To completely frank, I don’t enjoy writing and am certainly not very confident with my writing skills. So you might ask, why are you writing a blog? Well good news is blogs can be a very casual vehicle for sharing information and I can write like I talk (like my husband Zach says I do:). Still you might ask, why do we need another blog out there, especially one that primarily focuses on food and cooking? Seems like everyone is writing a blog these days.
My goal of this blog is to help people feel comfortable in the kitchen by sharing techniques, skills, tips, recipes and hopefully help people start to enjoy being in the kitchen. I also hope to help people make choices that will positively affect themselves, their families and the environment around them, all while having fun and being creative!
As I also said in the previous entry, I am a self taught cook - not a chef and not a baker. You will rarely see me baking anything. Most people who like to bake, don’t like to cook (my mom) and those that like to cook, don’t like to bake (me). There is one major difference in those two types of cooking - measuring ingredients! Part of the fun for me in the kitchen is not having to measure, so I will try my best as I share recipes to give you as close as I can measurements of ingredients, but since I don’t measure they won’t be exact. That is where the fun and creativity part will hopefully come into play for you!
I have had people over the years ask me to cook for them - sure I love to do that, but I also want to help people develop their own confidence in the kitchen, just as I did by watching the Food Network. Hopefully that is one thing I can accomplish by writing this blog.
I also feel knowledge is the key to making better choices and hopefully I can share some things I have learned over the last few years (and hopefully will continue to learn) as leading an eco-friendly life really became a priority for Zach and I. I have learned a lot by reading and following other’s blogs and hopefully I can return the favor to those who read mine. Blogs really can be a revolutionary way to learn and stay informed. With technology out there, you can sign up to automatically receive updates in your email inbox every time there is an update to a blog or by accessing feeds via different apps or websites like my personal favorite, feedly.com.
Lastly, I want to give my good friend Briana credit for being the person to really push and encourage me to do this - months later, I finally have my own blog!
Right now my plan is to blog about food and cooking. I will occasionally throw in some eco-friendly ideas to help you along the way and plan to share a tip or two with each entry, but this is new to me. Please share questions, comments, insights, ideas of things you would like to see from me so that I can make this something you want to keep following.
Happy blogging!
~Ashley
My name is Ashley and I live in the Kansas City area with my husband Zach and two dogs, Preston and Riley. My professional background and training is as a pediatric nurse, and am currently working on a team that focuses on education and process improvement. I love my job, but my true passion came to me as a surprise a few years back. When I graduated nursing school I found myself with a lot of extra spare time. Countless hours of watching Food Network became the hobby that filled my newly discovered free time. This was a shock to me, why did I enjoy this? I didn't grow up liking to cook or even caring about food much. I wasn't a picky eater by any means, but my family didn't experiment much either. My grandparents did some cooking and so did my parents, but definitely not something that was a true passion for any of them. Figuring out what to cook for dinner was a chore for my parents, like many families. What do I get at the grocery store? What do I cook for dinner? What can I make that the whole family will eat? What can I make that won't take up my entire evening? Whatever the reason for enjoying cooking who knows, but I did - very much!
My love for the Food Network 30 minute cooking segments translated into learning about the kitchen, food, cooking and encouraged me to want to try new things. My then boyfriend (now husband) was always the guinea pig. I was always trying lots of new recipes. Thankfully, my husband is the type of person that will eat just about anything....swiss cheese is the only thing to date that I know of him not liking. This played very beneficial for me because when you experiment constantly you are bound to have things that don't work out quite like you hoped.
Five and a half years later, I am still cooking and loving every minute of it. I am to the point where I am more confident and comfortable in the kitchen, with my skills, learned techniques and am having fun experimenting and not just following recipes. I love incorporating photography into my cooking, having dinner parties, eating at restaurants (later trying to re-create the meal) and also being inspired by different culture's food as we travel. Quality of food and the environment in which it was produced is also now a priority for my husband and I.
I am not a chef, but rather a self taught home cook, with a desire to contribute to a better tomorrow based on the decisions I have made today. My goal of this blog is to help people feel comfortable in the kitchen by sharing techniques, skills, tips, recipes and hopefully help people start to enjoy being in the kitchen. I also hope to help you make choices that will positively affect you, your family, and the environment around you, all while having fun and being creative!
