Litehouse Holiday Food Ideas for a Busy Homestead Kitchen

Disclosure: This post originally came from a paid iConnect Influencer Management campaign with Litehouse Foods. I was compensated for participating, but the opinions and experience shared here are my own. I have updated the article so it is more useful for today's Experimental Homesteader readers while keeping the original campaign history intact.

Holiday cooking on a homestead can look a little different than it does in a magazine spread.

There may be bread rising on the counter, something simmering on the stove, animals waiting to be fed, garden produce or preserved food that needs used, and a long list of things that still have to happen before anyone sits down to eat.

That is one reason I have never believed every single thing on the holiday table has to be made completely from scratch.

I like homemade food. I like growing ingredients, preserving them, baking, cooking, and knowing what is in the food I serve. But I also live in the real world. There are days when using one good convenience ingredient makes the difference between getting a meal on the table and making an already busy day harder than it needs to be.

This old Litehouse Foods campaign is a good example of that. Jeffrey Rhoades joined me for the original unboxing video, and we looked at several products that could be worked into holiday meals without replacing the parts of the meal you actually want to make yourself.

Holiday Cooking Does Not Have To Be All Or Nothing

There is a big difference between relying on convenience food for every meal and using a few convenience ingredients on purpose.

On a homestead, time is often the ingredient you are shortest on.

Winter chores do not stop because it is a holiday. Animals still need fed and watered. Cold weather creates its own problems. Something may freeze, break, need carried by hand, or take twice as long as expected. If you are also baking, preparing side dishes, making desserts, cleaning the house, and trying to spend time with family, the kitchen can get overwhelming quickly.

My approach is to decide what matters most to make from scratch and where I am perfectly willing to take a shortcut.

For example, if I have homemade bread, homegrown vegetables, meat from the freezer, eggs from the chickens, or goat cheese I want to feature, I do not feel the need to prove anything by also making every dressing, dip, seasoning blend, and appetizer component from scratch that same day.

A purchased ingredient can support a homemade meal without turning it into a "store-bought meal."

What We Received In The Litehouse Foods Campaign

The original campaign box included a variety of Litehouse products, including refrigerated dressings and freeze-dried herbs. In the video, Jeff and I opened the box and talked through what was included.

What interested me most was not the idea of using the products exactly as they came. I tend to look at ingredients and think about what I can do with them alongside the food I already have.

That is still how I approach cooking now.

A bottle of dressing may become a marinade. Freeze-dried herbs may go into bread, soup, potatoes, or a casserole. A dip may become part of an appetizer tray built around eggs, vegetables, cheese, crackers, or homemade bread.

The useful question is not, "Is this homemade?"

It is, "Does this help me make good use of the food I already have and get a meal on the table without creating unnecessary work?"

How I Would Use Convenience Ingredients In A Homestead Holiday Meal

The easiest way to keep a holiday meal from becoming too complicated is to build around the ingredients you already have.

If you keep a freezer, pantry, garden, or livestock, start there.

Use Dressings As Marinades

A flavorful dressing can do more than sit beside a salad.

Depending on the flavor, it can be used as a quick marinade for chicken, pork, or roasted vegetables. That is especially useful when you already have the main ingredient but do not want to stop and make a separate marinade from scratch.

I would still pay attention to the flavor of the rest of the meal. A strongly seasoned dressing can easily overpower homegrown vegetables or a mild meat, so I prefer to use enough for flavor without drowning the food.

Use Herbs To Stretch What You Preserved

Freeze-dried herbs are useful when the garden is asleep and your own dried herb supply is getting low.

They can go into homemade bread, biscuits, roasted potatoes, soups, stuffing, gravies, compound butter, egg dishes, or a cheese spread.

If I had fresh or home-dried herbs available, I would use those first. If I did not, I would rather use a good dried or freeze-dried herb than leave a dish bland simply because it was not grown here.

Use Dips As Part Of A Larger Appetizer Tray

An appetizer tray is one of the easiest places to combine homemade and purchased food without making things complicated.

You can build one around boiled eggs, pickled vegetables, fresh vegetables, homemade bread, crackers, cheese, sliced meat, fruit preserves, nuts, or whatever you already have on hand.

