the oven and bake until it is crispy and can easily be removed from the pan (about 10 minutes).
- Once the crust is baked, remove it from the oven and slather it in BBQ sauce.
- Next, add mozzarella cheese, followed by pulled pork, pickles, and sliced onion. Sprinkle garlic powder, basil, and salt on to taste.
- Bake your pizza for another 7-10 minutes or until the cheese has melted.
Serve with a side salad.
Day Three: Chicken Salad
This is probably the easiest of all the meals! It’s a hands-off, easy meal that is healthy and delicious!
Ingredients
- Whole Chicken
- Salt and Pepper to taste
- Salad greens
- Ranch Dressing
- Cottage Cheese
Steps
To make this easy chicken, simply put a whole chicken in the crock pot with a half of a cup of water. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and cook 8-10 hours on low.
After it’s done cooking, shred the chicken and serve on top of a bed of salad greens with cottage cheese and ranch dressing (optional). That’s it!
You’ll use the leftover shredded chicken for tomorrow’s meal.
Don’t forget to make chicken broth for another meal using the carcass. You can find out how to do that here!
Day Four: Chicken Alfredo
This was probably my favorite meal of all of these on this from scratch meal plan. The sauce on these noodles was just so yummy! Plus, you really can’t beat homemade noodles.
Ingredients
- Homemade Noodles (get recipe here: It’s just flour, water, and salt!)
- 1/8 cup Flour
- 4 ounces Cream Cheese
- 3 Tablespoons Butter
- 1/2 cup Parmesan Cheese
- 1 1/2 cups Mozzarella Cheese
- 1 teaspoon Garlic
- 1 teaspoon Basil
- Salad
Steps
- Prepare your homemade noodles. Set aside. Be sure to set aside 1/4 cup of pasta water to use.
- In a sauce pan over low heat, whisk together butter and flour to form a roux.
- Add cream cheese and pasta water, stirring and mixing it into the mixture.
- When parmesan cheese has been incorporated, add in 2 cups of milk and parmesan cheese. Stir continuously.
- Next, whisk in mozzarella cheese, 1 tsp garlic powder, and 1 tsp dried basil. Continue stirring until cheese has melted and has become incorporated into the sauce.
- Add homemade pasta to the sauce and toss.
Serve with a side salad and cottage cheese.
Day Five: Sauerkraut and Boiled Potatoes
This was another easy meal on this from scratch meal plan! We love sauerkraut with potato dumplings, but on busy nights, just regular old potatoes will do the trick too.
Ingredients:
- Pork Chops (or pork hocks or pork ribs)
- Sauerkraut
- Sprinkle of sugar (optional)
Steps
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees
- In a large Dutch oven (we like this cast iron one), sear the pork meat on all sides.
- Once meat is seared, dump sauerkraut on top of the meat
- Add half a quart or half of the can full of water to the dutch oven
- Sprinkle with sugar over top the sauerkraut (about 2 tablespoons should be good!)
- Bake at 350 degrees until meat is tender and done and reaches an internal temperature of a minimum of 145 degrees (1-2 hours)
**Note: My grandpa always says, “The longer it cooks, the better it is!” So keep that in mind! Another note to consider is that this can easily be made in the crockpot as well.
Serve your sauerkraut and meat over boiled potatoes.
Day Six: Pizza Roll Ups
Pizza roll ups are a nice way to change things up from the typical pizza. Of course, if you would prefer to eat your pizza flat instead of rolled up, you could always just skip the rolling up part of this recipe and just bake as you would a regular pizza. That’s just as easy!
Ingredients
- Homemade Pizza Dough
- Pepperoni
- Pizza sauce
- Mozzarella cheese
- Parmesan cheese
- Green pepper, diced
- Onion, diced
- Mushrooms, diced
- Garlic powder
- Basil
Steps
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Make your homemade pizza dough and allow it to rise 10-15 minutes.
- While the dough is rising, prepare your vegetables by chopping them up.
- On a floured surface, roll the dough into a flat rectangle.
- Slather the dough with pizza sauce, followed by a sprinkle of basil and garlic powder.
- Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the sauce.
- Layer pepperoni, green pepper, onion, and mushroom over the dough.
- Sprinkle mozzarella cheese over the toppings.
- Roll the dough horizontally into a log as you would cinnamon rolls.
- With a sharp knife, cut the pizza log into rolls (it works best to start in the middle, then divide each half in half, then each quarter in half).
- Place the rolls in a greased pan (we use our cast iron pan) and bake for 25-30 minutes, or until the rolls are no longer doughy and slightly browned on top.
- Dip rolls in remaining pizza sauce or in ranch. Enjoy!
We served this meal with another side salad and cottage cheese. We love salads right now!
Day Seven: Venison Stew
The last meal on this from scratch meal plan is venison stew! This is a winter staple at our house and one of our favorite hearty meals. You can serve this up with a fresh loaf of homemade bread, too!
Ingredients
- 1 and 1/2 pounds venison stew meat or canned venison (if you don’t have access to venison, beef or pork could also work)
- 1 quart crushed tomatoes
- 2 cups water (or beef broth)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3-4 peeled and diced potatoes
- 2-3 cups of carrots (baby carrots or canned carrots will work)
- Salt, pepper, garlic powder, seasoning salt to taste
Steps
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a Dutch oven (we like this one), brown the venison in butter or cooking oil (2-3 tablespoons).
- Add tomatoes, water, onion, potatoes, carrots, and seasonings to Dutch oven.
- Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. Remove from oven and give it a stir.
- Continue baking for 45 more minutes, or until vegetables are tender.
Need desserts?
These aren’t included in this from scratch meal plan, but you might still consider adding them as a treat for after you enjoy these meals!
- OLD FASHIONED APPLE BARS
- SERIOUSLY DELICIOUS RHUBARB RASPBERRY COBBLER | NATURALLY SWEETENED
- FROM SCRATCH EASY GOOEY CHOCOLATE BROWNIES (MADE IN ONE BOWL!)
- OATMEAL CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIE BARS
Other Notes
- We used salad this week for the majority of our side dishes, but you easily can swap the salad with home preserved vegetables like green beans or carrots.
- When cooking from scratch, it’s always a good idea to have a well stocked pantry and spice cabinet. Learn more about how to cook from scratch without a meal plan here.
More Posts to Read
Check out some of these posts too!
FOODS TO MAKE FROM SCRATCH INSTEAD OF BUYING FROM THE STORE
HOW TO MAKE HOMEMADE FLOUR TORTILLAS WITH JUST FOUR INGREDIENTS
HOMEMADE CAST IRON CHICKEN FAJITAS
HOW TO MAKE CHICKEN STOCK FROM WHOLE CHICKEN CARCASS
CANNING FOR BEGINNERS: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE STARTING HOME PRESERVATION
CREAMY POTATO BACON CORN CHOWDER
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Sadie!!! I love this post!
Thank you, Mary! I’m so glad!
Sadie!!! I love this post!