7/2/12 - Introduction

Everybody has a vice. Mine happens to be cooking. This is a relatively new vice, since everything my mom cooked for us growing up came from a box, a jar, or a can. Marrying Marcus certainly had everything to do with wanting to learn how to cook, but it was the generous gift of boxes and boxes of Saveur magazines from Professor Church at the University of Utah that kicked my obsession into high gear.

Before I go any further, let me be clear...I do not have any intuition when it comes to cooking. I can, however, follow recipes like a pro. I now subscribe to Saveur and Cooking Light, and scour the internet for   recipes. I make something I've never cooked before nearly every day. Until now, this experience has been shared with only my husband, my two girls, and a few friends. I have begun to tweak ingredients here and there, but I'm still not to the point where I can open the fridge, see a bunch of random food, and come up with an original recipe in my head.

The main purpose for this blog is to share my adventures in cooking with two people in particular: my daughter Dharma and my niece Arika. Dharma has picked up an interest in cooking from playing around in the kitchen with me, and has decided that her dream is to become a pastry chef and own a bakery. Dharma can now watch me make recipes when she's not with me, so she can understand what it takes to make the "gross food I cook when she's not here". 

My niece Arika recently got married, and by recently, I mean a couple of days ago. She contacted me not long ago asking how to make tater-tot casserole, a recipe my mom used to make, that I have never made myself because I don't like it. I couldn't help her with the recipe, but I thought that I've learned little tips here and there that I might be able to share with her so she can cook some cool stuff for her new husband. The recipes I use focus as much as possible on fresh ingredients, and I try to cook something healthy whenever I can. I will always provide links to sites where I found the original recipe, so that you can print out the instructions and make it yourself. 

So, that's it. This is the start of my recipe blog. My goal is to provide photos of as many steps along the way as possible, as well as some tips and tricks for cooking that might be new to other novice cooks. I hope you enjoy my blog. Please contact me if you have a recipe you would like to try but aren't willing to fork over the money for something you're not sure will taste good. If it looks promising, I'll make it and post the results.

Thanks for reading my blog!

Jenny