The Hands-On Home: A Seasonal Guide to Cooking, Preserving & Natural Homekeeping

Create the DIY home of your dreams with recipes, tips, and inspirational ideas that will help you make the most of your time, effort, and energy in the kitchen and beyond

Covering everything from cooking, canning, and preserving to making your own nontoxic home and personal care products, The Hands-On Home provides a fresh take on modern homemaking. Blogger Erica Strauss kicks things off in the kitchen, providing a wealth of information on kitchen organization, stocking, and easy meal preparation. As a former professional chef, she shares delectable recipes for breakfast (Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Granola), lunch (Forager Spring Greens Soup), dinner (Simple Crispy Chicken with Roasted Lemon Pan Sauce), and dessert (Olive-Oil Rosemary Cake with Lemony Glaze) that everyone will love.

Strauss also includes details on Basic Food Preservation techniques such as water-bath canning, pressure canning, and lacto-fermentation along with a handy year-long food preservation calendar of what to put up when. Preserving recipes are organized seasonally and include Rhubarb Syrup, Pressure-Canned Chicken Broth, Korean-Spiced Turnips, and Cranberry-Pear-Walnut Conserve.

From there, Strauss moves on to recipes for DIY home care and personal care products--from Fizzy Bath Bombs and Refreshing Peppermint Foot Scrub to Nontoxic Laundry softener. With less focus on consumerim and more on saving time and money, The Hands-On Home offers instruction on everything you need to live a more delicious and sustainable DIY lifestyle.