One afternoon, Julia Evarts and her five year old daughter, Gracie, arrive home to find an unexpected gift on the front porch: a homemade loaf of Amish Friendship Bread and a simple note: I hope you enjoy it. Also included are a bag of starter, instructions on how to make the bread herself, and a request to share it with others.

Brett Markham, author of Mini Farming: Self-Sufficiency on ¼ Acre, explains how to ferment just about anything you can grow, and reminds us that gourmet cheeses, fancy vinegars, and store-bought wines can be expensive-making your own can not only be fun but will save money. Learn to make sourdough or experiment with making wine using a countertop juice machine. Inside you'll find recipes and instructions with checklists, extensive tables, measurements,...

Collects more than one hundred classic recipes for meals, snacks, desserts, and small plates, including chicken pot pie, asparagus and fontina quiche, overnight French toast, and fried chicken with sticky poppy seed jam.