A Recipe Blog

I've been toying with the idea of starting a recipe blog for a long time. I would love to organize some of the zillions of recipes I make. Also, I'm constantly asked for recipes and I usually never get around to sending them so this is an easy way to share them with everyone!

I love to cook.

I love love love lurrrve to cook.

Being in the kitchen is my zen zone for the day. Once upon a time I even wanted to cook for a living so I attended 18 months of culinary school.....I had no interest in the restaraunt scene, I wanted to work in catering, but I soon realizedthat if I continued on that career path I'd either be earning minimum wage as a prep cook, or if I was lucky enough to own my own business I'd spend the majority of my time supervising before said prep cooks and doing paperwork. Blech.

For some hands on experience I did work as a catering lackey for a couple of summers and realized that when I worked in the kitchen for a job a lot of the enjoyment went out of it. It's no fun to prepare the same ol' recipes day after day for massive crowds......ever cut assorted fruit for 600 people? I have. It's not my idea of a good time. So, I limit my kitchen creations for my lovely family and wonderful friends.

The second part of my cooking journey came a little over a year and a half ago. I decided to cut almost all processed food from our diet (notice I said almost.....moderation in all things, I will never give up graham crackers, they've been a favorite treat since childhood). We don't own any farm animals (thank heavens) so of course we purchase processed dairy (although I've recently started making our own yogurt....more on that later), some bread, pasta, I always have canned beans and canned veggies on hand for a quick throw-together meal. Occasionally I have a busy night where a bottle of Ragu gets pulled out, but 90% of the time I'll put in the time and effort to make a homemade marinara instead. I like knowing what's in my food, I especially like knowing what's in my kids food, so if I have the time I prefer to make it myself. It's been a learning process and I've started getting more creative because I've learned how to adjust recipes to make them healthier and lower in calories. I'm not one of those women though..... you know, the perfect ones who would never let a grain of sugar cross their lips..... I don't cook healthy ALL the time. Sometimes a girl just needs to get her full-fat, full-sugar, full-on-chocolate fix and I definitely have those moments and have made some pretty awesome deliciousness when they hit, so I'll occasionally post some naughty food too....hey, this is MY blog so anything goes, right? :-)

I do create some of my own recipes, but I love to hunt through cookbooks and stalk cooking blogs for meal ideas as well. One pet peeve of mine with the cooking blogs are the ones who don't give credit where credit is due....I will always credit the source of my recipes, or at least link back to where I found it.

One disclaimer I need to throw in is I AM NOT a photographer.....really. I have no talent in this area. None. But everyone likes pictures of food so I'll do my best :-).

Let's get cooking!