Add a purchased dip if it saves time.

The point is not to impress people with how many hours you spent preparing food. The point is to serve something good and enjoy the people you made it for.

Build The Holiday Meal Around What You Already Have

This is one of the biggest differences between the way I cook now and the way many holiday menus are presented online.

I do not think you need to buy twelve special ingredients for one meal.

If there is a roast in the freezer, potatoes in storage, canned green beans on the shelf, eggs in the refrigerator, frozen corn, applesauce, jam, or bread ingredients in the pantry, that is where I would start.

Then I would decide what is missing.

Maybe you need one appetizer, one sauce, one dressing, or one dessert. Maybe you need nothing extra at all.

This approach saves money, uses what you already worked to grow or preserve, and keeps the holiday from turning into a grocery-shopping project.

Homestead Holiday Meal Ideas Using What You Have

Here are some practical combinations I would consider before making a long shopping list.

• Roast meat + stored root vegetables: Use a flavorful dressing or herb blend as part of the seasoning and roast everything together.
• Eggs + homemade bread: Make an egg-based brunch dish and serve it with toast, jam, fruit, or a simple salad.
• Goat cheese + nuts + preserves: Turn them into a quick appetizer without adding a lot of extra ingredients.
• Frozen vegetables + herbs: Roast or sauté them with butter, oil, garlic, or herbs and keep the side dish simple.
• Home-canned vegetables + pantry staples: Use them for casseroles, soups, or side dishes instead of buying fresh produce simply because a recipe calls for it.
• Leftover meat + dressing or dip: Turn leftovers into wraps, sandwiches, salads, or a quick lunch the next day.

None of those ideas require a complicated recipe. They are simply ways to make the food you already have work harder.

Watch The Original Litehouse Foods Unboxing

This video is from the original campaign and shows the Litehouse Foods products we received at the time.

I am leaving it here because it is part of the history of this article and because I would rather preserve the original experience than rewrite the past as though this were a brand-new sponsorship.

A Few Ways To Make Holiday Cooking Easier

When I know a busy cooking day is coming, I try to remove unnecessary decisions ahead of time.

That can mean thawing meat early, setting out serving dishes, making dessert the day before, chopping vegetables ahead of time, or deciding which dishes truly need to be homemade.

I also like foods that can do double duty.

A roast can become sandwiches the next day. Extra vegetables can go into soup. Bread can be used for breakfast, stuffing, or sandwiches. Cheese and preserves can move from an appetizer tray to breakfast the following morning.

That kind of planning matters more to me than making a table full of foods that only make sense for one meal.

Convenience Does Not Cancel Out Self-Sufficiency

This is something I think homesteaders sometimes put too much pressure on themselves about.

Self-sufficiency does not mean refusing every product you did not make yourself.

It means building skills, producing what you reasonably can, reducing dependence where it makes sense, and knowing how to take care of yourself and your household.

Sometimes the practical choice is to use the eggs you gathered that morning and open a bottle of dressing.

Sometimes it is baking bread and serving it with purchased cheese.

Sometimes it is pulling a meal from the freezer because you spent the afternoon dealing with animals, repairs, weather, or another project that could not wait.

There is nothing especially self-sufficient about exhausting yourself just to prove you could have made one more ingredient from scratch.

Holiday Appetizer Ideas From Experimental Homesteader

If you are looking for a few more ideas that work well for holiday meals, brunches, or small gatherings, these recipes are a good place to start.

For holiday appetizers to serve alongside a simple main course, try cranberry pecan baked brie, pecan-crusted goat cheese appetizers, or Italian herb Gorgonzola leaf bites. They are separate recipes with their own instructions.

Make The Holiday Meal Fit Your Homestead

The best holiday meal is not the one that took the longest to make.

It is the one that fits your household, uses the food you have, does not leave you completely worn out, and gives you something you actually want to sit down and eat.

I still prefer homemade whenever it makes sense. I also know there is nothing wrong with using a few shortcuts when they help me make better use of my time and the food already in my kitchen.

That is the part of this old Litehouse campaign that is still useful all these years later.