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Guide to COVID-19 Healthy Home Cooking & Natural Home Remedies

Ultimate guide to healthy home cooking - quarantine edition. Collage of budget friendly foods consisting of cabbage, rice, beans and lentils, and homemade bread.

I know this is truly an awful situation for so many… My heart is breaking for those who have lost loved ones or jobs as well as our medical workers and so many average Americans who have lost their paychecks for the next several weeks.

However, I now find myself in the position of being able to help all of you who are stuck at home, perhaps learning to cook, cooking more than usual or tightening up your grocery budget. And that makes me excited.

I’m excited that I’m able to help people, and I’m looking forward to silver linings and the positive differences that will emerge after we all pull together and come through this.

My vision is that people figure out how to make home cooking comfortable, and then it becomes a new normal for them.

I want us to be writing our kids’ memories, so that when they look back on this time in 10, 20, or 30 years (and they will remember it, believe me!), they’ll say things like, “Remember when we couldn’t go to school and we ended up learning how to cook?” Or “Remember how we got through COVID-19 as a family? That was really when we came together…”

What will your family’s memories be? What will your family dinner table be filled with?

If you or anyone you know is building your skills as a home cook for the first time, or you’re looking to pick up some new pantry recipes or even food preservation skills, you are in the right place!

I’ve been teaching people how to cook at home on a budget for 11 years. It’s my pride and joy that I can shop strategically and then avoid going to the grocery store for 2 weeks!

Let this guide be your resource center, a clearinghouse for all the helpful tips, recipes, and encouragement found on Kitchen Stewardship®.

Lentils in a measuring cup

You’ll find info on:

  • Perfect pantry recipes
  • Increasing the nutrition of what you have
  • Food preservation
  • Food for less to help you stick to a tight budget, especially if you are suddenly unemployed
  • Teaching kids to cook (and basic cooking techniques for adults just learning too!)
  • Home remedies, because no one wants to go to the doctor for something simple right now!
  • Stress busters for families
  • And if you need a reminder to rest…OR some activities for your kids, we have encouragement for both at Kids Cook Real Food

Current Events and Goings-On

  • Dr. Keesha has put together a COVID-19 Expert Interview Series to provide tools, encouragement, and education to those who are so desperately looking for just that. It will be focused on boosting emotional and physical immunity during COVID-19 to thrive in social isolation through creative connection.
  • Dr. Ryan Wohlfort is running the SuperHuman Brain Masterclass that will run from April 13 – April 19, 2020, focusing (get it?) on maximized memory, exceptional focus, and greatly productive brain function.
  • I’m hosting a Virtual Guided Mediation for Families to UNWIND at the end of the day — join me on Facebook (RSVP here) on Tuesday, March 31, at 7:30 p.m. EST for the prayerful event.

Perfect Pantry Recipes

Food Substitutions You May Need

You’re Just *7 Days* Away From Easier Meals with Your Instant Pot

Whether you have a few fav meals in your Instant Pot or still aren’t using it regularly yet, I can show you the secrets to SAVE time (and money) with my favorite appliance!

May I send you my best hacks to maximize my fav appliance so you can spend more time with your family AND nourish them well?

Get IP hacks in short emails and transform the way you serve dinner:

Natural Cleaning and Reusable Alternatives You May Need

How to Pump Up the Nutrition in Your Food

homemade kimchi

Simple Food Preservation Techniques Anyone Can Use

What About Baking Without Flour?

A wise reader pointed out that whole grain flour shouldn’t be stored in large quantities outside a freezer, which is true. So what is a family without a grain mill to do? There are recipes that use whole grains (not flour) or nuts to bake, so I would start collecting those! Here are a few:

Need More Baby Steps?

Monday Missions Baby Steps Back to Basics

Here at Kitchen Stewardship, we’ve always been all about the baby steps. But if you’re just starting your real food and natural living journey, sifting through all that we’ve shared here over the years can be totally overwhelming.

That’s why we took the best 10 rookie “Monday Missions” that used to post once a week and got them all spruced up to send to your inbox – once a week on Mondays, so you can learn to be a kitchen steward one baby step at a time, in a doable sequence.

Sign up to get weekly challenges and teaching on key topics like meal planning, homemade foods that save the budget (and don’t take too much time), what to cut out of your pantry, and more.

Budget-Friendly Food

dry beans

What About Intermittent Fasting?

Call me crazy, but I was thinking…is now a perfect time to try intermittent fasting if you’ve been considering it?

  • You generally eat less food, which is prudent right now perhaps
  • The hardest part is often socializing in the evenings — not a prob anymore
  • You might even get to sleep in a little since kids aren’t heading off to school, making extending the fast longer even easier
  • There are so many health benefits, and we all desire health right now

My husband and I actually accidentally started trying IF a few weeks ago (I know that “accidentally” part sounds weird but there’s a story), and it’s been the easiest “diet plan” we’ve ever tried. You really don’t feel deprived, unlike calorie restriction or an elimination diet meal plan like Whole30 or AIP, because for each meal you eat what you want, and you’re not starting your metabolism and then telling it to stop!

