Project Food Blog: Ready, Set, Blog!

UPDATE: VOTING IS NOW OPEN!
Please go vote for me HERE!

Number One & Me, Cafe' Premier, Paris
August 2010

Back in January 2008, my friend Shell and I were chatting about recipes. What if I created a recipe-sharing website, and invited all my friends to join and contribute their recipes? And with that, The Bad Girl’s Kitchen was born.

I created the site as a place everyone can come and post their favorite recipes...to share with friends, to encourage experimentation, to enjoy cooking for our families. It is my hope that each of us will find new family favorites, have some fun, and maybe even learn something in the process!

The Bad Girl’s Kitchen started out as me and Shell, typing up and sharing some of our favorite recipes. Since then, it has grown to include 30 members, some of whom I don’t even know, and features almost 600 recipes (and counting!) I’ll never forget how exciting it was to get a comment from someone who wasn’t my mom! BGK was quickly noticed by Foodbuzz, who became the blog’s first sponsor, and I became a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher.

Now, Foodbuzz is hosting this challenge. Project Food Blog is the first-ever interactive competition where thousands of Foodbuzz Featured Publishers are competing in a series of culinary blogging challenges for the chance to advance and a shot at the ultimate prize: $10,000 and a special feature on Foodbuzz.com for one year.

YOUR votes will help make my advancement in this challenge possible!

I don’t have to tell you what an exciting opportunity this is! I do, however, have to tell you more about me and my blog, so here goes.

I was born and raised in Northern Lower Michigan. Some of my earliest memories are of food—eating food, watching food being prepared in my mom’s, grandmas’ and aunts’ kitchens, and eventually helping prepare that food in those kitchens. My mom has never been afraid to try a new recipe, and neither have I. I’ve even been known to try new recipes when I have a boatload of guests coming!

I remember eating meals in the dining room at my friend Rene’s house; baking treats at sleepovers with my friend Kelly; exploring Polish and more gourmet cuisines across the street at my neighbors’ house; experimenting with ingredients and foods with my friend Jen, and I will be forever grateful to Jen’s mom for indulging us in our “concoctions” and actually tasting them without gagging. My food world expanded when I went to college, and I was one of few who actually used the dorm kitchen to prepare a few meals for my friends.

I moved to Utah in the early 1990’s, and am now married to a real, live cowboy, raising up two young boys. We live on my husband’s family’s cattle ranch in the remote red rock desert, literally in the middle of nowhere. We generate our own electricity and have absolutely no telephone service (not even cell service in the canyon). We are 35 miles from the nearest town, and the grocery store there is just a bit bigger than most convenience stores, which adds a special challenge to grocery shopping. Our nearest neighbors are more than 15 miles away, but they make a darn good milkshake. We raise cattle, have dozens of horses, three dogs, four cats, a small herd of chickens, and a couple lizards.

Some people couldn’t handle the isolation here, but we love it. It is the perfect place to raise our boys, and the scenery is spectacular every day. I have a garden every year, with vegetables and fresh herbs, and we have bountiful fruit trees which produce peaches, pears, apples, apricots and plums. I’ve followed in the footsteps of generations of women in my family, canning and freezing produce to provide for our families. I learned how to bake bread, and now store-bought loaves are a rarity in our house. We are doing our best to move to more local, less processed products (also a challenge in a small community).

I am a firm believer in moderation when it comes to food—no food should be completely off-limits, just don’t eat it every day!

I have collected recipes from most members of my extended family, and am working to assemble a family cookbook. Many of the recipes on the website are family favorites that I simply couldn’t wait to share! I cook everything from meals for my family and birthday cakes, to elaborate party foods and gourmet or ethnic dishes.

Spices with Orange

©MR Photography

The Bad Girl’s Kitchen has encouraged me to explore more foods with my family. My boys, H-Bomb, age 7, and Sawed Off, age 4 ½, help in the kitchen frequently, and have their own small cookbook collection. Their reactions to the foods we eat are an important part of the blog, although we sometimes disagree. Our recent family trip to France has expanded my food horizons even more, and I’m excited to learn more about French cuisine and share it with my readers!

I’ve also become acquainted with many new blog friends, too many to list them all here! Taste & Create is now a big part of my life, and I’m a weekly contributor at Our Krazy Kitchen, where my theme is “Try A New Recipe!” The Bad Girl's Kitchen even has a Facebook fan page!

I have many hobbies, including photography, jewelry making, gardening, hiking, quilting and tons more, but a girl’s got to eat. Cooking will always be a big part of my life, and I’m happy to be able to share it with everyone. It’s my love of recipes, of family, of friends, that I’d like to share as the next food blog star.

To reiterate what I said in my Project Food Blog Profile, the most rewarding thing about blogging is the friends I have made along the way; the recipes I've collected, been given, and stumbled across; sharing those recipes with others, and the encouragement I've received from total strangers. Food bloggers form a very diverse and supportive community, and I'm happy to contribute to this delicious world.

Please don’t forget to VOTE FOR ME!

And let me know what you think of the recipes here!