

Wherein Granny Finds a Fork in the Road
- Hi Y'all! So glad to be back here on Granny's Vital Vittles! So much has been going on in my life that writing had to go on the back burner for a long, long while. But now I'm ready to fire that burner up again and start producing some fresh and tasty content for all my wannabe Granny friends 🙂 . I imagine you might be curious about what's been happening, and what led to such a long blogger vacation. Well, I'll tell you. A Fork in the Road When I started this blog, and for the 3 years it was very active I was working full time as a contract software developer, with a 10hr+ a week commute on top of it. So I was working, driving, cooking, writing, and promoting my work ... in other words I was working ALL the time. I wanted to work full time on Granny's Vital Vittles, but knew I was a long way from making that happen. I was a part of a real food blogger network of several hundred food blogs and was seeing some real progress toward being able to make blogging my job when that network blew up with… READ MOREMost Recent Posts

A Day in the Life of a Busy Kitchen
I have a confession to make … my kitchen in normally, everyday, mostly in a state of disarray of one kind or another. Stuff on the counters, stuff in the sink, floor needs sweeping or mopping, or the dishwasher to be loaded or unloaded. Sound familiar? If you cook at all I’m sure you can […]

Making the Most of Granny’s Free Meal Plan
Last week I released my first meal plan as a free download for anyone signing up for my mailing list. The meal plan has a page devoted to getting started with the plan but that is necessarily brief, so I wanted to share a few more thoughts with everyone on how best to work the […]

Three Spice Snickerdoodles
This funny sounding cookie is believed to have originated in New England in the 1800’s. So not only did your grandma likely eat these cookies, but your great-great-great grandma may have had them too! Supposedly the older recipes used cream of tartar and to make the cookies rise, while the newer recipes just use baking […]

Two Meat Crockpot Chili
This set-it-and-forget-it crockpot meal is sure to please the guys in particular this fall. But then who doesn’t enjoy a hot steaming bowl of comforting chili on a cool night! In a nutshell all you do here is brown the meat on the stove, add the remaining ingredients and pour into your slow cooker. Then […]
Saving Money Cooking from Scratch

Real Food at Walmart – Pantry Foods
We’ve come to the last group of foods in our Ninja-style Real Food shopping at Walmart. This group is a catch-all … basically all the foods that are not quickly perishable. This includes grains, flours, nuts, seeds, dried fruits, canned goods and condiments. Really, this stuff is the easiest stuff to find at Walmart. Why? […]

Real Food at Walmart – A Quick Tour
Two weeks ago in my post Real Food at Walmart – Can it be done I posed the question: What if you had to buy all your food at Walmart? Pretend you didn’t have access to any local food or health food stores at all … how close could you get to a 100% “Real Food” diet […]

The Pantry Principle – How to maintain your pantry – Part 5
Now that your pantry is building momentum it’s important to keep it rolling in the right direction. Mainly I’m thinking of problems with: Things going bad before they are used. Running low on things you thought you had a lot of. So let’s consider each problem individually.

The Pantry Principle – What you’ll need to get started – Part 2
Last week we talked about how to save lots of time cooking for your family by starting and maintaining a pantry. If you haven’t ever approached shopping in this way before you’ll certainly be wondering where to start. A few things are obviously missing from your household setup, most likely.
Straight Talk

Three Spice Snickerdoodles
This funny sounding cookie is believed to have originated in New England in the 1800’s. So not only did your grandma likely eat these cookies, but your great-great-great grandma may have had them too! Supposedly the older recipes used cream of tartar and to make the cookies rise, while the newer recipes just use baking […]

Do You Have Kitchen Gaps?
We’ve come very far in The Granny Plan over the past couple of months! In the beginning there was just you and your kitchen in whatever shape it was in. You have systematically brought some structure and routine to your kitchen … I’m really happy for you and so proud! Now that we are working […]

Dr. Oz and Poor People’s Food
Poor peoples food. Just the phrase has a grating feel to it, doesn’t it? Just like a sneer. This week Dr Oz wrote an article for Time that implied that those who actively question the quality of supermarket food are simply food snobs who are seeking an elevated status based on the purity and sophistication […]

How Long Did People Live 100 Years Ago?
“Of course people didn’t live long … the average life expectancy was 40 years”. How often have you heard this quote or something very similar? If you are a watcher of tv documentaries or attended public school anytime in the last 70 years or so you’ve probably heard this several hundred times. Just last night […]

What Makes a Diet Good? The Final Five Principles
Your grandparents or great-grandparents or great-great-grandparents knew what a good diet was. They knew it through and through without even the slightest shade of a doubt. A good diet was what people always ate. A good diet was about plenty of wholesome food. Good health was about more than just a good diet though. It […]

The Pantry Principle – How to maintain your pantry – Part 5
Now that your pantry is building momentum it’s important to keep it rolling in the right direction. Mainly I’m thinking of problems with: Things going bad before they are used. Running low on things you thought you had a lot of. So let’s consider each problem individually.
Wholesome Ingredients

Eat More Eggs – Easy to Make Affordable Nutrition
There is nothing more down-home delicious than a breakfast of eggs. Just picture it: Think of Granny’s house in the fifties. Imagine it’s early in the morning and the kids are not up yet. But Granny is and she’s getting breakfast ready. Is it cold cereal? Is it granola? Is it even yogurt or a […]

Feel Bad About Eating White Rice?
I’m here to tell ‘ya that you can feel good about eating white rice again! I’ve never cared much for brown rice and I bet you feel much the same. I’ve had maybe one or two good plates of brown rice in a lifetime. Most brown rice in the US is rancid long before it gets to you. That’s why it generally tastes rather bitter not nutty as it should if it were fresh.

The Best Fruits and Vegetables You Can Afford
When you think of healthy eating what does your mind visualize? If you’re like most people it is a pile of fresh fruits and vegetables in glorious variety! And, wow does this ever make for a gorgeous picture. Who doesn’t feel inspired to eat well after imagining that? Most likely your mind moves on to […]

Buttermilk – A Staple in Grandma’s Kitchen
Did you have buttermilk in your home when you were growing up? I think we did only on special occasions and holidays. Mom had a few recipes she made during these times that my Grandmother had also made. So buttermilk didn’t feature prominently in our families diet when I was a kid. But it did […]