What do you think? Here’s a great recent guest post on the benefits of intermittent fasting.

Teaching Kids to Cook

We’re all about getting kids in the kitchen:

Your kids can learn to cook, even if you don’t know where to start

My 4 kids and I created the online Kids Cook Real Food lessons to help bring real food and independence to families all over. Over 10,000 kids have joined us and we’d love to invite you along for the adventure!

Kids watching a cooking lesson at a kitchen island

I’m so pleased to offer a little gift from our family to yours, a knife skills lesson as a free preview of the full cooking eCourse!

And we realize adults might need some basic primers as well. 🙂 How about these? 

Home Remedies for all the Normal Stuff

Because no one wants to go to the doctor for something simple right now!

What to Order to Get You Through

Reusable hand soap

  • Truly Free‘s free soap could still be the LAST bottle of soap you’ll ever need to buy because they’re refillable. Save the Earth while you’re keeping your family healthy (and the images of handwashing over here are necessary to show kids!!). (Use code KATIEKIMBALL for 30% off!)
  • Paleovalley meat sticks are 100% grass-fed, US-raised, and shelf-stable! We might have 100 or so on hand here… Save 10% with the code KITCHEN10, automatically loaded at that link! We take these everywhere we travel…although that’s not as applicable now…but shelf-stable, healthy, high-protein snacks are!!

top of mountain with Paleovalley grassfed meat stick

  • Wild Pastures (check here to see if they deliver to your area!) is on a mission to make nourishing, sustainable, pasture-raised meats available to everyone at the lowest prices. They only source from family farmers in the USA using rotational grazing practices to raise the healthiest and happiest animals on open grass pastures. You can get 100% Grass Fed and Pasture-Raised Meats from Wild Pastures that are the highest quality, ethically raised, sustainable meats sourced from family farmers right here in the USA delivered to your doorstep monthly for 25-40% savings.
  • Many experts are saying that cleaning your air is important to reduce the spread of viruses — we have our Air Doctor air filters in every room, running constantly! Get $300 off and a free carbon filter right now!
  • I made my order from Just Thrive as soon as I could to make sure we’d still have probiotics and Vitamin K (an important co-factor in Vitamin D). Use the code Katie15 for 15% off! (Or try Perfect Supplements with the code KS10 for 10% off, because they also have Vitamin D if it’s back in stock…)
  • These Vitamin D&K drops from Raise them Well are easy for kids to take and what we use for our little guy! You can also find them on Amazon.
  • Wellnesse is offering quite a deal on their personal care products – the first and only discounts ever offered! Save 10% off $45.00 with coupon code: STAYWELL10; or 15% off $85.00 with coupon code: STAYWELL15; or 20% off $200.00 with coupon code: STAYWELL20.
  • Claim your penny bottle of Dry Farm wine if you’re not going to the store – keto-approved, no sugar, super clean wines. Just what we need in these times, and delivered to your door! (Yep, they’re considered an “essential item” LOL!)
  • Fit2Be has a birthday, and everything is 41% off just for March 26-27! This is a favorite exercise program for one of our Kitchen Stewardship® team members!
  • HeartMath is teaching a Care Focus technique to replace Fear with Managed Concern so that the fear doesn’t overwhelm our immune system.
  • I get my hand sanitizer, if it matters, from Grove Collaborative (house brand) – they have a pump and a spray, and we like the smell of both. Be sure to sign up for Rakuten first, add the extension to your browser or app on your phone, and you’ll save a few more bucks every time you shop at Grove!

Have You Tried Silver?

3rd Rock Silver

Silver nanoparticles have been shown in studies to “be active against several types of viruses.”

3rd Rock’s Silver Excelsior Serum and Silver Infusion Tonic has their patented Chelated Silver Oxide. It’s different and unique in the silver world compared to common, run-of-the-mill ‘colloidal silver’ (source).

This silver is high quality with many health-benefits. Containing amino acids, citrates, and kosher vegetable USP grade glycerin, 3rd Rock silver sticks to and penetrates cell walls—delivering silver oxide straight to cells to bolster their fight against infections in and on the body.

Did You Buy Bottled Water?

I hope not!

Let’s figure out food and water without hysteria folks…

I was at Costco recently and asked the cashier if people were stocking up on things. She said, “Holy cow, it’s crazy… But it’s not food, it’s sanitizing wipes, toilet paper, and bottled water.”

I stood there, mouth agape for a second.

She said, “I don’t want to judge, but what really bothers me is that when this is all over people will bring it back and return it.”

More mouth agape from me. I asked hesitantly, “Does it all have to be thrown away?”

