Preorder Our New Cookbook, Raised in the Kitchen

Preorder Our New Cookbook, Raised in the Kitchen

Raised in the Kitchen

 

 

Raised in the Kitchen is Available for Preorder right now!

Our Cooking Background

Cade and I both grew up in homes where cooking was important. For Cade, having a Southern mother meant that food had soul. It not only was to feed you but it carried memories and feelings. Although I’m not from the South, my parents both grew up around or on farms, so food was not only a way of life, but there was a rich tradition of family and love associated with food.

Cade and I have a family of our own now and we’ve quickly realized that cooking together means more listening, sharing, and connecting as a family. Now we have children of our own with legs dangling off the counter, pouring chocolate chips into the banana bread batter, and swiping a lick as soon as the bowl is emptied. What a gift family meals can be.

How the Cookbook Came to Be

We’ve actually gotten a few cookbook offers in the past, all from wonderful publishers, but none of them felt right. At one point we were working on a blog post after the kids had gone to bed and talking about an email we had received about our battle with Hyperemesis and how another reader had been inspired to work through their own battle as a family and to live instead of just survive their own trial.

As we were talking, the conversation came to the same thing, we need to get the recipes into the homes and not just online so that families can have the same gift we’ve been given, a chance to thrive as a family. Having a cookbook makes cooking a more tangible goal. I can’t explain it, but turning the pages with one you love, picking out a recipe and making it a new tradition in the home changes the dynamic.

That is what our new cookbook, Raised in the Kitchen is all about!

How We Got Started Food Blogging

The blog was actually because Cade and I were failing as friends, haha. Our friends would ask for a recipe, and we didn’t follow through so we decided to post things we were trying online and then suddenly people all over the world were joining in the conversation. This was back in 2009, so things are way different now as far as starting a blog, but that’s how it happened for us. We were lucky to get started when we did.

How We Chose the Recipes for the Cookbook

The recipe selection process was easier than we expected. Everything is a little bit of all of us. We wanted everything from breakfast to dessert so that it would be the type of cookbook you pull out often and can later pass on to your children as they get married, so we chose recipes that would be good for traditions and ones that would be a little bit of a new take on a classic to really get people experimenting with their food.

What Makes the Recipes in Our Cookbook Special?

We have taken a lot of the foods you are familiar with and perfected them so they turn out amazing every time, but that’s not the most important part. 

Yes, the recipes are perfect, but you still need someone to break down how to actually cook right? That way you can make any recipe turn out because you know the secret to pasta, how to make soft bread etc! For example, we took everyone’s favorite chocolate chip cookie and worked out every kink, so no more flat or hard as a brick cookie and we walk you through exactly how to make them!

How Our Roots Affect Our Food

As you know, Cade is from South Carolina and I’m from Washington state, and we now live in Utah. So we are blending food cultures, if you will, from three different places.

The South

Cade breaths a lot of tradition into our recipes. Southern food always has a back story, Grandma Carol’s mac n cheese is at every family gathering. I love that! We wanted our food to have a story as well so we love to take familiar ingredients that we grew up with like potatoes from my Idahoan mother and pulled pork from Cade’s mom and use them to catapult new recipes and stories.

The PNW

Being from Washington a lot of our food is fresh, farm to table inspired. I love having recipes that take advantage of what’s in season and it’s not even that it’s perfectly from the orchard, it’s also better on your budget because you aren’t spending extra on things that are being shipped in from far away. Plus, I want our kids to know the hard work and beauty of home grown or fresh from the stand food. I just said fresh way too many times, haha.

Utah

We are now in Utah where everything is about family. We’ve really smooshed our two backgrounds together to create new recipes based on family favorites like our Cafe Rio Salads (Utah looooves Mexican Food!) and tried to hone in on family traditions which Utah is big on. In fact, we’ve got a little story about that.

Every Saturday Cade makes crepes with our kids and I’ll be honest, I got after him that I needed variety! He pulled me aside and with such a humble heart told me that one day our girls will be teenagers and Dad will not be their hero anymore. If he can have this tradition with them they will still want to talk to him and maybe he will get to hold on to them even in those years. I was like butter on a hot day. How can you not melt over that?

But it’s not just crepes, now our kids love picking breakfast favorites like our most viral breakfast recipe, French Toast. 

Some of Our Favorite Summer Recipes

In Utah we have pretty hot summers, and find ourselves grilling and eating on the back porch a lot. One day we will have that big Southern porch. In the meantime we make recipes all summer long that allow us to eat outside and really connect with the seasons like our strawberry pie, loaded cowboy salad, fresh salsa, zucchini banana bread and more.

When those hot months hit, pick up the cookbook, flip through and find one of the many recipes that uses garden or farmers market ingredients, like those big, juicy tomatoes, wander around an outdoor market until you find the perfect ones, head back to the house for an impromptu potluck with your friends and serve up simple dishes that scream summer and really let those bright, summer ingredients speak for themselves. Really, so many of the recipes are just made to be enjoyed potluck style at a bbq or picnic.

Our Favorite Recipes from the Cookbook

Cade’s favorite recipe is the braised short ribs.

I can’t resist that Chicken Parmesan. There’s something so wonderful about those nostalgic recipes and this one is for sure one from my past- it’s the first recipe I learned to make. And really, neither of us can resist the dessert section, but while the kids calls it their favorite chapter, I love the dinners. I guess it’s true that the older you get the more you appreciate the savory. Oh my goodness, and don’t you dare forget those Soft Dinner Rolls (you’re going to loooove the recipe in our book)!

What Our Recipes Mean to Us

These really aren’t just recipes for us, it’s our story. It’s who our family is, who we have been and who we are becoming. If you ever wonder who you are, look to your family and your answer will be provided. That’s what these recipes mean to us, they mean everything because family is everything.

My Hopes for the Cookbook

While times have changed and life is a little busier, I have discovered that people still have their major memories centered around food. Think about it, if you could be back home with your mom for one weekend, wouldn’t there be a certain dish or recipe you’d want her to make and as soon as it pops into your mind a memory does as well. And you can feel it. You can feel the chair you sat in, remember the rain beating on the window and the smell of those cinnamon rolls rising. It’s love. It’s real and it’s all connected with food. That’s amazing!

That’s what I want. 

I want to see mother’s and daughters together again, to stand side by side and create something delicious together, but more importantly to connect again.  I want to see sons chucking their soccer bags and parking it at the counter waiting for hot tortillas and soaking up all the mom talk they can get because no matter how old a boy is he always belongs to his momma.

I want parents to put down their phones, their to-do lists and their expectations, lift a little one up on that counter and feel those heart strings wrap around their little one. How can we love someone so much when they are born and then quickly get caught up in the, do your homework, make your bed, etc. and forget those sweet little hands, chubby little cheeks and absolutely free love our kids are willing to give us. I want this cookbook to be about the hands that create it more than the food itself.

This cookbook is a piece of us. You’re going to love it! You can pre-order RAISED IN THE KITCHEN now!

READ: Preorder Our New Cookbook, Raised in the Kitchen

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