Your Guide, Me, the Chef

I am a fan of food. I love eating and cooking but have never mastered the art of following a recipe or following the "rules" of the kitchen. I am lucky enough to be able to cook by "feel" or "taste." I like the meals I make to be quick, flavorful, healthy, fresh and easy to create. Generally, I demand a lot of flexibility and bit of creativity from my kitchen (my number one kitchen allies? SPICES!). My rule is that, if there are two vegetables in the fridge, then there is a meal to be made.

I own a whole bookshelf of cookbooks (which I love), but I ironically, rarely use them. Whenever I am looking for inspiration for a new meal, I may pull a couple of them out and find 2 or 3 recipes that sound good, only to learn I am missing this special ingredient, or that kitchen tool or another spice. I'll try to make it anyway and normally end up substituting things I shouldn't. The unwritten rule at our house is, when making a new meal from a recipe, my husband makes dinner that night-and makes sure we have all the necessary ingredients before hand. He is a good cook who has more patience with cookbook rules than I do. However, he is also the one always pestering me to write down the "recipes" for many of my more delicious throw-together adventures, so we can have the meal again in the future.

I want to share my kitchen creations, the successes, the failures and the everyday things that make cooking worthwhile. I will pass along stories, tips and, yes, many "throw-together" recipes for the normal cook in the normal kitchen with normal time constraints.

I do have a few disclaimers about my food philosophy and cooking style first:

I believe in eating as little pre-packaged food as possible, my cooking reflects that. Many people seem to think this makes cooking harder, but it doesn't. It just makes it healthier. And fresher. And tastier.

Every meal starts with a vegetable. Without veggies, it's hard for me to move forward; the kitchen creativity dies.

I do eat more of a "vegetarian" diet, and believe doing so makes my body healthier and happier. I put "vegetarian" in quotes because I do not follow any sense of strict vegetarian rules and can and will easily tell you when throwing in some chicken or beef would be a good idea. My recipes are not meat focused though.

The food I eat changes with the seasons, so will my posts.

With the last four points sounding all "health" focused, some of my best throw-togethers are batches of cookies...

Well, let's get started!