“Not the toilet paper, but yes, the water. We can’t restock anything edible.”

plastic water bottles

So there are a couple of lessons here that I think are very important reminders right now:

1. Yes, of course, we want to keep our family safe and be ready in case we are stuck in our homes for a couple of weeks. Unlike a natural disaster crisis though, I don’t predict any reason that city water systems will go down. Is bottled water really the most important thing to stock up on? If you want to make sure you have water for a crisis, here’s how to prepare intelligently with safe water storage for emergencies (includes a free printable sheet because in a real emergency, you might not have Internet!!).

This is the water filter we have, which would allow me to filter even nasty water from my neighbor’s pool. I will never really have cause for concern even if infrastructure goes down for some unforeseen reason in the future.

2. If you do feel compelled to stock up on water, don’t buy individual bottles unless you are willing to use them in your normal life. It’s not worth all that waste, all that plastic not recycled, all the fuel used to ship that water around, for your convenience to return it. Do. Not. Return. Bottled. Water! After this virus has had its heyday, we still have an earth to live on for many thousands of years in the future. Don’t throw that away just because you’re freaking out. I see that Costco now won’t accept bottled water or TP or wipes for returns, and I’m soooo glad!

3. Remember that stress may have more long-term and short-term ramifications than your risk of actually contracting coronavirus. Don’t spend all day reading about it.

As someone with a few months of food always in my basement and freezers, I know a thing or two about actual preparedness, not hysteria induced “let’s prepare for a crisis one day before it happens” stuff. I will be sharing over the next few days some ideas on what you might truly want to spend time and money stocking up on. Spoiler alert: it’s not bottled water!

I hope this guide gives you some hope and inspiration as you’re figuring out how to navigate life at home. Let’s all pull together and help each other through these hard times.

Share your resources and tips in the comments below!

Stress Busters for Families

Routines are all pretty much shot right now as the world is reinvented every day…but as a Certified Stress Mastery Educator, I shared one simple idea with Fox 2 Detroit this week — do you think you can implement this tiny routine to start your day?
 
Notice what I DON’T start with and how easy it is to say to your kids, “Good morning, what are 3 things you’re grateful for today?”
 
Added bonus, this also helps you dial in on what’s on your kids’ minds. My kids used to say they were grateful for friend and trampoline time, and now they’re listing things like “a safe house, enough food, awesome brother.” Times be a changing, but we can help our families thrive through this in simple ways.

Top Resources from the KS Facebook Page:

If you are a visual or auditory learner, these are all video chats or demos just for you! 🙂 

More Resources on KS:

Unless otherwise credited, photos are owned by the author or used with a license from Canva or Deposit Photos.

6 thoughts on “Guide to COVID-19 Healthy Home Cooking & Natural Home Remedies”

  1. Being prepared with knowledge makes all the difference, Katie. Thank you and your staff for all you do and all the information you give.
    I have a small group dedicated to a zero-waste lifestyle that I share it with on the LoseIt site.

  2. Thanks for real usable advice on how I can make the most out of a little money. I have been trying to ‘prep’ for about a year, I get really frustrated with the shorter shelf life of many healthier items. I have had some brown rice go rancid, and I was told that storing whole wheat flour is ‘not recommended ‘. I really cannot afford a grain mill, and buying wheat groats (are they called that?) requires a chunk of change.

    I know most people feel like life will be back to normal in a few weeks, but what if they are wrong. So for me, there is a guilt factor in choosing between eating well for a few weeks or serving sub-standard food (white rice & flour) for long term survival.

    1. Oh dear, Val, I’ve never had brown rice go rancid but we have a very large family and go through it fairly quickly, plus a Michigan basement is about 55F all year round which has to help. 🙁 I’m so sorry that happened to you! You’re right about whole grain flour. Do you have freezer space? You can freeze flour for a long time. I have a recipe I need to add to this list that uses WHOLE rice and buckwheat to make bread, and I know there are many pancake recipes out there where you use a blender and whole grains, no flour at all, so maybe compiling a Pinterest board of stuff like that would help you store more, longer, w/o flours?

      https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/quick-gluten-free-flatbread/
      Here’s an example of pancakes with whole almonds, no flour: https://www.kitchenstewardship.com/grain-free-almond-apple-pancakes/

      Hope that helps a little more — don’t overthink too much BUT I think you’re wise in wanting to prepare as much as possible for *healthy* food within your means. I’m pulling for you!! 🙂 Katie

  3. I did hear that when this is over Costco will not be taking returns on many things people are hoarding right now.
    I was just starting an eat from/clean out the pantry and freezer binge when all of this started. I am shocked how long we have gone so far without needing to go to the grocery store except for fresh things (milk and produce) and dog food! And we actually have plenty of frozen fruits and veggies, but I’ve got to have some fresh too.
    Thanks for all I’ve learned from you all these years!

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