Amanda Rettke - Homestead Recipes: Midwestern Inspirations, Family Favorites, and Pearls of Wisdom from a Sassy Home Cook

Photograph by Breanna Mellem

I HAVE BEEN FOOD BLOGGING FOR OVER A DECADE. My first ever blog was named i am mommy and it was about, you guessed it, being a mom. I knew nothing about baking or cooking (or momming, for that matter) and was forced into the task by having to feed a hardworking husband and kids. As I started to share my baked goods online, I decided that I didnt want recipes clogging up my precious mommy blog, so I started i am baker. That hasty decision ended up changing my life by introducing me to a world of dessert and amazing new friends, and it gave me an opportunity to tap into a skill set I never knew I possessed: baking stuff and making people laugh.

Speaking of humor, mine is self-deprecating and observational. As a Midwesterner, born and raised, behaviors from around the country never cease to baffle and delight me. I thought Valley Girl was just a movie, not a way of talking that actually existed in the world. The first live video I ever did on Facebook was inundated with comments like I love your accent! and You remind me of that movie Fargo! An accent? Well, apparently I talked funny, at least according to the rest of the country. And acted funny and ate weird things like hot dish and lefse. As a small-town girl trying to make an impact on the World Wide Web, it occurred to me that if I was going to make any impact at all, it would have to be at my own expense, which just so happened to fit right into my already self-deprecating personality.

The first character I ever posted was in 2011. She was named Aunt Inga. She had a hubby named Sven and said things like you betcha and dontcha know. She was based on the family I loved and language I was familiar with. She paved the way for Shirley (more on that in a bit).

About eight years ago, well into my food-blogging career, my husband and I bought a fifteen-acre property in rural Minnesota. He grew up farming and knew how to garden, can, and build things. I decided I wanted to dive headfirst into homesteading and raise chickens, ducks, guinea fowland maybe goats and pigs someday. With zero experience or knowledge under my belt, I wanted to figure out how to have a garden big enough to sustain the family even throughout a long, cold Minnesota winter. We have achieved those goals thus farand that love of homesteading led to my starting a new website called i am homesteader. Lots of savory slow-cooking recipeshot dish, meat and potatoes, and all the things we actually eat as a family of seven. I love my blogs and website and what they represent and am thankful for the impact they have made on our lives.

But Im going to tell you something that I probably shouldnt tell you: I didnt write this book for the reasons you might think, and I am not your average homesteader.

Up until 2020, I had desperately wanted to share a cookbook that everyone would love, that would have recipes that everyone would enjoy, that would be overwhelming in a fantastic culinary kind of way. I wanted to win awards and be recognized and have people sending me letters ten years from now telling me that it is still one of their favorite books. Big, bold, ambitious dreams.

But everything changedin pretty dramatic waysduring the pandemic.

I stayed at home for fourteen months (literally) and ended up going a little stir-crazy. I created a character called Shirley on my Instagram page. She works for the Your Content Is Terrible Hotline, answering calls about terrible content on the internet. This was inspired by feedback I had gotten about my own website. It was me venting in a very passive-aggressive waybut people seemed to think it was funny!

All of a sudden I had more attention than I could have ever dreamed of. Famous people were following me, reporters were calling me, and production companies were asking if I wanted to do my own TV show on the best networks.

UmYes! Dream come true!

After months of negotiations with my dream producers and network, I did the unthinkable: I walked away from that opportunity.

Something important had occurred to me through that process of negotiating my worth (man, was that a humbling experience): Fame and notoriety were not as important to me as I had thought. In fact, they were the opposite of what I saw in my future. I didnt tell many people, because I thought the world would see my decision as foolish. And I honestly understand why people would think that. The truth was, it wasnt my dream.

It occurred to me in a loud, crazy, no-doubt-about-it kind of way that I had everything I wanted right now. I didnt need to reinvent the wheel and hope that folks would see my value as a food blogger and content creator. And I realized that the recipes I wanted to share in this book didnt have to be 100 percent innovative. But they did have to mean something, even if only to me.

So this book, the one you are holding in your hands, is the furthest thing from an attempt to make it for everyone. It simply contains the recipes that my family makes and loves. These recipes are comfort food. They are heavily influenced by my midwestern roots, with a mix of baking creativity. Lots of folks dont have any idea how fantastic and crazy the food is here in the Midwestsalads made of dessert. Hot dish for any time of the day and every occasion. Bar recipes that get passed around to every lady at the church for generations. Theres nothing fancy about it. And we dont eat from the land for every meal. I am the first to admit that while I am obsessed with my cream cheese coffee cake, my kids often start the day with cereal because I couldnt get my act together in time to make them breakfast. For five days in a row. Every week.

I sincerely hope that you do love these recipes and that there is something in this book you can enjoy with your family. I hope it will encourage big family meals where stories are shared and memories are made. And that after making something from this book, youll carry with you the memories of the best snickerdoodle cookie you ever had and, most important, the people you shared it with.

Photographs by Breanna Mellem

ALL MY KIDS MAKE ME LAUGH, but Olivia makes me belly-laugh. The way she can drop a one-liner with innocence in her eyesexcept for that little sparkle of devious delightmakes her my favorite. The way she sees the world and how she interprets things never fail to bring me joy! Like when she asks me, Do I really have to wear sleeves on my legs, Mom? Yes, sweet child, pants are necessary in February in Minnesota.