I love food. And until the last few years I hated cooking. My mom was (and still is) such a great cook growing up. She rarely used a recipe, just threw together whatever we had in the fridge and 87% of the time it was delicious. My style of cooking was a little different. When my mom was out of town and my sister, my dad, and I were left to feed ourselves, everything I made was covered in Frank’s Red Hot or caesar dressing (it’s okay, I’m gagging too).

When I moved into my first apartment after college, I picked up some frozen salmon from the grocery store. My college roommate and I made salmon pretty regularly (although we also caught it on fire under the broiler only a little less regularly), so I felt pretty confident. Unfortunately what I bought was a perfect rectangle of something fish like that was labeled as salmon. But I would not be deterred. My dad had called to say he was going to stop by to see how the apartment was coming so I took out an extra pink brick for him too. When my dad walked in the smoke alarm was going off, I was crying, and the salmon bricks were in the sink. I think the only thing that graced the oven again in that apartment was a frozen pizza.

Over the next few years I got a little more adventures but still kept it simple. Roasted veggies, chicken, fish (I did finally master that), flatbread pizza, etc. But I still saw cooking as a necessary evil. Something I needed to do to survive.

It honestly wasn’t until a started dating Connor that I really started to experiment in the kitchen. My dad always told me when I was kid that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. I would just scowl at him over my bowl of minute rice and Franks.

In all seriousness though, cooking for someone else besides myself was a real game changer for me. The stakes were higher for sure, but also it was something I could do that someone else could appreciate. And it was something I soon figured out I could appreciate. I had always loved good food, but I also had developed a love for cooking.

While I certainly have gotten more creative in the kitchen, I still wouldn’t consider myself an expert. Unlike my mother, I almost always use a recipe for whatever I cook. However, there are some recipes that I’ve started to use more as a guide or inspiration rather than a rule book. Sometimes it’s because I’m missing an ingredient, or I have something else I want to use up. Other times it’s because I honestly think I can make it better by using different ingredients. Most of the time it’s because I got the recipe wrong and it turned out edible anyways.

Here you will find a collection of these new mutant “recipes”. Like I said, most of these are inspired by someone else’s recipe so I’ll do my best to share the original recipe or inspiration. I may also share links directly to some of our favorite recipes from others. I use a lot of Gimme Some Oven and Half Baked Harvest recipes – I love both of their approaches to cooking. I’ll also include any good cocktail recipes or cooking tips I have to share.

I will note that I have become like my mother in one way (okay, a lot of ways) – I rarely measure anything when I cook. I’ll try to provide some general measurements, but don’t be afraid to go with the flow!