About

About 15 years ago, I was in the middle of a health crisis. I had spent several years dealing with microscopic colitis, and no one could really tell me why my body was reacting the way it was or how to heal the inflammation causing the colitis.

I was frustrated, exhausted, and looking for answers.

That was when I started paying attention to something I had never thought much about before: what was actually in our food.

I started reading labels. Really reading them. I started learning about HOW our food was made. 

I began noticing how many unnecessary ingredients were in foods I had bought without a second thought. I started choosing simpler foods, buying organic and non GMO when I could, and learning how to make more things myself so I knew exactly what was going into the food I was feeding my family.

And remember, this was about 15 years ago. People weren’t talking about these things the way they are today. At times, I felt a little crazy.

Apparently my husband thought I was looking a little crazy too.

One day he looked at our pantry, filled with all the things I had started making and changing, and said,

“You’re just a little hippie.”

We laughed.

And An Accidental Hippie was born.

I’ve been an accidental hippie ever since.

The name stuck because it really did describe me.

I wasn’t trying to live some perfectly natural lifestyle. I wasn’t interested in following a label or fitting into a certain mold. I had simply discovered that I loved knowing what was in our food, making things with my own hands, and learning the kinds of skills that generations before us once considered ordinary.

I learned to cook more from scratch.

I learned to make the things I had always assumed came from a store.

I started paying attention to old fashioned kitchen skills, preserving food, stocking a pantry and finding simpler ways to care for my home and family.

What began because I was desperately trying to feel better eventually became a way of life.

And for more than a decade, I carried the name An Accidental Hippie with me without ever fully knowing what I was supposed to do with it.

Then life slowed down.

After retiring, I found myself coming back even more to the things I had grown to love.

Cooking.

Baking bread.

Gardening.

Preserving.

Filling jars.

Making pantry staples.

Creating meals for the people I love.

Slowing down enough to enjoy my home instead of constantly rushing through it.

And I started thinking that maybe all of these things I had been doing for years were exactly what An Accidental Hippie had been meant to become.

So I started sharing it.

I began posting the recipes I was actually making in my kitchen, the things I had stopped buying and started making, and the homemaking skills I was learning and relearning along the way.

I had no idea how many women were craving the same thing.

What started as a small corner of the internet quickly grew into a community of women who wanted to cook more from scratch, slow life down a little, and bring some of those old fashioned skills back into their homes too.

Homemade doesn’t mean perfect. I was very strict with the food I ate for 5 years.  But that became arduous. I cook most of our food from scratch, but I’m no longer striving to be a purist.

I might have a loaf of homemade bread rising on the counter, but you can betcha I have a diet root beer every afternoon. 

I’ll make homemade ketchup, bread, seasoning mixes and pancake mix, but that doesn’t mean everything that comes into my kitchen has to be homemade.

This isn’t about doing everything the hard way.

It’s about realizing that we still can make things.

We can learn the skills our grandmothers knew.

We can look at something we’ve bought for 20 years and think, I wonder if I could make that?

And then we can try.

Sometimes it turns out beautifully.

Sometimes it absolutely does not.

That’s part of it too.

So what will you find here?

A lot of food.

From scratch recipes, homemade pantry staples, preserving, freezer cooking, slow cooker meals, baking and the everyday dinners I actually put on my own table.

But An Accidental Hippie has grown into something bigger than recipes for me.

It’s also about slow living and heritage homemaking.

It’s about making a home feel like home.

Using what we have.

Learning old skills instead of assuming they’ve been lost.

Feeding people well.

Creating traditions.

And understanding that homemaking still matters, no matter what season of life we’re in.

I’m a wife, a mom to four grown children, a Mimi, a home cook, a recipe creator, and someone who is still learning new things all the time.

And if there is one thing I hope you take away from being here, it’s this:

You don’t have to change everything at once.

Pick one thing you normally buy.

Learn how to make it.

Then try another.

Before long, you’ll have a pantry full of homemade staples.

I’m so glad you’re here.

From my kitchen to yours,

Tammy

An Accidental Hippie™

From scratch recipes, slow living and heritage homemaking.