Welcome!  I am so glad that you are here and exploring this site.  I started this to share my meal planning method and beloved recipes. 

Growing up I spent a lot of time in the kitchen.  Each week my mother would have me and my three sisters “draw” from a stack of cards to determine which chores were ours for the week.  Quickly after the draw I would begin bargaining with my sisters to get the “Chef” chore.  There was also an “Assistant Chef” chore–think of that like more a sous chef title though, NOT what I wanted to be.

There began my cooking experiments.  This was back when the internet wasn’t full of searchable recipes.  I would watch Food Network and feverishly write down the recipes I wanted to try or scour through the “Good Housekeeping Illustrated” cookbook.  Believe me, the illustrations were not nearly what we have now!

I distinctly remember one time I was cooking chicken in the oven; I don’t remember the recipe.  But I do know that my mother was working on the computer, and she was frustrated that I kept interrupting her to ask, “How will I know it’s done?”.  She refused to get up and help me figure out if my chicken was cooked through.  At the time I thought she was being mean, but now I understand she was teaching me to use the tools, resources, and learned knowledge that I already had instead of constantly relying on others to fix a problem.  No one got sick from underdone chicken that day, and I swore under my breath that I wasn’t going to ask for help again because I knew I could do it on my own.

Fast forward 20 plus years (high school, college, new cities, new homes, marriage, multiple jobs, baby), and here I am, still wanting the same thing: to get dinner on the table without stressing about if the chicken is going to kill someone.

The goal of this site is to share with you how refreshing, simplistic, and soothing meal planning can be.  The recipes I write are longer than the ones I grew up reading–that’s because I focus on making my instructions thorough and as detailed as possible.  The less questions you have about a recipe, the surer of yourself you will feel when you are cooking them. 

I currently live in Houston, Texas with my husband Adam, daughter Tenley, and our dog Rebel.  When I’m not in the kitchen filming recipes or on the computer writing them, you can find me at the grocery store, on a long walk around the neighborhood with the stroller or sitting on my front porch bench with a glass of wine.